Gervin high alcohol wine yeast

[SpudtheBinx]

Has anyone had experience with the Gervin high alcohol yeast? It says it can go to 21%, but how hard is this to achieve? I would like to make up a 20% wash and use some liqueur flavours. The reason I ask is I tried a prohibition kit and that finished at 1020 but should have got down to 990 so I failed at that!

[Duffbeer]

Well Spud, it's like all yeasts, they need the right environment to reach their potential, warmth, nutrient, oxygen etc maybe even a little tlc.
Although unless your going to charcoal filter, I would avoid using this in a liqueur, buy some cheap Asda vodka, it's cleaner and will allow the full flavour of your liqueur to come through.

[SpudtheBinx]

Yeah I was going to use some activated carbon when the ferment has finished and fortify each gallon with a litre of cheap vodka too Do you think a cupboard in a house is always going to fail at hitting 20%? I don't have the equipment to give something like that all the tlc it really deserves, like thermostats and heating pads etc

[Duffbeer]

Well to be honest, many of my wine making colleagues claim that reaching 22% without distillation is a myth, it is also claimed that it is highly unlikely that more than 18% can be achieved through natural fermentation. But hey ho, things change and move on so I don't agree with them 100%. Maybe you should invest in one of those water purifying thingies

[SpudtheBinx]

Lol I keep pondering using distilled water for my wine making, but I am scared incase the water vapour fills the kitchen and a spark sets it off