Rum Talk......

Anything to do with rum

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zapata
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Re: Rum Talk......

Post by zapata »

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizos ... yces_pombe" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
https://www.bostonapothecary.com/tag/sc ... haromyces/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
Also used in traditional african sour beers and genetic engineering. No commercial sources for proven beverage strains that I've ever seen, easily sourced from scientific suppliers though who knows if those are tasty.
Just Bill

Re: Rum Talk......

Post by Just Bill »

Smokes! 19 pages in one sitting. :shock:

This has been a great thread, and I hope you dont mind me joining in. I just tried my first Rum run yesterday, and the results were.... drinkable?

My wash was:

2kg molasses
2kg brown sugar
bread yeast
water to the 16 liter mark (17.5 liter fermentation jug)

I'm running an improvised 5-gallon pot still contraption off my stove top, but am working on finishing a proper stainless unit as we speak. Most of my experience thus far has been with a boka, still learning to drive on the pot.

I ran fast, just a little over a steady stream (but not a pencil width) and collected:

100ml thrown off
500ml of what I think are heads (it had that hot taste to it) my still-contraption tops out at about 60%
700ml of stuff that is drinkable, this ran down to about 40%
800ml of what I'm calling tails, and I ran this down to 20%

I'm going to let what I collected sit in glass for a bit (I dont have oak yet) and I think I'll try adding caramelized sugar, but I dont think it's something I'll be sharing any time soon.

I'm hoping to work on my equipment and my recipe to get something worth bragging about. A lot of people distill where I live (think: sand) but they almost 100% use essences in their final product. I'm hoping to take what I learned/will learn in this thread and beat the pants off them.

I had two questions:

1) A few pages back someone asked about making dark rum and it was suggested he add a little "clarified rum beer". Is this another term for the wash (but clarified)?

2) What do you guys do with the heads and tails? It didn't sound like you were re-running it in the subsequent batches. Just toss it in my next neutrals run?

Cheers guys, and thanks for the great read.

-Bill
Just Bill

Re: Rum Talk......

Post by Just Bill »

Shine0n wrote: I actually had to break out a dictionary to even know what the hell some of the things mentioned were. lol


Shine0n

You and me both man. My brain is a mess right now as it's trying to digest everything. Hopefully it's ready for a re-read tomorrow :lol:
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Re: Rum Talk......

Post by Shine0n »

Just Bill, there are many rum recipes around.
I have one in the sugar section that uses Dark brown sugar and feed molasses, it's a very good rum :thumbup:

You also have the tried and true section with some good rums... obviously lol

When running a small still you need to collect in very small quantities, I wanna say big Bob has a thread on his and also a few others but his name is one that popped up first. Great products can be made on a small scale as long as proper cuts are made and blending goes well which seems to be the biggest issue with smaller stills.
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NZChris
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Re: Rum Talk......

Post by NZChris »

Just Bill wrote:2) What do you guys do with the heads and tails? It didn't sound like you were re-running it in the subsequent batches. Just toss it in my next neutrals run?
I don't try to steal a cut out of the first pass through a simple pot still. My research told me not to bother, so I got a fermenter large enough to hold four charges worth of ferment and have been double distilling my rums from day one, three or four stripping runs then a spirit run per ferment. Double distilling gives you a much larger batch of distillate to choose the final cut from, which makes doing the cut much easier, fills the cellar with aging liquor much quicker and the quality is much better. The feints from that, I save for an all feints run because I found that repeatedly feeding them back into subsequent runs started giving me a smaller heart cut, defeating the purpose of adding them back.

Adding any flavored feints into a pot stilled neutral run is a mistake.

Rum benefits from having copper in the boiler and vapor path.

My rums get their color from oak and, sometimes, caramel.
Just Bill

Re: Rum Talk......

