Starting a new round of rum batches.

[GingerBreadMan]

Last year for my learning experience I made practically nothing but rum. I probably fermented and distilled 12 batches.

For the most part I used fancy molasses and brown sugar. Some batches I backseted, others I didn't. I let some of it age (drank some it hot of the still - there was a few really yummy bottles) and had some friends over to taste test.

I have come to the following conclusions

1) Don't use the oak shavings for oaking wine. These bottles just seemed to leave a sediment mess. Good thing I only did a few bottles like that.

2) Cinnamon is a very strong spice. Use very little when trying to make a spiced rum.

3) When inviting friends over for a rum tasting, this rapidly degenerates into drinking.

4) I have to keep better records. The 5 star bottles I have no idea what exactly was the process.

Overall, then trend seemed to be bottles that were made later were better then bottles I made while still learning. I attribute the better tasting stuff to better cuts and a handy supply of feints from previous runs.

I just started my new batch of the season. Keeping better records and I have the confidence to go out and get an oak barrel for better aging.

Tonight's batch is inspired by reading pinto's fast ferment rum

6 x 640g Fancy Molasses
1kg brown sugar
1/4 cup active dry yeast
2 Women's multivitamins
1 tsp citric acid
5 tsp DAP
1 pkg EC-1118 yeast


In a small pot boil about 4L of water, add brown sugar, citric acid, DAP and 1/4 cup active dry yeast. Boiled for 45 minutes.

Add to carboy, add fancy molasses, top up with spring water to 20L mark on carboy. Power drill mix vigorously introducing as much O2 as possible. SG reading was 1.08

Rehydrate and pitch yeast.

Stop staring at it waiting for magic to happen, make a drink with the 5 star stuff and post at Home Disitller

[saltwatersniping]

Quote

3) When inviting friends over for a rum tasting, this rapidly degenerates into drinking.

End Quote

Hahahahahahahahaha.

So how's it turning? The 5 star I mean, lol.

How quick is the quick ferment wash?

[GingerBreadMan]

When done right it should ferment in 36 hours. I deviated a little from the recipe so I'm sure it won't be 36 hours. I also went cheap on the yeast and only pitched one packet - so I have to grow a yeast culture. If I pitched more yeast it probably would go faster.

I'm little worried I'm low on proteins for the nutrients - almost added some tomato paste but decided not to. I was going to add wheat germ, but I forgot to buy it when I went shopping.

My normal ferments went 10-14 days. I'm shooting for a nice 5-7 day ferment.

[saltwatersniping]

Wow! 36 hours... or even 5 days is awesome.

I would like to try but don't like adding multivitamins in to my washes.

How necessary do you think this step is? Can it be substituted with additional nutrients?

And for the record, what's DAP?

Salt

[GingerBreadMan]

The multivitamins add vitamin B. Plus other minerals.

DAP is diammonium phosphate. It's sold at wine making places as yeast nutrients - some packs have yeast hulls + diammonium phosphate, others just have the diammonium phosphate only. It add nitrogen to the wash.

You'll see variations here at the boards, rather then using DAP others use fertilizer - something like a 20-0-0 or a 10-10-10. I haven't totally read up on using fertilizer.

A good post on making fast sugar ferments is here -

http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5230

Lots of variations of using different ingredients to get what the yeast needs to ferment fast.

[saltwatersniping]

Thanks for he link.

I don't know about using fert's.

So is the dap what helps it ferment faster?

[GingerBreadMan]

DAP alone won't make it ferment fast. Having a nice balance of nutrients is needed too. Pinto covers just about everything in that link.

A handy site is

http://www.nutritiondata.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

You can find what different food has in it. You need the proteins, vitamin B, and minerals. If you look at molasses with this site you'll see its got minerals but no proteins. The yeast needs those to be happy and strong about making alcohol.

A vigorous mix before you pitch the yeast will add lots of oxygen to get the yeast to grow into a nice colony. The DAP or fertilizer adds nitrogen to feed it - just like your house plants. The yeast also like a lower PH level.

A healthy happy yeast colony works really hard and ferments fast.

