What are you learning to make?

[Anavrin]

Just thought I'd throw the question out there, see what everyone's up to, I'm currently trying my hand at making rum.

The first lot I made was from mollasses and Demerara sugar, I stripped down to 30% then I run through 6 bubble caps on the spirit run, it still smells of rum but it's lacking when compared to shop bought, it's on oak at the moment and I plan to carbon filter it to remove the colour and polish it up a little, seems I should have listened to RumJohn when he recommended I go for as much flavour as possible! but we all have our own ideas on how we want to make stuff and sometimes you have to get it wrong, just so you can try it another way next time.

I'm sure once it's aged and filtered it'll make a passable white rum, I noticed Havana Club rum has a slight off white colour to it so im guessing, it too is aged and filtered.

[Mash]

Trying to fake a whiskey from a neutral.

[Almanac]

Anavrin wrote: I plan to carbon filter it to remove the colour and polish it up a little

While the Oak will add colour and flavour to your rum I think carbon filtering may strip away all colour and taste and leave you with an almost neutral spirit.

[Mr Four Square]

I'm learning how to make Vino Tinto's pot still. This weekend I'll be learning how to use sil-phos and oxy acetelene. I'm learning that people who keep coming back to the trade counter at the plumbing wholesalers are amusing the first time and pushing their luck the second. That even with VT's beautiful drawings there are things that arent apparent and that when you move outside the standard 1/2 or 3/4 inch range of copper things get expensive.That people are helpful.Thanks Tim and Inglishill

[Mash]

Anavrin wrote: I plan to carbon filter it to remove the colour and polish it up a little

While the Oak will add colour and flavour to your rum I think carbon filtering may strip away all colour and taste and leave you with an almost neutral spirit.

I wasn't going to say anything, but that was my thought.

[Anavrin]

Hi Guys

Yeah, I know it's going to take away the flavour too, hopefully not all of it, Bacardi is sold as white rum, it's actually barrel aged in heavily charred barrels for 12 months before being blended and carbon filtered with a secret mix of 14 different carbons, I love Bacardi and for me, working towards something similar will be my goal with rum, I've got a bottle of dark rum, (shop bought) it's not really my thing and the bottles still mostly full, my Bacardi bottles been empty for weeks.

Next time I'm changing my wash recipe, I'll be using 5 jars of Holland and Barret molasses and 3kg of white sugar per 25lt batch, (roughly equivelent to 5kg sugar in the wash)

Then I'm going to strip down to 30%, then add my rum feints and use only my single plate torpedo for the spirit run, then more oak for a couple of months before filtering again.

I could be chasing Bacardi for years but you never know I might get lucky and get close :-)

[chill]

Another sugar source to try is Chinese brown sugar.
http://www.finecooking.com/item/8141/ch ... rown-sugar

That is my go to source for rum base now.

Chuck

[Anavrin]

Thanks Chuck, I'll have a look at the Chinese brown sugar, first impression is its a little
expensive at nearly £4 a kilo, but it's similar in price to molasses and its sugar content is much higher than molasses, I'll dedinately start looking for the stuff, can you ferment it just with yeast or do you add some nutrients?

[chill]

That is expensive, it is half of that here were I buy it.

[RumJohn]

@Anavrin: I use Chinese brown sugar for everything except Cachaca. You don't need nutrients, its loaded with molasses and works just fine.

Not sure why you insist on carbon filtering a rum. Make it properly and dispense with the filtering.

Bacardi is industrial crap. Once you make a few good rums you will realize that. They have done a great job of marketing though.

[Spirits4BB]

Now that Spirits4BB is finding his feet he might have a dabble with rum.....
Few questions... Can I use Airstill? Any good recipes for me to try?

S4BB

[chill]

Yes, you can use an AirStill. I use about 6Kg white sugar equivalent of Chinese brown sugar (look at the nutrition info on the back for how many grams of sugar per package). The weight of the package has less sugar than the same weight of white sugar. I think I use 15 x 400g... I think. Or use a bit less and some white sugar to make it cheaper. I add 500g of fancy cooking molasses for a more complex taste.

It tastes... not good when first distilled. Some time on toasted oak results in amazing changes!

[Mash]

what am I learning to make - something other than lentil wash