Post by Just Bill »

ShineOn,

Sweet! I'll go check it out. I have a word document going with a few recipes (from T&T and from this thread). I was thinking Hook Rum was going to be my next batch, but I'll go check out your recipe. I only do one or two runs a month (stripping or otherwise) so it might be about february before it begins to bear fruit. (kids, work, and just life tend to get in the way of me brewin)

NZ,

i was on the fence as to whether or not to double distill. I'll be running close to 5 gallons at a time so it sounds like double will be the way I go in the future (too small for a single slow, I think). My stainless will be packed with copper scrubbies (I did the same in my boka) but I seem to be having trouble finding argon in the area and I really don't want to risk paying someone here to weld this flange on my boiler :lol:

I'm curious to see how a rum feints run would be (all my previous experience was neutrals from the boka, so playing with flavour is a bit new)

Cheers guys, and thanks for all the help.
-Bill
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NZChris
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Re: Rum Talk......

Post by NZChris »

Just Bill wrote:i was on the fence as to whether or not to double distill. I'll be running close to 5 gallons at a time so it sounds like double will be the way I go in the future (too small for a single slow, I think).
Mine strips about 6 gallons, so not much difference there. Slow singles is a new, internet propagated, protocol not practiced in any of the rum/whiskey/brandy industries that I know of, and I believe that they don't do it for very good reasons.
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nuntius01
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Re: Rum Talk......

Post by nuntius01 »

just ran off my xmass rum last week. always a hit too. course i use a double thumper and quality mollases. that's always the key. that and the dunder.
I'm just the bank and the mule

post your still pics here
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 16&t=66917
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Re: Rum Talk......

Post by wtfdskin »

nuntius01 wrote:just ran off my xmass rum last week. always a hit too. course i use a double thumper and quality mollases. that's always the key. that and the dunder.
I double thump my rum also, mind if I ask what you charge your thumpers with? The standard Jamaican style? Im going all molasses this year, used to add dunder to the ferment and diluted the thumper charge with it. Im going to change it up this year and add it to the low wines prior to my spirit run. Always looking to improve my drop
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Re: Rum Talk......

Post by Shine0n »

That's how I do it, I'm in the works for a new thumper addition now and hammering the flanges out instead of ferrules.
The Jamaica rum uses low and high wines in the thumpers, I'm just going to use low wines with dunder for the spirit run.
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Re: Rum Talk......

Post by zapata »

Re reading this thread, I realized one of my schizo pombe links didn't work, trying a different format
https://www.bostonapothecary.com/?s=Pombe" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
That works, cheers.
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Re: Rum Talk......

Post by zapata »

Also, many people use various things to control foaming in the boiler. Fermcaps, butter, vegetable oils have all been used. I just read this from Boston apothecary:
Higher Fatty Acids
Caprylic and capric acids are the major constituents of this fraction of rums made with Saccharomyces cerevisiae or Schizosaccharomyces pombe. Temperature and pH affect the total production of higher fatty acids, just as they affect the general activity of yeast. Depending on the sugar concentration, fatty acid concentrations increase in rums made from Schizosaccharomyces pombe, except for caprylic
Caprylic and capric acids are the components of "MCT oil" or medium chain triglyceride oil one can buy in health food stores (or even amazon). They should also be the same thing as "Liquid coconut oil" found in any grocery or even walmart.
For that matter, they are the 2nd and 3rd largest component in plain old coconut oil, right behind lauric acid.
Makes me think I'll use either MCT or coconut oil for foam control since they are A) endogenous fatty acids anyway and B) likely to help make good esters.
In this chart, run across the octonoate (capryllic) and deconoate (capric) rows to see possible ester flavors. The chart doesn't go up to dodeconate (lauric) which would come from traditional cococonut oil, and a quick googling describes ethyl dodeconate as "Sweet, waxy, soapy and rummy with a creamy, floral nuance" which might be good, but the soapy makes me think maybe MCT oil (Liquid coconut oil) is safer than normal coconut oil.

http://homedistiller.org/forum/download ... p?id=52465

Sometime I might try to run through other oils to see if perhaps other oils would be better suited to foam control in various whisk(e)y washes...
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NZChris
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Re: Rum Talk......

Post by NZChris »

I use butter because any flavors from it would compliment my rums.

I already get coconut flavors in some of my rums after about two years on oak. Any more would not be welcome as it's verging on too much and needs to be blended with other rums to tone it done a bit.
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Re: Rum Talk......