The downside from reading about fast fermentations is some say they impart off flavors. So all of this is up to experimentation and your taste buds.

Surprisingly a good yeast nutrient is yeast itself. That's why I boiled a quarter cup of it - to kill the yeast to make it nutrients.

[Bsnapshot]

I am still in my learning stage but I was having some problems making good rum and then I tried pinto's fast ferment and it turned out good for me. It took about 5 days to ferment and then I racked it and let it sit a week and then ran. Nice taste and it was a good learning point for me.

I have two other batches I an trying out with different recipes.

I do to will keep better notes for more consistent results. Now I have to just learn more on making better cuts.

[Old_Blue]

have to keep better records. The 5 star bottles I have no idea what exactly was the process.

Everybody, please, please, please start doing this.

I don't know how many times me and Dooley over the years have made stuff ( beer or otherwise )with a recipe that came over us on the spur of the moment and everybody, and and I mean everybody, raved about it as being the being the best ever. Later we talk and have a very faint recollection of what we did. We were more interested in picking banjos and guitars than writing down the ingredients and we both getting too old to remember.

Writ it down and save it for those that come after us.

[Bsnapshot]

I make over 200 gallons of wine and beer evey year and I keep detailed records of ingrediance, time, methods, racking time and fermenting. But I have not done that yet with my washes for distilling. Why I do not know.

[saltwatersniping]

I just remembered...

Store bought gelatin is an excellent source of nitrogen and is even suggested to be dilluted and used for great plant growth instead of chemicals.

Maybe a dilluted mix of gelatin would boost this fast ferment.

[barrelcreator]

Gingerbread man. Did you boil your oak nuggets for 30 seconds before adding to the rum. This will eliminate the haze. Give it a shot. It should help. Knowing of overall oak extraction, this product is superior for flavor.

bring water to boil. Add nuggets for 30 seconds, drain, add emediatly to the rum.

Last year for my learning experience I made practically nothing but rum. I probably fermented and distilled 12 batches.

For the most part I used fancy molasses and brown sugar. Some batches I backseted, others I didn't. I let some of it age (drank some it hot of the still - there was a few really yummy bottles) and had some friends over to taste test.

I have come to the following conclusions

1) Don't use the oak shavings for oaking wine. These bottles just seemed to leave a sediment mess. Good thing I only did a few bottles like that.

2) Cinnamon is a very strong spice. Use very little when trying to make a spiced rum.

3) When inviting friends over for a rum tasting, this rapidly degenerates into drinking.

4) I have to keep better records. The 5 star bottles I have no idea what exactly was the process.

Overall, then trend seemed to be bottles that were made later were better then bottles I made while still learning. I attribute the better tasting stuff to better cuts and a handy supply of feints from previous runs.

I just started my new batch of the season. Keeping better records and I have the confidence to go out and get an oak barrel for better aging.

Tonight's batch is inspired by reading pinto's fast ferment rum

6 x 640g Fancy Molasses
1kg brown sugar
1/4 cup active dry yeast
2 Women's multivitamins
1 tsp citric acid
5 tsp DAP
1 pkg EC-1118 yeast


In a small pot boil about 4L of water, add brown sugar, citric acid, DAP and 1/4 cup active dry yeast. Boiled for 45 minutes.

Add to carboy, add fancy molasses, top up with spring water to 20L mark on carboy. Power drill mix vigorously introducing as much O2 as possible. SG reading was 1.08

Rehydrate and pitch yeast.

Stop staring at it waiting for magic to happen, make a drink with the 5 star stuff and post at Home Disitller

[GingerBreadMan]

Thanks I'll have to give it a try.

Basically I had a pack of Oak left over from making wine. Being a total noob I just dumped some in a few bottles. I kinda figured it was a mistake as soon as I did it. There was all kinds of oak dust in the pack that added to the problem.

When I 'oak' a chardonay when making wine, I add it during the primary fermentation and this gets all filtered out by the time I bottle it.

