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Thank you, JustinNZ and MooseMan. I'll heed your advice! This batch is definitely not true to SBB's recipe since most of the fermentables ended up coming from panela after all, but I'll still make it a tight cut, get it on oak, and use my feints for the next round fermenting now. I've got 10 gallons...

Checking in! The wash fermented down to 1.020. I did my stripping runs yesterday and I'm looking forward to the spirit run tonight.

With more molasses on-hand now, I'm rolling right into the next batch with proper SBB ratios.

Thank you all again for your suggestions to help me out.

Thanks guys, I really appreciate it. I have my temp control set to 31C and it is cruising along now - lots of fizzing again this morning.

I'll report back when I run it. Thanks again for you help saving it!

Success! I got home from work and it is chugging away after the yeast bomb. Thank you Chris for your suggestion and thank you all for your advice. I'll check back with how it finishes and runs.

In addition, my molasses just arrived, so I'm looking forward to another proper batch

I gave that a try this morning - I hope I did it right. I rehydrated about a cup of Red Star bakers yeast in about 800ml of water at 95F/35C. Once hydrated, I added about 700 ml of my wash with a crushed B vitamin and it took off. When the krausen reached the top of the Erlenmeyer flask about 5 minu...

Good question. My Hydrometer is still showing 1.109 52 hours later. There is no krausen, no fizzing, and no sound when I put my head in there - those are all normally present when I ferment. I'm essentially fermenting open; I just have a sheet of Styrofoam to cover to keep the heat in, so there is n...

Update, the Reflectex rewrap fixed the temp, but still no activity since this morning.

Over the weekend: I made another 1.25 L starter with the Hornindal yeast, cold-crashed and decanted the beer off. I poured about 3 gallons/11L of the wash into a big 10 gallon/38L SS pot and dissolved 6.5 lbs/3kg of panela sugar into the wash with a little heat and a beefy paint/concrete mixer attac...

And don't forget initial under pitch!

I am using a hydrometer for the SG measurements. Thanks!

Yummyrum, thank you for your probing questions - you led me to uncover another error I made. Looking at my notes, I mistakenly targeted 20% dunder. Serves me right for waking up at 4am to squeeze this in before work and not double-checking like I should have. Haha :wtf: My plan was to follow the SBB...

NZChris wrote: ↑Fri Oct 25, 2024 1:14 pm What was the pH?

What is the pH?

It was 4.01 and is now 5.26 after adjusting. Thank you, NZChris

Thank you both for your suggestions. I'll try that! I have some panela on-hand, so I may go for that as that was the bottom of my molasses bucket. Time to order some more of that too!

Thank you again and I'll report back with what happens!

Very good questions, I should have included that info from the start. It was about 1 gallon of dunder and about 4.5-5 gallons total wash. You're right, I was surprised too because the gravity is pretty dang low - perhaps I had less molasses in the bottom of that bucket than I thought. I was eyeballi...

Hey everyone, I'm hoping to get some advice on my latest batch of SBB rum with some tweaks. This is my fifth time making it, but unfortunately, the fermentation seems to have stalled completely. My previous 4 batches were back-to-back, so it was easy to follow the recipe exactly, but there's been a ...

Thank you so much Christopher! I really appreciate your advice and couldn't believe how quickly you shipped as well. I will be sure to check for leaks first before pinning them down. I really stepped up my barrel plans because my neighbor has some great tools he'll let me use (planer, biscuit joiner...

Hey Otis, That's a real piece of history with barrel #43! I'm thrilled you're taking the time to refurbish it for your tribute rum. To your questions: 1) It's typically a good idea to swell the head first before adding pins. This will ensure a tight fit, making the pinning process easier. If the he...

I'm new around here. I've always been interested in getting into the distilling hobby and now I'm considering it seriously. Look forward to learning from you all and contributing when I know something useful! I've really been into tiki lately and therefore rum - looks fun to make at home. I used to ...