StillSmart

I put on two 50 litre fermenters with the following in each

12.5kg white sugar
6 litres molasses (correction - this is actually 2 litres!!)
100g nutrients
4*EC-118 yeast
Made up to 55 litres total liquid.

I diluted the sugar/molasses in a 25litre fermenter, added that to the big fermenter and then added cold water.

I'm guessing due to the molasses the OG was higher than I had expected at 1100 but the EC118 should still ferment that down to nearly dry.

I pitched the yeast at about 22 degrees hoping for a long slow ferment.

Due to the amount of yeast I'd added in I didn't aerate the wash as much as normal. Hopefully the yeast will just make ethanol and not waste time (and sugar) reproducing itself too much.

Wrapped the fermenters in sleeping bags and left the room.

2 hours later the washes were bubbling away filling the room with a sweet molasses smell. Left them overnight and this morning the wash temp was up to 26 degrees so they are working very nicely.

I'm hoping for about 100 litres of 12%

** Edited for this note - I misread the labels on the molasses jars and added it up wrongly so the actual amount of molasses is only 2 litres per 50 litre fermenter. I've left the original amount in as the comments on the thread wouldn't make any sense if I didn't **

Good luck with it, keep us posted on how it goes - what are you using for your 50l fermenters?

They are 60 litre fermenters (I left a bit of head room) that I got from Ellie-Claire

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Ellie-Claires-Brew-Shop?clk_rvr_id=296172858667&t=km

Just had to drill a hole in the lids for the bubble lock. I've used them before and they are great. Same amount of effort for twice as much wash!

Hey Mr Cat - could you let me know what molasses you using, and what is the sugar content.

6ltrs is somewhere about 7.5-8Kg with the various types I've used. which have ranged from 17.5% to 64% sugar content. That would push your total sugar to 14-17kg total which has a potential much higher than the 12%ABV you're shooting for, or have I got it muddled?

When I do a molasses wash with no dunder my finish dry about 1.010, with 1/3 dunder it's more like 1.020, but again its dry and there is no sweetness to it going to the boiler.

I add more molasses to the boiler on the spirit run, and sometimes more dunder - really pushes the flavour.


CC

I made two mistakes with the volume of molasses. I thought the jars were 750ml but they are 748g which equates to only 500ml of molasses. And I only used four bottles per 50 litres so it's 4 litres per fermenter which reduces the molasses by a third.

Not sure on the sugar content - it's Holland and Barrett molasses http://www.hollandandbarrett.com/pages/product_detail.asp?pid=2730- they had a buy one get one half price and I cleared the shelf

As I'm not sure of the sugar content I was hesitant to over estimate the possible yield. But the EC-118 is a champagne yeast capable of high abv's (18%) http://www.lalvinyeast.com/strains.asp so in theory

if

1. The OG of 1100 is acurate
2. All the sugar in the molasses can be fermented

Then I've seen EC-118 get to under 995 sooooo about 14% should be possible - but I've stopped chasing high yield in wash. I'd rather a low ABV with no off notes. And of course I'll have 100 litres of it!!

I was going to fire 25 litres of dunder back into the wash but when I tasted it it was like stale beer and I decided not to bother. I figured I didn't want my wash to taste like that !!

Fermenters are bubbling away pretty vigourosly. they are both sat at 24 degrees in a room that is only 10 degrees (centigrade)

MrCat wrote:Not sure on the sugar content - it's Holland and Barrett molasses http://www.hollandandbarrett.com/pages/product_detail.asp?pid=2730- they had a buy one get one half price and I cleared the shelf

It says 'of which sugars 56g' on the site, guess that's per 100g?

Thanks !!

That would add up to an extra 1.67kg of sugars which matches with the OG of 1100.

(Mr Cat makes a mental note to read web pages and not just look at the pretty pictures)

I have used that one before the last time they had a 2-for-1 (I got them to get a box of 12 from the store room, score!), the rum turned out really nice - I used a higher molasses to sugar ratio though.
I have not done 2 rums the same way - but i normally shoot to use 10-11Kg total sugar per 50Lrt wash - haven't tried higher, and not implying either way is better, so looking forward to your results.

MrCat wrote:I was going to fire 25 litres of dunder back into the wash but when I tasted it it was like stale beer and I decided not to bother. I figured I didn't want my wash to taste like that !!

I would not drink "my" dunder - currently it has bright green fur on the top - and smells like fruit and chocolate - yummy, but probably not advisable to drink before a good boil or a course of antibiotics.

Whats your plans for running it - I love the nice light rums produced by refluxing the lot at high ABV - and have also ran by pulling heads on the column, running the hearts out on the pot, then back to the column for tails compression, some of the high ABV column stuff makes the cut - minime over on AD put me on to that method, and I liked the results.