[RadicalEd1]

Say, when aging rum do you generally use charred, toasted, or 'raw' oak? Since you say for wine I would assume toasted, but you know what they say...Don't AssUMe

[GingerBreadMan]

All of my first batches I made I just aged in a bottle. Let it air out for a couple days, then shake once in awhile. I played with using oak strips that I attempted to char but decided since I didn't really know what I was doing it probably was best to age unoaked. Afterall, if I screw up on the oaking I wouldn't know if was my recipe, distilling technique or the aging that made the rum not as good as I expected.

The oldest bottles used the 'forget about it' aging technique. I literally put in a bottle, put the bottle in a box and put the box in a closet and totally forgot about it. It wasn't until I was digging around looking for empties that I discovered these bottles.

I found adding a couple drops of vanilla worked really well with rum. That's probably all the treatment I did with it.

For wine, all my wine is just aged in a bottle. The chardonays I put a pack of oak chips in during fermentation - although I'm not sure it does much of a difference.

Now that I have a pretty good idea of how I want to make the rum - from fermenting to distilling, my second series of batches will be aged on oak - most likely I'll get a barrel. I figure there was no point in aging some beginner cuts in an expensive oak barrel.

Charred or toasted - hmmm. I have no idea, but I have plenty of time to read the Aging and flavoring forum and ask some dumb noobie questions

I am looking forward to taking rum making to the next level.

[rumbaba]

Did you boil your oak nuggets for 30 seconds before adding to the rum. This will eliminate the haze

Every so often a nugget of information comes along that turns out to be a gem. I have been scratching to find a way to prevent the haze, as have many others judjing by the many different posts on this matter. I may start a post in the off-topic section to list simple but effective hints,such as this one.

[GingerBreadMan]

I distilled this batch on April 1st. It probably fermented in about 6 days, but I just let it sit for another 8 days.

Did a stripping run, stripped it until there was virtually no alcohol left in the pot to get all the good 'rum oils' out of the pot. Saved about 6L of backset.

There was about 5-6L of alcohol after stripping - guessing didn't measure.Then I added 1L of feints from previous batches and about 1L of distilled water.

Did a spirit run and collected 4 bottles @ 45% ABV, kept the feints for the next run.

Boy is this stuff delicious. I went over to friends place on April 3, with a bottle and we finished it off. I guess I got a compliment when he said it's got that cuban rum taste to it. A very 'singular' taste with no complexity but you can definitely taste and appreciate the fancy molasses. Also, he said he's pretty surprised how smooth it was just being 2 days old.

I think the complexity will come with a couple of generations of backseting and aging. Unfortunately these 4 bottles will not make it to the aging process

Started a new batch using this recipe -

- Lees on the bottom of the first ferment
- add 6L of backset
- add about 500g of brown sugar.

Boil to kill bacteria for 30 minutes and maybe invert sugar.

- pour in fermenter - using plastic pail fermenter this time.
- add 6 x 640g fancy molasses
- add 1 multivitamin
- add 5 oz tomato paste
- top up with spring water to 23L

Mix very well with my power mixer

Pitch 2 EC-1118 on top. Wait 4 hours, close lid put on airlock.

Fermenting like crazy about 10 hours later. I started a turbo yeast at the same time as this and my rum wash is fermenting better and faster then the turbo.

[FraekNess]

I distilled this batch on April 1st. It probably fermented in about 6 days, but I just let it sit for another 8 days.

Did a stripping run, stripped it until there was virtually no alcohol left in the pot to get all the good 'rum oils' out of the pot. Saved about 6L of backset.

There was about 5-6L of alcohol after stripping - guessing didn't measure.Then I added 1L of feints from previous batches and about 1L of distilled water.

Did a spirit run and collected 4 bottles @ 45% ABV, kept the feints for the next run.

Boy is this stuff delicious. I went over to friends place on April 3, with a bottle and we finished it off. I guess I got a compliment when he said it's got that cuban rum taste to it. A very 'singular' taste with no complexity but you can definitely taste and appreciate the fancy molasses. Also, he said he's pretty surprised how smooth it was just being 2 days old.

I think the complexity will come with a couple of generations of backseting and aging. Unfortunately these 4 bottles will not make it to the aging process

Started a new batch using this recipe -

- Lees on the bottom of the first ferment
- add 6L of backset
- add about 500g of brown sugar.

