Forget About Turbo Yeast: This Tomato Paste Wash Calculator is All You Need
ONE OF THE handiest little assists I’ve found is the BIRDWATCHERS calculator for Tomato Paste Wash (TPW).
Here’s the instructions, including a link to the calculator itself.
Birdwatchers (TPW – Tomato Paste Wash)
Sugar Wash Recipe instructions.
If you want to go straight to the calculator, click here: Birdwatchers ingredients calculator.
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Basic equipment:
- You need a fermentor. Preferably a food grade plastic or better (ie stainless steel or glass).
- Aquarium heater.
- Hydrometer (used to measure the specific gravity of liquids).
- Thermometer (ideally digital).
- Stir stick.
Ingredients (to make 50 litre wash for example). Or else, go to the CALCULATOR.
- 500g tomato paste.
- Juice of approx. two lemons.
- Approximately 11.25 kg sugar.
- 141g fresh dry yeast.
- ¼ tsp Epsom Salts.
- Water (tap is okay, but fresh, spring, distilled water, etc. is better).
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Procedure:
- Take careful notes from start to finish for future reference.
- Make sure everything is cleaned and sterile.
- Mix about 80% of the water with 80% of the sugar along with all the tomato paste, lemon juice and salts. Mix thoroughly until everything (especially the sugar) is dissolved.
- Measure the SG (specific gravity) using your hydrometer. If the SG is too low, gradually add more sugar. If the SG too high, gradually add more water. The whole time aiming for an SG of 1.060 to 1.090. Most aim for below 1.070 to reduce off flavours.
- You should now have your total volume of mixed ingredients at your ideal SG.
- Use the aquarium heater to raise the temperature of the wash to your goal temperature of between 26ºC (79ºF) and 30ºC (86ºC) – commonly 28ºC (82ºC). How you do this is up to you, a common method is to set the whole fermenter in a larger container, fill it with water, and put the aquarium heater in that.
- Carefully sprinkle the yeast over surface. Stir in if you wish (most don’t).
- Place cover loosely, to let CO2 escape, thus keeping flying nasties out. There is a lot of CO2 coming off; so there is no need to worry about oxygen coming in contact.
- Check the SG and temperature daily if you like. This is not necessary, but will let you know how it is progressing.
- After a total of 5-14 days SG should be around 0.990. If not, wait until it stops bubbling. Then take note of the SG for reference.
- Assuming everything is okay, turn off the aquarium heater and let it all cool down.
- Ideally, let it sit for at least a few days (a week or more if possible) to let the solids settle before distillation. The cooler the better (without freezing though).
- Distill as you like.
Until next time… happy brewing!
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