Capt-Cudellez wrote:I would not drink "my" dunder - currently it has bright green fur on the top - and smells like fruit and chocolate - yummy, but probably not advisable to drink before a good boil or a course of antibiotics.

I decided that as it didn't taste nice it wouldn't brew nice so chucked it. I'm thinking as soon as I rack one of these fermenters off I'll add some water and sugar into the fermenter to keep the yeast alive and then as I do the stripping runs chuck the dunder straight back in with the yeast, once it's up to 40 litres chuck some molasses and some sugar in and see what it does immediately rather than being left for a while

Capt-Cudellez wrote:Whats your plans for running it - I love the nice light rums produced by refluxing the lot at high ABV - and have also ran by pulling heads on the column, running the hearts out on the pot, then back to the column for tails compression, some of the high ABV column stuff makes the cut - minime over on AD put me on to that method, and I liked the results.

I figure on getting about 100 litres of wash so that will be five stripping runs in the SS reflux in pot mode. I'm going to run it a little slower and take some cuts in the middle - maybe keep about a gallon to one side (more on that in a mo)

Then the low wines will be diluted and thrown through the column and then finally once more diluted and put through the column again taking very aggressive cuts. I figure on maybe 2 gallons of absolutely pure, drinkable 93% which will be cut with water and used for something or other...

The gallon I've put to one side will get some bourbon chunks thrown in for a while and then once my no 1 barrel is empty I'll chuck it in there to age.

7 days in and I opened the fermenters last night for a quick check on the gravity.

1050 on 'Righty' and 1055 on 'Lefty'. Lefty is running 3 degrees colder than Righty which is probably why it's behind so I've changed the sleeping bag insulation layer to a much thicker one to see if I can get a little warmth back into it.

Gave Lefty a gentle stir to check there were no solids on the bottom (very gentle to ensure as little O2 as possible gets into the wash - I want more % not more yeasties!)

They are still bubbling away happily and it's a nice slow ferment so I guess there are still a couple of weeks to go on it.

As the missus was packing up yesterday for us all heading to the in-laws for a few days - I am allowed to use the kitchen to put a wash down - hopefully it will be done for us coming back up on the 27th/28th sometime.

I dissolve the sugar\molasses in boiling water in smaller container before adding to the fermenter to avoid the treacle like molasses just sinking to the bottom.

into a 60ltr drum went

a Yeast Bomb
10l feed molasses - it's only 17% sugar (so around 2.4kg sugar)
12l of aged dunder - I broke through the plastic like green\white mold cap, and syphoned off from the middle of the 110l barrel I have.
7kg raw sugar.

water topped up to 50-55L and an ale yeast starter pitched at 33oC.

All the non-fermentables pushed the SG to 1150 even though there is less than 10K sugar in 50L

Have you added dunder before ?? There wasn't much taste in mine so I wondered what it was going to bring to the final product.

Bit of an update on mine.

Righty was down to 1010 (11.8%) and is still going strong. Lefty appeared to be stuck at at 1035 so I pressed the lid of the fermenter till it pulled some air back into the fermenter - just enough to level the water in each side of the airlock and left it. A day later the water was still level so there was no C02 being produced. Dropped in another 2*EC-118 and 50g of nutrient and a day later it's bubbling well again.

Weird - 2 washes made exactly the same way at the same time, in the same room so they have the same temp and they do different things. Shows at this 'level' it's not an exact science !

MrCat wrote:Have you added dunder before ??

I have always added dunder, from the first time I did rum using the small fermenters, first ferment no dunder, but would strip the wash then add dunder to ferment 2, then the dunder from strip 2 into the 3rd ferment etc.

seemed to get stronger with each ferment. and the FG would be higher each time.
1.005 first ferment - no dunder
1.01 second
1.03 thrid

Before I got a big barrel to use as a dunder pit, I would just chuck the left over on the garden - the plants loved it - this time I'm using aged dunder from May this time - smells really floral and a bit of a chocolate nose to it.

I have also tried adding dunder to the boiler on the spirit run 2\1 strip to dunder. Adds a good dark rum type taste.

All that said, its difficult to say what impacts the flavour as I have rarely done the same process or recipe twice - just trying stuff out to see what rums I like best.

Hi Capt I have just finished a run in my SS reflux yesterday and put what was left in boiler around veg garden.

Can I ask is "dunder" this left over brew stored for future use to add depth in flavour. My next run is to try out a mollases/sugar wash.

Happy brewing for the new year from New Zealand

KC you have got it right. Dunder is what is left in the boiler after a strip of a rum wash. This is also refered to as backset for non rum.
For flavoured washes you add upto 30% to the next ferment to boost the flavour. It is less common but you can also do this with neutral washes, not for flavour, but for the left over neutrients, to save a bit of cash.


Cc