StillSmart

I made some rum.!

For the first 22 litre wash I used
2.5 liters Of Molasses
2.5 Kg of Molasses sugar
1/2 teaspoon of Epsom Salts
60 grams of Allisons Bakers Yeast

I did not need turbo’s, this stuff is fast. It ferments out in 2 - 3 days, I let it settle for 3 – 4 days and then stripped it in the pot still.

In addition to the ingredients above, for the next three generations I added 5 litres of backset from the previous strip using new yeast each time.

After 4 runs I diluted the strip to 35% added 1.1/2 tins of black treacle and 2 litres of 10% wash from the last ferment and put it through the reflux column. I ended up with 4.1 litres of 95%ABV hearts.

I have, half of it on Oak the other is still white.

The taste is not subtle and there is no disputing the fact that it is rum. Drinking it white is strange, nothing so clear should have that much taste. I am hoping that in time it will mellow out, if not I may try and dilute the taste with some neutral. The half on oak is much more promising; the color seems to match the flavour, if that makes sense. I will give it a couple more weeks and then add some maple syrup and/or black treacle.

Next time I make some I will either cut back on the molasses or use plain sugar.

How do you make your rum?

Anyone have comments or advice on this recipe?

Any tips or tricks for making rum?

Do you have a favourite rum recipe?

I do it pretty similar to your self, With a yeast bomb if I get the temps right, it rarely takes 2 days to ferment, 36h is not unusual. In an insulated fermenter, I can pitch somewhere in the low 30's (oC) and the thing is so active that it stays warm till dry, no heater, and I've done this early spring with no issues. Its a winner for us in the north.

for a 50L ferment
10L Molasses
2kg white sugar
yeast bomb
4L hot dunder from the still
5L active dunder from the pit
I use 71B-1112 yeast then reuse a pint of the lees to start the next one.

On the spirit run, I also add beer and treacle, I also add in all my rum feints.
I also recommend cutting it so it tastes like you have messed up the cut, and have a little too much heads in there, it will come good after about a month and regular airing, even if leaving it in the white.

YHB wrote:Next time I make some I will either cut back on the molasses or use plain sugar.

Molasses sugar is very pricey from the supermarket, I'm getting molasses for £22.85 per 25KG and the sugar is 71%, by my calculations a litre is near enough 1kg of fermentables, so buying in bulk is the way to go.

If you find the taste of the white too strong then cut back on the dunder (or leave it out completely) also add less beer and molasses to the spirit run.
Or you could run the column with the extension, I'm sure you'll notice the difference.

I like rum, but I don't particularly like the taste of molasses. I detest black strap molasses. This is what I have been running following Pugi's method (keep collecting and recycling the feints and rum oils):
4L Dunder (not rotted! )
5 Kg Demarra Sugar
1.35 Kg Fancy Molasses
Rum Yeast and nutrients (says it is a Turbo, but it is not)
Water to 23 L.

My ferments never go all that fast, even this one takes 7+ days to go dry. I strip it, run it, and age it on toasted and charred oak. It is a bit sweet and caramel-like due to the AirStill (gotta get a better still), but I do like sipping it straight after a few months of aging.

Chuck

It turns out that I have a horse feed supplier very near to where I live. He sells 5 litre jars of molasses for £7.14 and I can walk there so there is no P&P. I bought the Molasses sugar in bulk from the local Scoop-a-market for £1.80/kilo.

Capt-Cudellez wrote:I also recommend cutting it so it tastes like you have messed up the cut

Now that is one piece of advice that I will be able to adopt very easily. Every cut I have made tastes like I have messed it up!

Brian

Hi Brian

Nice to hear thing are going well I want to try rum but a bit confused about the method dunder etc

Firstly can you explain this part of your post

"In addition to the ingredients above, for the next three generations I added 5 litres of backset from the previous strip using new yeast each time.

After 4 runs I diluted the strip to 35% added 1.1/2 tins of black treacle and 2 litres of 10% wash from the last ferment and put it through the reflux column. I ended up with 4.1 litres of 95%ABV hearts."

