Home Distiller

I just put down a rum, first one in a while so I thought I would run though how I do it although it is very similar to how many others go about it.
This is for an 80 litre fermenter so around say a 74 litre ferment (19 to 20 gal)
8 ltrs (2.1 gal) stock feed molasses
7 kg (15.5 lbs) of raw (turbinado) sugar
4 tblspoons of tomato paste
Teaspoon of Epson salts
Approx 50 to 100 grams (1.8 to 3.5 oz of dry bakers yeast
Method
OK so I put about 10 or so litres (aprox 3 gal) of hot water in and ladle the molasses in a litre at a time turning with a paddle with each litre. Then I add another 10 or 15 litres (4 gal) of hot water and add the sugar using the same method stirring as I go. I them add the tomato paste, some guys use vitamin b tablets but I think the paste is a cheap all rounder and some of the molasses we get is stripped to blazes. I've found this small amount of paste contributes nothing to the flavour so I'm good with it. After giving it a good stir with the paddle I then top with hot or cold water to get a temp in the high 30s Celsius (around 96'f). Some guys will say that's a bit hot but not really for most bread yeasts and rum does fine to run hot. When I'm satisfied I'm in the temperature range I want I pour the dry yeast over top evenly, you can hydrate the yeast first but I don't bother for rum. I don't stir it in and at this stage seal it up. A bit of insulation will come in handy around the fermenter if the weather is cool as run likes it warm, its not the end of the world if its not though. I didn't add dunder to this but if ya do don't go overboard, I wouldn't use more than 1/8 of the total volume unless ya enjoy messing around with pH.

Interesting, I believe the panela I purchase from Sugardaddy has enough nutrients. Never saw tomato paste added to any recipes other than birdwatchers. I bet the fermentation really takes off!

If it was 100% molasses I reckon it would be fine, turbinado has more nuets than white but more nuets than none doesn't necessarily mean enough. I find without nutrients added it struggles to finish.

Yeah I can get Panela to finish with out any issues but the addition of some nutes does get it done a bit more aggressively.

I like seeing how others make their rum.

I’ve been on a rum thing for over a year now and just finished stripping the last batch.

I use two 6 gallon fermenters and in each I put
An entire jug of mother’s molasses, 2lbs of melted palm sugar, teaspoon of dap and then add 1.5 gal of warm to hot water. stir then add 4 gallons of water, aerate and top it off with some EDV 493 yeast and let it sit for 3 weeks or so until it tastes dry.

I want to move onto panella, just have to order up a big ole bag and get going.

I just bought some fermaid o and think that I may use it on my next rum to see if there's a difference.

I use dark brown sugar because the stuff you used is quite expensive here and I haven't found a good source for it cheaper YET but very similar in the ways we make rum I see.

Do you strip or just a single run?

I use to double run, I use a plated column now. What ya want to look for is black strap, pretty sure I seen it in gallon jugs in Tractor supplies in WV so I expect it will be elsewhere. OK just done some checking and they sell evolved habits gal jug molasses for $10 using a Richmond VA zip, its about the same price at Cabela's too. Here's a link on how one guy deals with it.
http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 0#p6857353

That's the one I use, I've not had any problems at all using it even with the preservative. I think it's so minimal after adding all the water it doesn't affect the fermentation.

I could imagine that if one does an all molasses wash with it it may have an affect but I use 2 gal moll and 16-18lbs dark brown sugar foe a 17 gal ferment.

It'scheaper than fancy and blackstrap around herand until I buy that 55 gal drum of blackstrap I'm stuck using it.

I've also had no problems with nutrients doing it the way I do but like I said I have enough nutes to do 500 gallons of wash so I'll use it on the next ferment just to see the differences, I'm only using them on my meads so why not! lol

I work in Richmond and they have many restaurant supply places so I may look there for bulk moll.

Same one I use as well, works great and fairly cheap. My only "complaint" if the beefy smell that carries over in the distillate. Aging mellows it quite a bit and it turns out fine but, it's still off putting for the first few months. I don't think Id be able to drink it white as it reminds me of liquid jerky.

