Fermentation stall. Need some help.

[Everettcole]

I’ve been hobby distilling for about 4 years now and am running into an issue. Basic cracked corn and malted barley mash recipe. As I’ve done many times before, I’m now running into it stalling half way through with the sour apple taste. Tried researching several times and made some minor changes to address but haven’t found where I’m going wrong. Tried to disinfect everything and follow the same method I’ve used many times before and just don’t know why it’s happening. Any help would be much appreciated.

[JimmySutton]

Basic cracked corn and malted barley mash recipe.

Can you give us some more info:

What is the recipe?
What is the starting gravity of the mash?
How are you fermenting (open, closed fermenter- what are you using as your fermenter)
What temperature are you fermenting?
What yeast are you using?
What is the gravity of the mash when it stalls?

[Everettcole]

Using 55 gallon plastic drum with 25lbs cracked corn and 5lbs malted barley 35 gallons water and 50lbs sugar. Seal it with a plastic bag cover bungied on. The potential alcohol at start is between 9-10%. Water is about 100 degrees to start and yeast is pitched at around 85 degrees. Using bread yeast and I jump start it with the recipe before pitching it. It goes really well for about 4-5 days then it starts to stall out around 5% and is pretty much done at 4 according to the hydrometer. I could have two exact barrels running at same time and one will stall while the other one runs all the way down and yields some good alcohol and both are identical on ingredients. The last two batches started at different times and both stalled. I’ve tried doubling yeast, sanitizing between recipes and nothing changes. It used to work great with no problems. Now it seems they always fail. What am I missing?

[Author]

Posts