brown sugar in a sugar wash

by **HangOver** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 7:29 pm

hey all

Just out of curiosity I tried chucking in 2kg of brown sugar, (brown not raw) into my wash apart from making it difficult to see when it had cleared properly it made no difference what so ever to the distilled wash, looks & smells just the same.
Just thought I\'d let you know because I know you all want to know

by **Jimmy** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 6:42 pm

Interesting, in theory brown sugar should give a sort of rum. Perhaps you need more for that, still good to know!

by **Phantom** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 2:35 am

Erm, no that\'s not entirely correct Jimmy.......
The stuff that they make the wash with is like the molasses type waste from the sugar production - fermented to do something with the residual sugar it contains.
Once it\'s fermented and been distilled it still comes out of the still as quiet high strength spirit - after all the molasses has been burned once, so how hot do you think you\'d have to get it again before it would come out

??
The raw spirit is then aged in barrels and flavoured with a small amount of molasses ( plus a few other flavouring elements) until it gets to the colour/taste.
as I understand it (and having visited 3 different rum distilleries in the Carib\'n - courtesy of the RN - and also having asked some quite nosey questions at the time).

by **Jimmy** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 3:42 am

Yeah, I didn\'t mean a \'proper\' rum, but I heard you can make a rum-like taste from dark brown sugar. Never tried it so I can\'t claim to be an expert!

by **HangOver** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 8:15 pm

anyone tried molasses instead of sugar?

by **Phantom** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 12:59 am

Yeah, I didn\'t mean a \'proper\' rum, but I heard you can make a rum-like taste from dark brown sugar. Never tried it so I can\'t claim to be an expert!

Oh, Ok I\'ll shut the f*** up then

Seriously though, I suspect that you\'d have to make a 100% brown/demarara/unbleached/whatever sugar wash to get any of the flavour through into the distilled spirit.
Don\'t forget, that the whole point of distilling is to extract the ethanol, and leave most of the other crap behind.
Rum, from what I got from the tours in the Carib\' distilleries, comes out of the still at 90+ % and it\'s then flavoured/aged etc and diluted down to suit the market that it\'s going to. Nearly all of the taste/flavour is added/developed post distillation. I could also be taking out of my arse!
Oh, and don\'t forget, it\'s all well and good trying other recipes for wash, but you start to loose any discretion and annonymity when it comes to distilling time. Some of the "proper" wash and mash absolutely stinks when it\'s being run!

by **Jimmy** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 7:35 pm

LOL, no don\'t shut up, we need you as the voice of reason around here! I just didn\'t explain myself very well, as usual. Probably the jealousy of thinking about you in the Carribean! Still, at least it\'s a bit sunnier today.

by **Phantom** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 7:54 pm

Probably the jealousy of thinking about you in the Carribean! Still, at least it\'s a bit sunnier today

The trip might have been "free, as in Â£Â£Â£\'s" but there was definitely a price to pay.
It\'s called "The Royal Navy".
And while you can get to go to some decent places (being dropped on the beach in Cancun from a landing craft), most port areas are complete shit holes and you have to learn to get further inland from them, otherwise it\'s just another string of piss up\'s in familiar feeling bar\'s - the only difference is the language and the prices.........