Cane molass sold as fertilizer in Europe

[der wo]

And the OG of the washes with the dunder?
If you get less alcohol from washes with dunder than from your first wash without dunder, although you took the same amount of molasses, the gravity is too high. Then you should have used less dunder (or a special high gravity yeast).

[needmorstuff]

not a clue what the OG was.. I have read that as molasses has many unfermentables that you shouldnt go off gravity?

until now the yield has been the same

At first I used bread yeast, after 4 days I added wine yeast thinking it could handle a higher %.. I guess I will just run it now

[der wo]

until now the yield has been the same

Then everything is all right.
Your dunder has perhaps a 1.070 - 1.090 SG. When you use it for mashing, it rises both the OG and the FG. And every generation will be a little higher in OG and FG. Although in this case the high gravity doesn't mean a high sugar content, nevertheless it will stress the yeast, because of the high osmotic pressure.
But your yeast seems to handle it.

[needmorstuff]

Just ran it.. Got the same yield.

So now I will go for my spirit run. Its a big one for me.. 40l @ 40%

So if the average spirit run % is 60% (and I'm guessing) I would need about 52 x 500ml jars for the 26l of distillate.. well I don't have that many. I have 19 and 6 x 1 gallon demijohns. Should I go for 10 x 500ml jars at the start and the end and split the middle in the demijohns? I don't have any other choice tbh.. Not having ever done a rum spirit run j don't know what to expect from the cuts.

[HDNB]

your heads cut will be close to a gallon (3-4 litres) so run close to a gal jug, then start collecting the smaller fractions. when you run out of jars you'll be close to tails so switch back to gallons for them.

you could also collect a gallon in the middle when you know you're running hearts.

[der wo]

I will not give you amounts or abv numbers. You should find your own way. But a few tips:

- The cuts of different distillers with the same wash vary extremely. Don't research their amounts but their methods.

- Have cold water by hand to dilute samples. If using room temp water, the diluted distilate is too warm for judging it.

- Because you don't have enough jars for fractionating the whole run, try to build during the run a conservative cutted hearts section.
At first toss some fores, then save some heads, then collect a few questionable jars (late heads or early hearts), but try to decide most of them during collecting the hearts.
You can always let evaporate heads while aging. So you don't have to be very strict IMO.

- Collect the hearts the whole time into the jars. And when all jars are full and you think you are still within the hearts, pour the earliest jar into your hearts container, that you have a new empty jar. This prevents you from running too deep into the tails. This is the main danger when making cuts during the run. As soon you recognize off-flavors (musty, yeasty) you are in the tails probably since a few jars. Where exactly you can only find out next day because the odors of distillation have already numbed your nose and palate.

- Be aware that after the tails can be a good low abv rum oil fraction. So with the remaining jars try to isolate it. Somewhere the fusel smell and cloudiness gets less, then perhaps comes a jar with high aromatic flavors. After this jar it gets more and more sour.
Also without this fraction you should get a good Rum. You didn't mess it up if you don't find it.

[needmorstuff]

so I ran it.. 900w for first 4 litres. then upped to about 1.7kw for most of the run

I got 22l before switching off

5.2l "heads", 13I kept for product, the rest tails.

the transition to tails seemed started somewhere after 92.2c - I got 1 x 500ml jar after 92.2c then I could clearly see clear thicker oils coming into the distillate. After another 2.5l I switched it off..

after a week resting the last 3.5l was cloudy with stuff floating around in it.

I took a jar in the middle and used this to compare to the other product.. working my way toward heads.. when I wasn't happy with the taste and smell (burning in the mouth, chemical/pear drops smell - not as pronounced or strong as when I am running my neutral column but it was there all the same) I tossed that in the jar to run with my neutral.. I did the same the other way, but this was harder.. even close to what I tossed as tails the smell wasn't bad, quite close to "tails" I could pick out what I thought to be coconut? sounds weird right.. and it tasted sweet.. not wet dog or nasty at all.. you could tell the abv was low but it tasted nice and smelt nice. The rest of the tails also are going to be run with my neutral.

After watering down to 60%
I kept 3.5l @ 60% from the middle white and sealed this in a demijohn with a sealed top with just a small hole so it can breath, I plan to leave it for at least a month.
11l @ 60% is in a big SS stock pot with 16 x american white oak (medium toast) fingers, I plan on leaving that at least 2 months.. longer if required. The lid was sealed and again just a small hole (1mm) left so it can breath.

[der wo]

Much heads IMO. I think you underrate the effect of mixing with the hearts, airing and aging.
For example Arroyo recommends 0.5-1% of the wash volume to discard as heads. Worthy Park discards 1-2%. You had 200l wash? Then 0.5% would be 1l, 2% 4l. And I think Worthy Park reuses the heads, Arroyo probably doesn't. Reusing increases the heads fraction of course.

And relative late tails cut (if 92.2°C means 57%abv).

But all in all it sounds ok I think?

[needmorstuff]

I had somewhere in the region of 170l of wash.

I would agree with everything you said.. I did go very conservative on heads, I didn't care for the smell and it won t be wasted as I will run it as neutral. Tails.. I took more than I planned but it smelt and tasted so good that I felt I must include it. If I were running a business I may think differently but I'm not trying to make a profit.. just the best product that I can.

Overall I am happy with the yield So yes it's all good

I'm now off to try booners all corn recipe out

[der wo]

I often regretted that I turned feints into neutral so often. Now I have more neutral alcohol I will need the next 20 years, but no feints for my next Rum.
Think about, if you really won't make Rum again the next 5 years or so.

[needmorstuff]

price has gone up 20% since I purchased..

I have however got round to repurposing the container into a 20l fermenting vessel

[needmorstuff]

just reporting in.. I had my rum on american white oak for a few months and am now drinking it.. it is very nice indeed. Certainly worth the effort, i prefer the rum on oak to white so have put what i had white on oak now.

[NormandieStill]

I bought a small bottle of the Nortembio stuff (7.3kg - Roughly 5L). I've been trying it in a BB recipe and it's the slowest fermentation I've run to date. After 2 1/2 weeks the molasses ferment seemed to have slowed (I was getting 1 point of conversion per day roughly from a high of about 2 per day) so I added sugar. I get almost no activity from the airlock (And this fermenter is generally pretty reliable at being airtight).

Yesterday, I took the remaining liquid from the clarification step which has been settling out in a closed 1L bottle, separated it from the solids, diluted it a little (~1.075 according to the refractometer) and added some yeast. Nothing noticeable happening. Today I took that test, and gently warmed it to 30C. It's sat in a water bath which I periodically heat and has been held at around 30C now for about 7 hours. I repitched a generous amount of yeast once it was warmed up and closed the lid (swing top bottle) so that I could open it from time to time to check for fizz. So far... nada.

The yeast is normal baker's yeast that I made bread with just the other day so the yeast is good. The pH is somewhere around 4-5 (using test strips). I'm not sure what else I can check.

The original batch still tastes sweet.

In general molasses ferments are described as explosive, volcano-like, uncontrollable... frankly this feels like I'm trying to ferment water! Any ideas.

[NormandieStill]

A little update: I tried a batch with fresh molasses and no dunder and got some activity but again, very minimal. I contacted the manufacturer who finally got back to me this morning and confirmed that they include potassium sorbate in their molasses as a growth inhibitor. So basically the little activity I'm getting is the actual yeast cells that I put it in continuing to work.

Got some more molasses from a local farmer. I'll fire up a new batch of rum this evening with a bit of luck. I'll probably strip what I've got to see where it ended up, but I doubt there's much usable there.