[foodhackingbase] distillation questions, experimental incubator PS last push

[Frantisek Algoldor Apfelbeck]

Hi to all,
So questions on the "distillation" and "alcohol making fhb public". I 
would like to run one run for distillation without any fruits just 
water, light brown sugar, yeast nutrition and the yeast in 20 l 
stainless steal container and I wonder what is the optimal amount of 
sugar based on your experience, 4 kg lets say (it was recommended to 
me)? I was also advised to keep the final alcohol content around 4-6% 
because of the best flavour, over 8% of alcohol is suppose to stress the 
yeast and produce off flavours, what do you think? Alcohol resulting 
from this brew will be used mostly for "maceration" of fruits etc. 
Another experiment will be "citrus fruit" run made from kumquat

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumquat

we can harvest up to 100 kg for free but they are however not organic. I 
would like to make one experiment for distillation and one just for 
"kumquat ginger beer", plus another one where I probably mix kumquat 1:1 
with sugar for preservation making an extract like we did last year with 
plums which is here called meshil and which you could taste at 30c3 and 
during our last food hacking tour around Europe.

Anyway any ideas and recommendations are welcome!

I'm not posting lately too much because I'm really busy here with 
starting up the gardening season and our brewing "business model" you 
will hear about both soon, I'm starting to think and soon work on a 
private and fhb news letter, quarterly edition would be nice I think. 
Also I'm hardworking on the field earning money for our living here, 
plus importantly I'm mobilizing my self for the last push concerning the 
experimental incubator. I'm virtually two hours worth of work away from 
the final version (without H-bridge but well fine for now) for around 
two weeks so it sounds like time for forgetting about perfectionism and 
just doing that - I basically need to insert the heating/cooling element 
in already cut box (commercial cooler box), that is it but how to do it 
properly is a question - seems easy but I'm not playing with these 
manual things enough lately so I'm horribly out of shape, not that I was 
ever a star and it shows ... Any motivation ideas and help with making 
me doing that would be greatly appreciated! I really want to see three 
prototypes working now, and one of them needs to be here with me so we 
can document, tested and start to work on the improvement for 31c3, time 
is running you know ...

-- 
Frantisek Algoldor Apfelbeck

biotechnologist&kvasir and hacker

http://www.frantisekapfelbeck.org

"There is no way to peace, peace is the way." Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi


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