I add one gallon of molasses and 1 gallon of dunder to 3 gallons of hot water, 2 vitamin B complex tabs and 1 good amount of baker yeast, thats it. I only ferment rum in the summer when it hot outside. I leave it on the deck in the sun in the buckets and it's ready t go in 4-5 days.

Very close to mine,same nutrients though. Actually I make two rums, one mostly brown sugar and a gallon of molasses made up to 15 gallon. That one is for Apple pie. And then the other, 4 gallons of molasses made to 16 gallon. It's for ageing.
Both with Epsom salt,tomato paste,and oyster shell.
Jbt

You could actually make that light rum a lot cheaper than using brown sugar by using mostly cane sugar and a bit of your molasses. I've made white rum using brown sugar but if you have molasses on hand why bother.

According to my calculations (in NZ),it's always cheaper to use white cane sugar plus molasses than to use brown sugar to achieve the same ratio of molasses to sugar. A big difference is the quality of the molasses and Crow, being in the land of Oz, has easier access to affordable fine quality molasses than I have. I'm working on it. I have a gallon of rum, made from Bundaberg molasses, aging in a black glass demijohn not far from my left foot.

thecroweater wrote:You could actually make that light rum a lot cheaper than using brown sugar by using mostly cane sugar and a bit of your molasses. I've made white rum using brown sugar but if you have molasses on hand why bother.

Grocery store is closer than the feed mill by about 20 miles,and I never thought of using white sugar plus molasses. Bears playing with.

yes and no, I can get Bundaberg food grade molasses if I go down the big smoke (100+kms) for something like $25 for 15 litres, Googe used it all the time. I might be able to get it from a Ballarat catering joint which is not very far away but I can get food grade molasses at $20 for 25 litres and raw is $1.09 a kg to make the same stuff. This is not really adding sugar as much as replacing it. The guys up north like SBB and others that can stand on their roof and see the nearest refinery might scoff at us down here using raw sugar but what they get is nothing like our skun out bitter stock grade stuff. I've tried to do all molasses with it and the results were very sad indeed, I would say not worth the effort. Now my guy does have refining molasses that has a much higher brix but the big issue there is it has crystalized in his tanks so if he ever gets that out I'll have a super cheap supply of very high brix molasses.

Offer to help him get it out and offer a bottle of the rum

Shine0n wrote:Offer to help him get it out and offer a bottle of the rum

on to it already

hoping you haven't made any updates to the thread because you're chipping crystallized molasses from a tank. lol
Hows it going with that?

Been checking out "what's next?" for my n00bie, growing recipe collection. I see rum. Lots of rum.

Croweater (and I mean this with utmost respect and sincerity):
If you were a rum recipe salesman, what would you say to sell me, a dumb prospect, your recipe over others?

its simple, it works and you get a reasonable yield out of moderate quality while retaining a robust flavour. I have tried a few methods, none have been really bad except I have had some really poor yields from some molasses supplies so I have found this method works for me. It is very close to the method of the first home made rum I tried and I keep going back to this style. I'm not real sure how to describe the result, perhaps similar to a Caribbean type rum. I don't thing I would say I would sell the idea as much as to say I simply shared my method that is a result of my experience. I don't think its any better than say Hook rum and many others but it sure is simpler than most.
I should mention that the ferment wasn't 74 litres as guessed but 79.5 litre so 20 US gal . So the next ferment I did had a couple more litres of molasses in it to get my yield where I want it. You can follow my recipe exact or tweak it to suit yourself.

Sold.

And thanks for teaching me a new term: turbinado.
My co-op has the stock molasses (will pick up tonight), and I just placed my Amazon Prime order for turbinado & 100% Epsom (no scents or additives).

Excited by this new hobby and all the recipes. Thanks for advancing that.
(I have a Honey Bear Bourbon barrel to fill, and then on to this.)

5 days ago I would have thought "Turbinado" was a Toyota hybrid sedan or something. Today I'm carrying pouches of it downstairs to the distilling area.
Croweater, I'm doing this in about ~2 weeks. Any lingering words?
Oh yeah I remember what I wanted to ask -barrel, white, or my choice?

