If you’re trying to craft vodka or moonshine from scratch, turbo yeast should not be your first choice. While it will likely work, without distillation your ferment will only result in strong dry sugar wine – and vodka requires higher temperatures to separate its chemical components and create its distinctive taste.
If you’re crafting vodka-type spirits, use either specialized brewing yeast or better still high alcohol grain yeast. Both have been designed to handle high alcohol fermentation processes and will produce much superior products than regular baker’s yeast found in shops.
High alcohol yeast differs from regular bakers yeast in that it produces far fewer volatiles and is extremely temperature and osmotic pressure tolerant – making it suitable for a wider range of mashes than standard yeast.
Ethanol TT yeast, more commonly referred to as distillers yeast, is one of the most popular of these types. This blend combines an alcohol tolerant yeast strain with an optimized nutrient mix designed for quick fermentations with high alcohol yield and minimal off-flavors and fusels production for clean results with minimal off-flavors and fusels production.
In order to use Ethanol TT yeast effectively, dissolve 6 kg of sugar in 8 liters (2 US gallons) of hot water before adding one sachet of turbo yeast and stirring in. Allow fermentation at 20-30degC air temperature.
