First I got a few drips around 57-58C. I presume this is the acetone or other volitiles. after a while of VERY slow drips, I had collected maybe 10mls of pretty nasty stuff (in maybe 20 minutes), collection stopped so I figured well thats the acetone gone, time to decrease water flow and up the head temp a bit. a few slight adjustments at the temp sprang up to 61-62C. now that I wasn't expecting, I thought that the next thing I'd hit was methanol at 65C. This head normally sticks to the boiling points of various fractions pretty well, so I was very surprised. I was getting slow drips again, so I collected what I could in a small glass vial. got maybe 20mls. after that I found the meths at 65-66C, and then normal heads etc around 76-77C. then I started tasting body and shut down.
Now, this unexpected stuff smells amazing. not sweet and harsh like meths, or chemical smell like ethyl acetate, but really.... good. if I were to characterize it, I'd say buttery rum and bananas. it tastes smooth. so... What the heck have I got here? All I want to do is add it back into some rum, the smell and taste is really good... have I got some rum ester or something? some other rum 'oil'? is it safe to consume? has anyone else found this before?
your thoughts? this is the first thing i'm going to try again when I get myself a LM column. I know its a crappy CM head that I used to do this, but the process was done very slowly (I probably spent maybe 2.5 hours) so I'm fairly sure it IS a distinct chemical. Please advise
KS