Word of the day : head room, both in fermenting and cooking. I made the mistake of over filling the kettle last run, rookie mistake, big rookie mistake. This run will be some what lower and may even have a knob of butter or a bit of oil added. What devil of a run and in fact I had to shut it down and once cooled remove around 15 litres out of the kettle. It still foamed but was a bit more manageable, I can't say why one ferment will puke and the same wash next time won't, could be ferment temps or who knows. Unfermented sugars or excessive proteins are both known causes but that was well and truly fermented out unless my last batch of molasses had an excess of unfermentable carbs.
Anyways all that aside I got a fairly respectable 3.5 or so litres of hearts at around 89% abv. That was out of a 79 litre charge that was shut down very early in hearts and had around 15 litres removed so closer to 64 litres. I left it to air with the jar lids just sitting on loose and the favour is outstanding for new make rum.
As for aging you can really suit your own tastes weather you age in a barrel or sticks or leave it white some ppl like to sweeten it with a hint of maple or caramel, some like to colour and smooth it with browning caramel and others go in for spiced rum. I would say hold of on that and see how ya like it as is or at least keep some aside as a control.

Roger that. Thank you very much!

Got another fermenting vessel so I can have more going on. Seems the waiting gene is recessant in me.

Crow's Rum was a fast ferment. I called her "done" in 6 days, but only after sitting at 1.02 for two days without budging in a nice warm environment. (I understand rums are high finishers because of non-fermentables.)
The turbinado was new to me so had been sampled pinch by pinch when I first got it, therefore its unique deliciousness was etched in my mind.

Crow's Rum is fn¢king great. The rich turbinado and molasses flavors are perfectly balanced and each distinguishable, yet harmonize.
I have never ever had a bold rum such as this, and I've drunk many many commercial mainstream ones.

Be mindful of your cuts! There's temptation of liberal cutting because the exquisite rum flavor is so robust throughout -even deep into the bitter tails.
I'm keeping the feints for future runs as I believe they're not done giving. They're just that rich. This (and more of it) is getting its own new barrel along side Honey Bear Bourbon.

Granted this is my first rum. But with all due respect to the other rummy recipes & authors, I just can't imagine anything better.

Thanks Croweater. Merry Christmas.

And merry Christmas to you , for sure keep them faints good flavours both sides but keep ya cuts tight. A good barrel with do something special with it even an old port keg will work well as those flavours tend to marry well. How ya deal with it to age is up to you as everyone's tastes are different , I like a tiny bit of browning Carmel but its fine without it

Just a note, on any rum really. A barrel is a great idea, but a once or twice used one is better than a brand new one. A fresh barrel is best for your bourbon, then follow with rum, scotch, or other traditionally second used products.

My personal quest right now is the following...HBB first use, followed by Booners, a stout, then rum, and then finally a scotch. That will keep me busy for years

I appreciate that advice. I'll vacate a small whiskey cask for this rum.

UPDATE:
Got a later start on this than intended, but 3 months old in a used whiskey (Odin's Cornflake) barrel is rounding out Crow's Rum nicely, because the first thing you notice is the pronounced, distinguished turbinado.
Give me some sh!t, but after a 40% dilution sample I tasted the straight 65% barrel strength to really get an idea of what's going on. Just a wet of the beak, mind you, but it's what I do.
As good as this is white, age is pushing Crow's into rich flavor territory. A real pro recipe with exceptional taste in my humble opinion.

Kudos to thecroweater for a fine contribution to Home Distiller's primo recipes!

Sounds great, mine is in an older Italian oak barrel I used for home made port previously and it is becoming something very special. I try to add as much as I take from it and did not touch it for a good while too get some decent age on it.

If I can find some turbinado cheaper I'll give this a go, dB sugar has been the cheapest I can find and it's worked tremendously but I really need to just pony up and buy the damn sugar.
there must be a helluva difference with the sugar so I'll just do it.
Thanx for the recipe and I look forward to the rewards.