My infected Rum

[DetroitDIY]

Yes, everything I keep has been dumped into the same barrel. Approximately 55% (calculated but not measured yet). Should be about 4.5 gallons in there at the moment. The barrel is American Oak. Formerly housed mead, and before that Bourbon. Hope to have it full by Christmas, and then just let it be for a while.

I hope you're right that the esters will pop with the oak. I'm not exactly a connoisseur per se, and it smells nice enough, but I couldn't guess that it's all that funky at the moment. Time will tell. The one thing I like about aging in my basement as it's quite dry, so the angles drink the water and let the ABV rise over time. I'm hoping with a lower initial ABV, I'll have to add less water over time and will get more of the oak flavor. Was thinking of aging some barrel water a time back to keep the oak strong when I cut it for drinking. Perhaps I'll keep a bit of the low wines and try that as well.

Hopefully I'll have good things to report back in a year or so.

Cheers! And thanks again for the good advise among the crowd.
DetroitDIY

[distiller_dresden]

If your barrel has only been used twice, I don't think you have anything to worry about RE oak flavor. Also, if the rum isn't really 'funky' now it probably won't be funky, like Jamaican funk, grass/vegetal flavor or menthol/airplane glue (it's a thing), but I really think it will develop nicely in that barrel. Being in a dry environment, seems your basement is, is good, but you might also put a space heater down there beside it (small ceramic style) on a timer, maybe on for 2 hours every 6 hours, on high. That way besides being dry, it will warm and cool, and the rum will move in and out better of the oak. I think you'd probably want to leave it at least 6 months, up to a couple years -- start taste/testing after 4 months, then monthly. Just to make sure you don't over oak it, the mead probably didn't pull as much out of the oak as the hard spirits.

My rum always develops the usual rum flavors at least once it gets into some oak/onto. The tannins and acids in the oak will help develop it very nicely. You can use a barrel to age about 6-8 times before it is supposed to be 'done', but it's up to you, really. Even then that will be a great barrel for brandy aging because you don't want much oak strength doing those as they smooth and age.

[Wino2Distill]

I'm a bit late here, but here's my 2 cents on pH and fermentations: most fermentation yeasts will ferment fine at pHs as low as 3. The above stuck fermentation was most likely due to microbial competition.

[Beerswimmer]

True for some yeasts. I make kettle sour beers where I let the lactic bacteria take the PH down to 3 before I add yeast. Some yeasts don't do too well, bread yeast seems to not like it. My UJSSM slows way down when I use too much backset.

[iwine]

Just a thought. Instead of using sulfuric acid. What about using lime or lemon juice or citric acid?
Does it work the same as sulfuric acid but slower or do they not work at all?
Sulfuric acid gives me the heebie-jeebies
I have 4 dunder pits going one is about 5 years old Which by the way made some of the best rum that I've ever had But I have never been able to repeat that So sad. The other three I have one with yogurt culture one with Swiss cheese and the other Just open to the elements outside. I was just debating about doing something for pHIn these last three Buckets

[zapata]

I see a question sittin there and no answers, so I'll give it a shot. I'm not 1000% sure, but I think you really want sulfuric if you are forcing the esters. It's not a pH thing, it's a sulfuric acts like a catalyst thing.

Meaning the sulfuric acid is just swimming around in the wash when she sees her friend carboxylic acid. She grabs ahold of Mr. Carbox and they spin around until they bump into an alcohol. Carbox, meet my friend Alco, Alco, Carbox. I think you too would get along well, here hold hands, now off with you. And Sulfuric twirls off to find another carboxylic acid and another alcohol to introduce. BTW, I have no idea if she really grabs carbox, or alco, of if they all three have to bump into each other. Regardless, sulfuric acid facilitates the pairing of acids and alcohols, and get's released to go do it again. Hence it doesn't take much to have an effect.

No reason to be scared of it. They sell it in hardware stores after all. And you've eaten food that has it in it. Just respect it in it's concentrated state, use proper PPE (which is something Joe Homeowner isn't doing when he unclogs his drain, so it's not gonna come screaming for you, but still, splash glasses/googles, gloves, full coverage clothing).