Post by zapata »

caprylic / capric acids don't smell like coconuts at all though they are mostly refined from coconut oil. The predominate Ethyl esters should be complex and fruity. But 1 of the possible caprylic (propyl) esters could be coconutty if you have enough propyl alcohol.
Odor and flavor notes from http://www.thegoodscentscompany.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Ethyl deconoate (from capric acid) sweet waxy fruity apple grape oily brandy
Ethyl octonoate (from caprylic acid) bp 206*C fruity wine waxy sweet apricot banana brandy pear musty, pineapple and fruity with a creamy, dairy nuance, mushroom and cognac notes

Propyl octonoate bp 225*C coconut caco gin cognac

And now you piqued my curiosity to give butter some research. Since I'm looking them up for myself, I'll share here. Here's the fatty acids in butter, not surprisingly they are predominantly higher fatty acids.
butter-fatty-acids2.gif
Assuming ethyl esters predominate:
Ethyl oleate bp 205*C fatty oily dairy milky waxy tallow
ethyl myristate bp 178*C sweet waxy violet orris creamy
Ethyl palmitate bp 192*C Waxy, fruity, creamy and fermented with a vanilla, balsamic nuance
ethyl stearate bp 213*C mild waxy

I mentioned lauric, caprylic, capric esters above. We should be familiar with the famous butyric esters.

So yeah, butter esters seem pretty safe and mild. Ethyl myristate sounds interesting, do you get any hint of violet? The palmitate is also interesting. The complex fruity capric and caprylic esters also sound good to me. Maybe I'll give some MCT, sulphuric and vodka a refluxing next time the lab glass is out just to smell them isolation for myself.
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NZChris
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Re: Rum Talk......

Post by NZChris »

No noticeable violets or coconut on stilling day. The coconut doesn't become obvious until a couple of years on oak. I thought noticeable coconut didn't develop until quite a few years on oak, so it caught me by surprise. My fast aging experiments have never produced coconut even though they use the same oak, that's not to say they won't in the future.
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Re: Rum Talk......

Post by NZChris »

NZChris wrote:My fast aging experiments have never produced coconut even though they use the same oak, that's not to say they won't in the future.
I just looked at my notes and see I had noted coconut flavor in a fast aged rum a year after it was reacted.
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Re: RUM TALK

Post by Bodhidan »

Yummyrum wrote:

Run each 50 liters fermenter in my 80 liter boiler with Feints from last rum run and add a table spoon of vege oil to help with pukeing .
Run it through my 4 plate still .
4 plates for Rum.jpg
This will give me around 9 liters @ 92%ABV off the still after cuts .
Dilute down to about 70% ABV and Oak with medium toast American Oak Dominoes for as long as I can ....usually 6-12 months

That works out to nearly 30 700ml bottles of Rum @40 ABV . .....not bad for about $1.50 a bottle :thumbup:
Yummyrum, I'm interested to hear how you make your rum cuts off of your 4 plate rig. I'm also running 4 plates which doesn't seem to be common place for rum on the forum. I have been making neutrals for sometime in order to learn the process inexpensively. My GF is super happy with the "vodka" I have made her but now that I'm actually trying to develop flavours its a whole new game. I've read a tun here on cuts but very little of that pertains to a plated column.
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Re: RUM TALK

Post by Yummyrum »

Bodhidan wrote:
Yummyrum wrote:

Run each 50 liters fermenter in my 80 liter boiler with Feints from last rum run and add a table spoon of vege oil to help with pukeing .
Run it through my 4 plate still .
4 plates for Rum.jpg
This will give me around 9 liters @ 92%ABV off the still after cuts .
Dilute down to about 70% ABV and Oak with medium toast American Oak Dominoes for as long as I can ....usually 6-12 months