Also would it be better to run the last distill through the pothead on low power so as not to strip flavour out as the reflex might do Just wondering

Where did you obtain molasses from too

Any info appreciated

Oh and the pothead is doing sterling work with my whiskey experiments.

YHB wrote:

Capt-Cudellez wrote:I also recommend cutting it so it tastes like you have messed up the cut

Now that is one piece of advice that I will be able to adopt very easily. Every cut I have made tastes like I have messed it up!

Brian

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Reading that back, its probably a bad bit of advice. When you do a drink for the first time its hard to know what you are looking for in the cut. So probably best to err on the side of caution until you have a few under your belt, so you know where you can push it slightly.

My personal experience with it is if cut too narrow it will come off the oak lacking a little - it'll be fantastically smooth, but not as rummy as you hope for. I believe it has to be a lot rougher round the edges going on to the wood so that when the oak cleans it up your are left with a rounded product.

As well as the flavour in the late heads, there is a creamy portion in the early tails, that give a nice mouth feel. This is not really that nice tasting if keeping it white, but works well when oaking.
It's pretty hard to get this when running on the column, as the cut into tails is a lot sharper, so its more noticeable when pot stilling.

Admiral Toad said;

Nice to hear thing are going well I want to try rum but a bit confused about the method dunder etc

Firstly can you explain this part of your post

"In addition to the ingredients above, for the next three generations I added 5 litres of backset from the previous strip using new yeast each time..............."

Also would it be better to run the last distill through the pothead on low power so as not to strip flavour out as the reflex might do Just wondering

Where did you obtain molasses from too

Admiral,

After I had finished a stripping run I put 5 litres of the hot smelly goo left in the boiler (I think this is dunder) into a fermenter and dissolved the new molasses and sugar in that, topped up with water and pitched some new yeast.

On one occasion I did try reusing the old yeast but this was not very successful, it took considerably longer to ferment out and the yield was not as high.

On the last wash I kept 2 litres to one side before I pitched the yeast, so this was unfermented.

So, in the spirit run I had in the boiler.

8.5 litres of stipped wash at 55%
2 litres of unfermented beer @ 10%
5 litres of water
1.1/2 tins of Tate & Lyle black treacle.

If my calculations are correct, all of this comes to 16 litres @ 32%ABV

If I remember correctly it was my mentor (Captn C) that informed me that the beer would make the still charge acidic and that if I boiled the wash before I started to pull off the distillate then esterfication would take place and as we all know ( I didin’t, but believed Captn C) acidity + heat = esters = flavors. So I boiled the still charge for an hour before opening the valve.


Admiral Toad said;

Also would it be better to run the last distill through the pothead on low power so as not to strip flavour out as the reflex might do Just wondering

Do not worry about the reflux column stripping out the flavour; I can assure you that the end product is very flavourful, but if you go the double pot method let me know how it goes.

I got the molasses from Maddox Animal Feeds Gooseberry Farm, Stockton-On-Tees TS21 1BQ Cleveland Tel: 01642 588519, give him a ring before you go, he only carries a small stock of this. He is on the web and carries other products you may be interested in.

Admiral,

I am very new to all this and this post is very much “this is what I have done” and not “this is the way to do it” if you or anyone else spots any errors then feel free to point them out.

Toodlepip

Brian

YHB wrote:If I remember correctly it was my mentor (Captn C) that informed me that the beer would make the still charge acidic and that if I boiled the wash before I started to pull off the distillate then esterfication would take place and as we all know ( I didin’t, but believed Captn C) acidity + heat = esters = flavors. So I boiled the still charge for an hour before opening the valve.

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Yes, alcohol + acid + heat = esters. this is also the reason behind some distillers treating neutral wash with a basic chemical of some sort, to bring the still charge close to a neutral 7pH. There you are avoiding ester formation, here you are encouraging it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esterification#Preparation

I can't claim any credit for this, I was put onto it by Kiwi from the other forums. He did a great write of his process aimed at non-distillers, so its a bit light on the sorts of figures we would like to see, but you can apply his technique to your recipe of choice. Also check out his gin making post.

http://medicinalpurposes.wordpress.com/2011/02/19/making-white-rum-and-therefore-mojitos/

CC

Capt'n

Thanks for the link, it is very informative and entertaining. I am really jealous of Kiwi's shed.