[Saltbush Bill]

Could somebody please explain why if this acid idea has so much merit its not used widely in Bourbon, Scotch, and Brandy production? Or is it only Rum that apparently needs more esters than can be produced by normal fermentation of molasses.

[SaltyStaves]

Could somebody please explain why if this acid idea has so much merit its not used widely in Bourbon, Scotch, and Brandy production? Or is it only Rum that apparently needs more esters than can be produced by normal fermentation of molasses.

Feed grade molasses is the predominant grade of molasses used in rum producing countries. It is loaded with lime as a byproduct of sugar production and during fermentation, it buffers the wash and prevents the pH from dropping as would normally occur in a Bourbon/Scotch/Brandy wash. Without adjusting this, rum producers would risk infection.
That, is by far the biggest usage for sulfuric acid in rum production. Whether the rum is high or low in esters is a matter of how long it is fermented for (except in the case of Jamaican rum where live muck/dunder and fission yeast do the job).

You don't have to make estery rum, but if you want to, then you have to adjust the acidity to do so.

[Single Malt Yinzer]

Could somebody please explain why if this acid idea has so much merit its not used widely in Bourbon, Scotch, and Brandy production? Or is it only Rum that apparently needs more esters than can be produced by normal fermentation of molasses.

SaltyStaves answered this question well, I am adding onto it. While there are technical reasons why it isn't used, stylistically there are reasons too.

Part of this is the length of fermentation time with molasses vs grains. Commercial distilleries tend go for speed: 2-3 days fermentation max. Commercial rum distilleries hit a couple weeks due to all the extra crap in it. That's when most of the flavor gets created. For whiskeys the majority of the main flavors really come more from the barrel, especially bourbon. Esters are a minor bit. Only in scotch with reused barrels and longer aging do esters start taking more of a role in it's flavor profile. In another thread about commercial distilling he stated that they stilled the mash before full attenuation to reduce tails - and the flavors that come with it.

Also the reason that commercially that people don't produce heavily flavored whiskeys is that consumers don't want them as much as they want lighter flavored ones. It's why blended Scotch sells more than Single Malts. Most people don't like the heavy Single Malts. They prefer a lighter blended Scotch. If there were more people asking for a heavier flavored whiskey there would be more of them out there.

Arroyo gets credited as one that really helped understand esters and flavor formation in rum. He did a lot of that research in an effort to find the exact opposite - reduce flavor and fermentation time. He worked for Bicardi. All of his research into stuff some of us like, heavy esters and strong flavors, were asides from his main focus. The reason that Bicardi's white rum is so lightly flavored is partially due to Arroyo's research.

[Single Malt Yinzer]

It's not a pH thing, it's a sulfuric acts like a catalyst thing.

The reason that sulfuric does a good job is due to it's low pH. The catalytic nature of sulfuric is that it can "share" H (hydrogen) easily. Low pH means something will give away H more freely than something with a high pH, where the molecule needs more to give that H away. In Fischer esterfication H is borrowed from an acid and returned when the reaction is complete.

Just a thought. Instead of using sulfuric acid. What about using lime or lemon juice or citric acid? Does it work the same as sulfuric acid but slower or do they not work at all?

It would work but not as well. The lower the pH the more reactions there are. https://homedistiller.org/wiki/index.php/Ester" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[zapata]

Just to be nitpicky, I think you're a little confused about pH vs. acid strength. The strength of an acid is not measured in pH, but in Ka and is a reflection of how likely the acid is to donate it's proton. pH on the other hand is a measure of the number of hydrogen ions in a solution.

Sulfuric acid is a much stronger acid than say citric, and that is why it is a better catalyst in esterification, not simply due to pH. Sulfuric acid at pH 3.0 is much stronger and thus reactive than citric at pH 3.0. More or less any acid can facilitate esterification, but the weak ones take longer, even if at the same pH as a stronger acid.
See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_strength" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[Single Malt Yinzer]

Oh. Thanks for correcting me, I didn't know that there was a different measure for that. Now I do.