# turbo yeast, can you use it in making wine



## maditonto (Mar 9, 2007)

turbo yeast, can you use it in making wine?


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## cpfan (Mar 9, 2007)

what kind of wine? Since Turbo Yeast is considerably more expensive than wine yeast, I would wonder why.

Steve


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## maditonto (Mar 10, 2007)

*8 quarts 100% Welch's Concord Grapes Juice, 15*

8 quarts 100% Welch's Concord Grapes Juice, 15 lbs. cane
sugar in 4 1/2 gallons of well water.... turbo yeast... ???


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## Luc (Mar 10, 2007)

I have used Turbo yeast in an experiment with elderberries.

First let me explain that turbo yeast is a special yeast that will ferment in depending on the kind of turbo yeast from 24 hours to a few days. I will yield high alcohol (20%) and is mainly used for fermenting sugar with water to a high alcohol gunk ready for distilling.
On the recipe it tells that you only add sugar and water, so all the nutrients and other additions will be in the package (no mention of sulphite though).

After fermenting you should treat the must with active carbon to get rid of the OFF TASTES. and there is the problem.
This makes this yeast a no go area for winmakers.

Now for my personal experience.
I have used it with elderberries because I wanted to make a high alcohol wine and thought the heavy tannins and taste of elderberries would cover the off-taste. Well believe me it does not. It definately tasted different as all the elderberry wines I made before. In the first weeks it was undrinkable. I would have dumped it if my girlfriend did not tell me to wait.
After a few weeks it got better, and after months it was drinkable.
Even later it was kind of good but surely had a taste we never experienced before.

Try for yourself with a small batch if the fruit you are going to use works with turbo yeast for your purposes. I would not start a whole batch directly with it before experimenting.

Luc


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## maditonto (Mar 10, 2007)

*How do you treat the wine with carbon?*

How do you treat the wine with carbon?


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## cpfan (Mar 10, 2007)

maditonto said:


> 8 quarts 100% Welch's Concord Grapes Juice, 15 lbs. cane
> sugar in 4 1/2 gallons of well water.... turbo yeast... ???



Any idea what kind of initial sg this will have?

Steve


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## maditonto (Mar 10, 2007)

*S.G. 1.140 last week...*

S.G. 1.140, last week...


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## cpfan (Mar 10, 2007)

OK, now I see why you want to use Turbo Yeast. If it ferments down to .995, you've got 19% alcohol. Pretty Big IF, I suspect.

Steve


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## maditonto (Mar 10, 2007)

not 20% , dag nab it !!!


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## cpfan (Mar 11, 2007)

Mike:

I used a slightly conservative formula and some wines will ferment lower than .995. So you MIGHT make 20%.

Steve


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## Luc (Mar 11, 2007)

maditonto said:


> How do you treat the wine with carbon?



Look at the turbo yeast info pages at:
http://www.turbo-yeast.com/intro.html

Halfway down the page is mention about how to use
carbon to purify the must from off-taste and odor.

Luc


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## Caplan (Mar 12, 2007)

From what i've read turbo yeast is purely for the distiller/liqueur market. They seem to work with dextrose solution to ferment out to 20%ABV and then you either distill (if legal to do so in your country) or add flavouring mixes to get your liqueur. They don't work well in wines.


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