That works out to nearly 30 700ml bottles of Rum @40 ABV . .....not bad for about $1.50 a bottle :thumbup:
Yummyrum, I'm interested to hear how you make your rum cuts off of your 4 plate rig. I'm also running 4 plates which doesn't seem to be common place for rum on the forum. I have been making neutrals for sometime in order to learn the process inexpensively. My GF is super happy with the "vodka" I have made her but now that I'm actually trying to develop flavours its a whole new game. I've read a tun here on cuts but very little of that pertains to a plated column.
Jumping from Vodka ( nuetral ....well close too ) to Rum is a big jump and a whole new learning curve :thumbup:

Unfortately there are no magic answers .....but this is still the method I use ..taste and smell ...but note the dillution .Better Cuts with Better Dilution

I use all Mollases washes ...ain't no sugar to dilute the flavour it so maybe thats where you are hereing that less than 4 plates is better
OK ...where I come from we have Sugar refineries up the road a few hundred Km and the stuff we get is sweet as
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Bodhidan
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Re: RUM TALK

Post by Bodhidan »

Yummyrum wrote:
Bodhidan wrote:
Yummyrum wrote:

Run each 50 liters fermenter in my 80 liter boiler with Feints from last rum run and add a table spoon of vege oil to help with pukeing .
Run it through my 4 plate still .
4 plates for Rum.jpg
This will give me around 9 liters @ 92%ABV off the still after cuts .
Dilute down to about 70% ABV and Oak with medium toast American Oak Dominoes for as long as I can ....usually 6-12 months

That works out to nearly 30 700ml bottles of Rum @40 ABV . .....not bad for about $1.50 a bottle :thumbup:
Yummyrum, I'm interested to hear how you make your rum cuts off of your 4 plate rig. I'm also running 4 plates which doesn't seem to be common place for rum on the forum. I have been making neutrals for sometime in order to learn the process inexpensively. My GF is super happy with the "vodka" I have made her but now that I'm actually trying to develop flavours its a whole new game. I've read a tun here on cuts but very little of that pertains to a plated column.
Jumping from Vodka ( nuetral ....well close too ) to Rum is a big jump and a whole new learning curve :thumbup:

Unfortately there are no magic answers .....but this is still the method I use ..taste and smell ...but note the dillution .Better Cuts with Better Dilution

I use all Mollases washes ...ain't no sugar to dilute the flavour it so maybe thats where you are hereing that less than 4 plates is better
OK ...where I come from we have Sugar refineries up the road a few hundred Km and the stuff we get is sweet as
Yeah Flavors are coming through the 4 plates just fine. I think I just wasn't prepared for the level of compression of heads and tails the column would provide.

I've run Pugi's recipe once with black strap and once with fancy and started a new ferment using LL's recipe in this thread just last night.

Initially I've been surprised at how un-rum like the initial distillate smells...almost sour for lack of a better word. I have had my first batch on oak and it tastes great other then the smell. Last night while mixing up a wash, the jar we were drinking from was left open on the counter and by the end of the night that "sour" smell was gone and replaced with a sweet caramel one. I guess I will need to air out my other bottles as the difference was really pronounced and unexpected.
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Re: Rum Talk......

Post by aircarbonarc »

Over 3 years ago I made a batch of rum, it was a blend of Molasses, jaggery and brown sugar. I used bakers yeast and a bunch of yeast hulls, some DAP, Epsom salt, ph buffer and some gypsum. It was of out of the still and had a strong sharp molasses character. Well I forgot about it and put it away at like 65% in a glass carboy with some oak sherry soaked chunks, a vanilla bean, a handful of dried prunes and apricots. Well lastnight I dug it out and poured some into a jar, ran it through a coffee filter and held it up to the light. It was a beautiful dark rich caramel brown colour. I smelled it and I felt as if I was smelling the lovely layed aroma of a commercially available well made rum. It was also tasty. Had a nice mouth feel, coated my tongue and danced on my taste buds. First of all the nose had spice like something hard to describe, just really pleasing. Some vanilla, a bit of a sharp molasses tone with a sweet caramel rounded off with sweet fruit. In the glass it had legs and she knew how to use them. The colour was so rich and had a tint of dark red. I added a touch of water to proof to about 80 for less burn and noticed it set off the fruityness and molasses a bit. The flavor was a straight up combo of a jab of caramel to the face followed by a left then a right of spice, sweetness, sherry, creamy fruit and then a vanilla uppercut . Nothing was really out of place or overly strong except the small Crosby's Blackstap molasses bite which gave it a personality and identity. This rum lacks a bit of fullness and body which i will blame on age. I am very pleased and kinda sad at the same time. Pleased that I ended up with great results. Sad that I didn't keep making more to stash away...but I have 10 gallons of dunder from 2015 stashed away... I'm going to use that in 2.0. Also thanks to this great forum for all the amazing information and experience. I wouldn't be getting these great results without this community. Also adding fruit and vanilla to the aging vessel was suggested on HD which could be the silver bullet to achieving that rich sweetness in grrat rum.
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Re: Rum Talk......

