Teddy's fast fermenting vodka (TFFV)

About this recipe

Teddysad, a distiller in Canterbury, New Zealand, developed this routine for a fast, very low-cost vodka. The secret, in his words, is the DAP: diammonium phosphate gives the yeast the nitrogen that a sugar wash lacks, while properly cooked wheat bran supplies vitamins and minerals, and plenty of oxygen and a pH of about 5 do the rest. The starting gravity is kept around 1.060, so the yeast works fast without being stressed into off-flavours.

Teddy finds the result has a nice, slightly wheaty taste - much nicer, he says, than a tomato-paste wash, and twice as fast to ferment.

Original recipe discussion ↗

Ingredients and calculator

Baker's yeast. The modest starting gravity, around 1.060, means the yeast isn't pushed hard enough to produce off-flavours.

Method

1. Cook the bran. Bring 2–3 L of water to the boil in a large pot (5 L or bigger). Add the bran, stir, bring back to the boil, then simmer for 30 minutes, stirring from time to time. It becomes a thin porridge.
2. Make the sugar solution. Dissolve the sugar in warm water and add it to the fermenter with cool water, to bring it up to about 20 L.
3. Add the nutrients. Add the crushed multivitamin tablet, the Epsom salts and the DAP.
4. Add the bran. Once the bran has simmered for 30 minutes, add it to the fermenter.
5. Set the pH. Adjust to around pH 5 with the citric acid - it usually takes about ½ tsp.
6. Pitch and aerate. Rehydrate the yeast in 100 mL of water and add it, making sure the wash is below 30 °C. Stir well - Teddy uses a stick blender to aerate it thoroughly.
7. Leave plenty of headroom. It takes off like a rocket: use a fermenter of about 30 L for a 23 L wash. Don't seal it for at least 24 hours, as a thick foamy cap forms within an hour. Teddy fits an airlock after 36 hours, so he can monitor progress.
8. Ferment. It is normally dry, at 0.990, within 3 to 4 days - 84 to 96 hours from start to finish.
9. Clear and distil. Rack it off and let it stand for a couple of days to clear before distilling.

Fermentation

Expect a thick, foamy cap within the first hour and a very fast fermentation. Temperature drives the speed: the mid-twenties Celsius keeps it on schedule, and below about 22 °C it slows to a week or more.

Teddy has tried re-using the yeast over several generations and saw results drop. The ingredients cost so little that the trub goes onto the compost instead.

Distilling

Teddy strips several ferments through a pot still, combines them, and does a slow spirit run through a reflux column. A single reflux run also works. Discard the foreshots and cut by smell and taste.

It can be oaked: after stripping and a spirit run, Teddy aged several litres on uncharred oak dominoes at 65% for six weeks, and a test litre came through with a good flavour.

Fermenting a wash is legal in many places; distilling it often is not. Distil only where it is legal to do so, and check your local licensing first.

Troubleshooting

It's taking much longer than four days.

Almost always temperature. Keep it in the mid-twenties Celsius.

It foamed over.

Use a larger fermenter, and don't seal it for the first day or so.

Variations

• Mk II: 200 g of wheat bran and 100 g of kibbled rye. Teddy finds it even better - just as fast, with a little more bite and flavour.
• More bran, or rice bran: some distillers double the bran to 500 g, or use rice bran in place of wheat.
• A pH buffer: a few crushed eggshells simmered with the bran help hold the pH steady.

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