filtering amber rum to make clear white rum

[partonken]

Distilleries filter there amber rum to take out all colour and a bit of flavour leaving a nice clear white rum. I am going to start a trial on this using different amounts of carbon, maple charcoal , etc. Anyone had any experience filtering amber to make white rum?? thanks

[Expat]

Seems like a strange idea to me, distillate is clear.

[distiller_dresden]

Is this because you've oaked it, and once you've gotten some flavor off your wood, you want to get your rum white again?

[LWTCS]

Its a common technique in PR to age for two years on spent oak barrels, Filter out the color, and then age an additional two years on glass for a white rum.

Rounds it out very nicely.

[distiller_dresden]

Yeah I knew that, I read "The Distiller's Guide to Rum" so I'm an intermediate non-expert on rum, in theory.

[der wo]

I once made a sugarhead from peated barley draff and I wasn't happy with it after oaking. As an experiment I filtered a part of it with charcoal powder. It removed all flavors related to tails, much of the wood spices and almost all color. The peat flavor got more desireable than before, the fruit flavors remained and the sweetness of the oak too.

And once after filtering neutral through a long charcoal pipe, as an experiment I filtered failed fruit macerations through it (I didn't want to use the charcoal again). Similar result, but more extreme: It removed all flavors and color except the sugar from the fruits.

This is why I think charcoal filtering after oaking makes a smooth white Rum: the oak sweetness remains. Tails shouldn't be an issue with such Rum, because those filtered Rums are AFAIK all column distilled to 95%.

[distiller_dresden]

What are the circumstances or instances/uses for charcoal filtering der wo? I thought, I guess incorrectly even though I'd read the rum book and had this tidbit of knowledge, that it was used by home distillers mostly using turbo yeasts because they'd gotten off flavors in their distillate from the turbo yeast. That most of us didn't use it for the most part because it would just take the flavors we worked hard to get into our liquor.

[partonken]

after some searching i hit pay dirt. Distilleries will filter the rum right out of the still through carbon or charcoal to remove any bad flavours etc , age on wood for a year or two then filter it through charcoal to romove all colour but leaving alot of the rum flavour and the sweet oak barrel aged taste. I will be running some trials on this as soon as my rumrunners rum has finished. LWTCS thanks your right on the money.

brugal rum in domincian republic makes an excellant rum with an authentic barrel aged taste. And the rum changes flavour to its betterment as well with the oak. Ive been making white rum from scratch for years and it is different flavour than barrel aged, still good but i love the barrel aged taste.

[der wo]

It were only experiments with failed spirits.
I also tried a jar not failed Bourbon with a small amount granulated charcoal. It removed more of the good flavors than of the bad ones.

For neutrals I like charcoal. It removes very easily tails. It's not only a bit more clean, I also can do the spirit run faster and cut the tails later. It's not needed for a good neutral. Especially if you have a long packed reflux column.