StillSmart

If using 'No Chill' cubes make sure you can fill and exclude all air as many designs have 'shoulders' for stacking and these are often at same level as the filler and will retain air in the cube.

AM

AM,

Good catch. I found 2.5 and 5 gallon Fort-Pak containers that fit the bill. The 2.5 gallon seems to be the right size for dunder and the 5 gallon for wort. Saving water is eco and wallet friendly!

Does anyone else use calcium carbonate at 1 g per 20 L to adjust pH after two or three runs?

I have 9 L at 55% ready to be oaked, after taking conservative cuts. Good odors are wafting from the glass carboy. Pleased so far.

Rum is a drink for which patience in aging is rewarded. Magic chemistry happens over time. I notice this much more than with whiskeys.

Chuck

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Keystone wrote:I have 9 L at 55% ready to be oaked, after taking conservative cuts. Good odors are wafting from the glass carboy. Pleased so far.

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Nice one Ks, it's good to get a decent amount put down especially when your ageing it. Is there any reason for the low ABV? I find I still need to dilute down to get it in the mid 60's for ageing.


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chill wrote:Rum is a drink for which patience in aging is rewarded. Magic chemistry happens over time. I notice this much more than with whiskeys.

Chuck

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+1 my silver rum run off on a stumpy column is nice to drink fairly quickly, but I'd go as far to say that the pot stilled stuff is almost undrinkable for at least a month even then it's not particularly good and needs so sleep a bit longer on the wood.

Capt-Cudellez wrote:---

Keystone wrote:I have 9 L at 55% ready to be oaked, after taking conservative cuts. Good odors are wafting from the glass carboy. Pleased so far.

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Nice one Ks, it's good to get a decent amount put down especially when your ageing it. Is there any reason for the low ABV? I find I still need to dilute down to get it in the mid 60's for ageing.

CC,

Thanks. The initial distillate was 6.45 L at 77.5% and then diluted to 55%. I used my Super Reflux in pot mode. Is this consistent with your results?

Cheers,
K

I wasn't saying that ageing at 55% wasn't right, was just curious if you had let it down to that or were making your tails cut really late. Your results sound about right

Capt-Cudellez wrote:I wasn't saying that ageing at 55% wasn't right, was just curious if you had let it down to that or were making your tails cut really late. Your results sound about right

CC,

Thanks for the confirmation on the ABV of the initial distillate. The heart to tails cut was around 60%. The last three jars, in transitioning from the hearts, were collected in 300 ml batches. These were ABV (temp. adj.) tested and then smell tested after being let down to 40% while checking for tails louche.

The last two transitional jars were deemed feints along with the rest of the run down to 20%. My parrot is on the injured reserve list awaiting repair, which made me do a little extra leg work on the cut.

Update:

I aged the 55% on 12 teaspoons of medium toasted white oak for 28 days. When let down in a 750 ml bottle, it has a golden hue. The process yielded 16 750 ml bottles.

Over the course of the aging, the rum smelled like bourbon after one week. Fast forward to today, it smells less like bourbon and more like rum. A tasting reveals a slightly more than moderate presence of oak which I hope ail be mellowed in glass over the next few weeks or months.

To each bottle, 3 t of maple syrup and 1/8 t of natural vanilla extract was added. This smoothed the oak presence while not masking it. After another sampling, I was generally pleased. I assume some chemical reactions will continue in the bottle over the next few weeks or months that will affect the flavor profile.

To three of the bottles, I added 1 t of 180 lovibond premium extra dark Belgian candi syrup which yielded a familiar reddish-brown hue.

I am beginning to see that I will like the aging process for a Rum

Can't wait to give this one a try

Three tablespoons seems like a lot of Maple syrup for one bottle. But I am not all that keen on Maple syrup. Doesn't that yield a distinctly sweet rum?

I have like the effects of adding a couple of teaspoons of dry sherry to a bottle.

Chuck

Chuck,

HookLine at HD suggested 2 to 3 t of maple syrup. That's what I did - settling on 3. I will fix the typo above. Thanks for the spotting that!

I oaked at a rate of 1 t of medium toasted oak per liter of 40%. And, it was oaked for 28 days based on my read of GBM's rum thread at HD. In retrospect, I should have dialed that back. Perhaps, the slight oak bite I am tasting now may mellow. If not, then I should have oaked at half that rate and for a week. The ultimate fix would be blending with another batch.

double post

Ah! 3 tsp! Yes, that seems more like it. It was sounding like a breakfast food at first.

Chuck