Post by OtisT »

aircarbonarc wrote:Over 3 years ago I made a batch of rum, it was a blend of Molasses, jaggery and brown sugar. I used bakers yeast and a bunch of yeast hulls, some DAP, Epsom salt, ph buffer and some gypsum. It was of out of the still and had a strong sharp molasses character. Well I forgot about it and put it away at like 65% in a glass carboy with some oak sherry soaked chunks, a vanilla bean, a handful of dried prunes and apricots. Well lastnight I dug it out and poured some into a jar, ran it through a coffee filter and held it up to the light. It was a beautiful dark rich caramel brown colour. I smelled it and I felt as if I was smelling the lovely layed aroma of a commercially available well made rum. It was also tasty. Had a nice mouth feel, coated my tongue and danced on my taste buds. First of all the nose had spice like something hard to describe, just really pleasing. Some vanilla, a bit of a sharp molasses tone with a sweet caramel rounded off with sweet fruit. In the glass it had legs and she knew how to use them. The colour was so rich and had a tint of dark red. I added a touch of water to proof to about 80 for less burn and noticed it set off the fruityness and molasses a bit. The flavor was a straight up combo of a jab of caramel to the face followed by a left then a right of spice, sweetness, sherry, creamy fruit and then a vanilla uppercut . Nothing was really out of place or overly strong except the small Crosby's Blackstap molasses bite which gave it a personality and identity. This rum lacks a bit of fullness and body which i will blame on age. I am very pleased and kinda sad at the same time. Pleased that I ended up with great results. Sad that I didn't keep making more to stash away...but I have 10 gallons of dunder from 2015 stashed away... I'm going to use that in 2.0. Also thanks to this great forum for all the amazing information and experience. I wouldn't be getting these great results without this community. Also adding fruit and vanilla to the aging vessel was suggested on HD which could be the silver bullet to achieving that rich sweetness in grrat rum.
Damn aircarbonarc, this reads like rum porn. My kind of dirty talk.

Great description, making me wish I could sip some while reading your description to match things up. Good luck with version 2.0.

Did your dunder grow anything in it while stashed away for 3 years? I just finished barreling some rum made using infected dunder in the ferment and dunder/feints in the spirit charge. In three years, when it is ready, we can compare notes ;-)

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Re: Rum Talk......

Post by aircarbonarc »

The dunder did grow some mold and is smelling kinda sweet now. I have a few galons outside and a few in my garage.
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Re: Rum Talk......

Post by BoisBlancBoy »

I plan to start a Dunder pit after my first rum run but I don’t have much room to store one so it will most likely just be a 5 gal bucket or 2.

Does anyone have any recommendations or experience between adding the dunder to a new ferment vs adding it into a thumper? Or heck both

My plan is to make a full flavored rum with my pot still/thumper set up and also a light rum through my column. Not sure using Dunder for the light rum would be a good idea or not either.

The options are so endless I’m not sure exactly where to start so that’s why I ask to get an idea where some of these ideas may lead me.
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Re: Rum Talk......

Post by NZChris »

BoisBlancBoy wrote:The options are so endless I’m not sure exactly where to start so that’s why I ask to get an idea where some of these ideas may lead me.
I reckon make a wide variety and age them separately then in years to come, you will have a variety of rums to choose from from blending. E.g. one of mine is quite nasty and is not drinkable on it's own, but used at 5-10% of a blend it can give a rum a welcome flavor boost.
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