I will see how the white rum goes but I am thinking that I may end up putting it on Oak as well and running another batch more tuned for drinking white.

You have mentioned elsewhere that you have added black treacle to your dark rum. I know it will be down to an individuals taste but do you have any recomendations for a quantity to start off with?

Toodlepip

Brian

Somewhere between a teaspoon, and a level table spoon per 1 gal DJ, I store mine at 60-65% then let it down. If storing closer to drinking strength I'd use less.

I settled on two teaspoons of black treacle into the demijohn with the 65% rum and oak chips.

The rum changed colour, from being a crystal clear, reddish brown that reminded me of newly opened horse chestnuts to something that looked like the sludge at the bottom of my fish pond.

It looks like that there is a lot of undissolved solids in the treacle and to say the least I was a bit disappointed. To see if the clarity could be restored I put a small sample through three layers of coffee filters. What came out of the other side of the fillers was awesome.

The colour is beautiful and the taste has improved dramatically; to one that I would not have any hesitation in letting others try.

After only a week I am really pleased with this half of the run, I will leave it for a couple more weeks and taste it again before deciding if I should bottle it or leave it on oak longer. Somehow I think that two weeks is all that my patience will be able to last.

I am one very happy chappy

Toodlepip

Brian

YHB wrote:It looks like that there is a lot of undissolved solids in the treacle and to say the least I was a bit disappointed. To see if the clarity could be restored I put a small sample through three layers of coffee filters. What came out of the other side of the fillers was awesome.

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It can takes a few hours for all of the treacle to dissolve into the alcohol. But you will get that clouding issue that you noticed, every time you shake it it will go very cloudy.
Luckily the solids will settle out, so when you are ready to bottle I sit the DJ on the bread bin in the kitchen the day before (for a bit of elevation), and use a piece of copper line to siphon the liquid into a jug being careful not to disturb the bottom, I then give it a pass through a coffee filter.

If you do end up with some of the whispy stuff in your drink, a pass through a filter will remove most of it, but not all of it. So let it settle out then decant it again as above.

I then drink the cloudy remains, to hide the evidence Tastes fine.

It's obviously rum time



This was my 50 litre dunder/fancy molasses wash, stripped, added 5% wash and then a long slow spirit run.

This was with my YHB special pot head. T500 boiler on full power till the temp hit 70 then backed it down to 700 watts.

Ditched the first litre but then pulled off a steady 80% for the next four hours before the output rate started to tail off about jar 16 so I had to increase the power. The first 5 jars are junk as are the last three. I'll make proper cuts after a day or so of airing but from jar 8 to 15 are really really nice.

The plan is to take the cuts, cut back to 60% and then age on 2.5% (25g for every litre of spirit) JD chunks for a couple of weeks to give it that bourbon bite before putting it the barrel I've been ageing rum in for the last year.

The double dunder from this (10 litres) has been thrown in with 4 litres of lees, 10kg of sugar and 30 litres of water and it's just waiting for the temp to drop before I chuck a batch of EC-118 and nutrients at it.

The status quo has been restored and my rum once more has a beautiful golden colour, I spent yesterday evening filtering all the gunk out of the rum, or at least 95% of it, the rum will still need a final polish when I bottle, but for now it looks very nice.

While the rum was dripping away through the filters I tried out a theory that I thought would prevent the treacle clouding the rum. The theory being; to dissolve the treacle in some hot water and then filter the mixture to remove the offending solids before adding the treacle to the rum.

When I put the treacle / water mixture though the filter it went straight through, leaving nothing behind on the filter papers, I do not understand. If the dark particles / deposit is not present in the treacle / water mixture where does it come from in the treacle / rum mixture.

Anybody have any theories?

Rum Fairies!

AM