Boil to kill bacteria for 30 minutes and maybe invert sugar.

- pour in fermenter - using plastic pail fermenter this time.
- add 6 x 640g fancy molasses
- add 1 multivitamin
- add 5 oz tomato paste
- top up with spring water to 23L

Mix very well with my power mixer

Pitch 2 EC-1118 on top. Wait 4 hours, close lid put on airlock.

Fermenting like crazy about 10 hours later. I started a turbo yeast at the same time as this and my rum wash is fermenting better and faster then the turbo.

Tomato Paste in a rum wash? You haven't noticed the flavor coming through at all? Would DAP work just as well?

[GingerBreadMan]

Ooops, forgot I added 2 teaspoons of DAP as well. Tomato paste taste doesn't add any flavor.

This is done fermenting - took 3 days. Beat the Turbo wash by one day.

I added the tomato paste for something the yeast can hang onto as if floats around the wash. Well, at least that's what my theory is now

Of course, I let you know about taste after I've distilled it.

[pintoshine]

In your first wash you added the active dry baking yeast to your boil. I use it as the medium for the protein and the solids floating around for the growing yeast.
I have gotten the same response to this recipe as you have. In constant demand from family, especially after being lightly oaked.
I have one bottle of three year old left and I poured a friend some that came to visit from college. He asked for some homemade and I gave him some of the three year rum. He accused me of substituting Gosling's Black Seal. That was one of our favorites. Needless to say I was flattered. I started a new batch last Saturday. This time I am making up enough for the next year. I hate running out unexpectedly. The temps were a bit cool this week so it is going a bit slow. Maybe ready Sunday.

[GingerBreadMan]

Hi Pintoshine - Just want to thank you for all your posts about making good and fast fermenting washes. I'm really understanding how to do it now.

I haven't tried blackstrap molasses yet, but that's going to be my next recipe. I want to compare the rum flavors between fancy and blackstrap molasses. Who knows, there might be even some interesting blending that I can do.

I'm satisfied that I can do a good wash in a week, or let it sit an extra week after fermenting. Makes it easy on scheduling - I can reserve Sundays for distilling and making washes.

[pintoshine]

I am happy to report that I was able to get a good fermentation of 12% in 6 days using baking yeast. The singling and doubling runs took all of Saturday and Sunday. So far I have done two singling runs and a doubling run through Shirley and Stacy. This is by far one of the best I have done. Stacy's output was a bit less that 25 L today. I have two more doubling runs to do. I added the heads and tails to the low wines from the second singling run. I am going to blend all the doubling runs to make the final product. I should have enough for the family and camp outs this year. I am planning some for a carboy full of oak for next year too. This should be a good run for that. The stuff that came across at 60% was delicious. It was so floral. This is the first time that floral scents have come across. I am looking forward to what the mature product is going to taste like.

[GingerBreadMan]

New batch started tonight.

Ingredient list

7 x 675g fancy molasses
5 ounce tomato paste
pinch of epsom salts
5 tsp of DAP
1 women's day vitamin (for vitamin B)
1 3/4 tbsp of citric acid
top up with spring water to 21L
2 x EC-1118 yeast.

What's new-

I decided to cut back to 1 multivitamin I think it's enough. I bought a ph meter and the ph was a little high so I added more citric acid to bring the ph down to 5.0. I added the pinch of epsom salts for the magnesium. Left out the dry yeast for nutrients this time.

Will see if this ferments clean and fast

[GingerBreadMan]

I repeated this recipe, doing stripping runs collecting until the output was ~0%ABV. Collected enough low wines until I had about 11-12L and ran a spirit run.

Discarded about 500ml of heads. I had feints from a previous run that I added and didn't want my heads collection to get too headsy. I ended up with 2L of feints (heads and tails), 4L @ 65% ABV that I put on oak, and 750ml @ 40% ABV that I'm going to drink at white rum.



I'm really please with this recipe. I'll let the rum on oak age for about 30 days before dilluting to 40% and bottling it.