UK - Looking for Blackstrap Molasses?

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Dan P.
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Re: UK - Looking for Blackstrap Molasses?

Post by Dan P. »

Be aware that that £17.94 molasses makes an unpleasantly strong tasting (burnt rubber tasting) distillate on a pot still. I now go with at least half Golden Syrup (25kg golden syrup, 25 black treacle at around £50 delivered from bako takes care of all your rum needs for a long time). Atually Golden Syrup makes a nice rum on its own, or with just a small addition of molasses or black treacle.
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greenthumb
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Re: UK - Looking for Blackstrap Molasses?

Post by greenthumb »

Thats unfortunate to hear, has this happened on more than one occasion? and it would definitely be the molasses causing this?
just seems odd that feed grade is ok, but catering grade is dodgy? Confused.com
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Re: UK - Looking for Blackstrap Molasses?

Post by Dan P. »

greenthumb wrote:Thats unfortunate to hear, has this happened on more than one occasion? and it would definitely be the molasses causing this?
just seems odd that feed grade is ok, but catering grade is dodgy? Confused.com
Could just be me. I don't really drink commercial rum so maybe that's what it's supposed to taste like? The bad taste comes over in the late heads/ early hearts. It can probably be avoided, though an aquaintance of mine has had the same result, and ended up running it through a reflux (which still made a robust and excellent rum) But at £17.94 per 25kg give it a punt. It has got to be better quality than feed grade, and if you are having good results from that then I'm sure you'll be fine.
For my next rum project I will probably use demerara sugar.
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Re: UK - Looking for Blackstrap Molasses?

Post by Burtonian »

From my reading elsewhere in this forum, I was under the impression that the 'burnt rubber' taste is due to scorched yeast cells. I don't believe there's anything intrinsically 'wrong' with the Bako molasses that makes it any more or less susceptible to this problem. It certainly tastes and smells as good as, or better than, any of the other molasses I've tried. I use a 2.4kW heating element in a 2.5 UK gallon pot, so pretty high power density, and sometimes I do get the 'burnt rubber' effect. In an attempt to get round this, I'm currently in the process of converting my set-up to indirect heating using a second pot with propylene glycol as the heat transfer medium.
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Re: UK - Looking for Blackstrap Molasses?

Post by Dan P. »

Burtonian wrote:From my reading elsewhere in this forum, I was under the impression that the 'burnt rubber' taste is due to scorched yeast cells. I don't believe there's anything intrinsically 'wrong' with the Bako molasses that makes it any more or less susceptible to this problem. It certainly tastes and smells as good as, or better than, any of the other molasses I've tried. I use a 2.4kW heating element in a 2.5 UK gallon pot, so pretty high power density, and sometimes I do get the 'burnt rubber' effect. In an attempt to get round this, I'm currently in the process of converting my set-up to indirect heating using a second pot with propylene glycol as the heat transfer medium.
If it were scorched yeast, surely it would be a problem with other distillates?
No, I believe that it is a section of the late heads/early hearts that harbours this particular taste. It seems to have mellowed with oak and age.
Also consider that it is almost unheard of fro commercial rum to be made from pure pot stilled molasses. It is used in a blend with column stilled, as the taste is just too strong. It seems too that perhaps it's naive to think that rum is distilled from molasses just as it is. There's so many grades of refined and semi-refined syrups that commercial rum producers will know to choose from (obviously not talking about rhum agricole here).
It is also very possible that where I taste burnt rubber, other people would taste yummy molasses. Every palate is different.
But, certainly nothing wrong with bako products.
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Re: UK - Looking for Blackstrap Molasses?

Post by Dan P. »

Burtonian wrote:I'm currently in the process of converting my set-up to indirect heating using a second pot with propylene glycol as the heat transfer medium.
I hope you will be doing a thread on this. Very interesting!
Though I believe that 98% of scorching events seen on these forums is due to the use of stainless rather than copper, in the case of direct fired stills.
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Re: UK - Looking for Blackstrap Molasses?

Post by Mikey-moo »

Anyone tried these guys? http://www.cateringsupplier.co.uk/shop/ ... u01910.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Seems very reasonable (although not sure what the delivery charges are like...)
Best place to start for newbies - click here - Courtesy of Cranky :-)

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Re: UK - Looking for Blackstrap Molasses?

Post by Burtonian »

£12 p+p, so pretty good, comes out at around £1.70 per kg delivered. Their price of their black treacle is almost exactly the same. I might give them a whirl when I have my next rum episode.
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Re: UK - Looking for Blackstrap Molasses?

Post by Burtonian »

Apologies for resurrecting this moribund thread, but here goes anyway.

I've been using Lyle's black treacle for my rum over the last year or so, and it works pretty well. Still looking for the 'ultimate' UK cheap source for molasses though since the Bako SE option disappeared, seems like a never-ending quest. I've just found a new one though, which I'm probably going to try, and which I'll post here for anyone who's interested.

It's 'NortemBio': 100% pure unsulphured cane molasses the blurb says, 28kg for £30.62, free UK delivery, via 'Amazon'. That comes out at £1.09 per kg, which is pretty good.
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Re: UK - Looking for Blackstrap Molasses?

Post by Tony1964 »

Burtonian

I take it there is a certain amount of Burton-on-Trent in your name....

I've been using the NAF molasses from the farm shop in Penkridge, 44.3% sugar content, I've looked at the molasses you suggest on Amazon but cant see the sugar content listed, you know what it is, the NAF molasses, I've done 3 runs with, and do find it to be good to use.

Cheers from slightly south of you.

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Re: UK - Looking for Blackstrap Molasses?

Post by Burtonian »

Hello Tony, yes I lived in the Burton area for years, all my kids were born there, moved to east midlands about 15 years ago.

Regarding the 'NortemBio' molasses, it's being sold as fertiliser, so presumably they feel nobody's going to be interested in the sugar content for that purpose. I'll probably end up just buying some and seeing what happens. If I do, I'll post some comments here on how things turn out.
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Re: UK - Looking for Blackstrap Molasses?

Post by WeegieDistiller »

Hey man, I use Ragus cane molasses from Bako and probably available from other catering supply companies.
Not sure how much they'd charge for small volumes but should be in the region of £25-30 per 25kg. They're about 60% sugars but defo more flavour than black treacle.
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Re: UK - Looking for Blackstrap Molasses?

Post by Burtonian »

Well yes, as I stated previously, I used the Ragus cane molasses from Bako back in 2014 and found it gave good results, as indeed I subsequently found I also got good results from Lyle's black treacle. As far as I'm concerned, I found both products give similar results; I definitely didn't find the product from the Ragus molasses to be in any way superior, just cheaper. Then again, earlier in the thread, someone else claimed the Ragus molasses makes an excessively strong-tasting rum, with a 'burnt rubber' taste. When I suggested this might in fact have been the result of yeast scorching, I was loftily pooh-poohed, so make of that what you will!

Anyway, to get back to the point, yes the Ragus molasses is a very good deal if you can find it; in 2014 I was able to get 25kg from Bako South Eastern for £17.94 plus £9.99. There was a problem however when I tried to order some more, and it's been showing on the Bako South Eastern website as 'unavailable' pretty-much ever since. I know it appears in the product listings for other Bako areas, but I've had no joy trying to order relatively small quantities off them, ie one or two 25kg containers per year. All that happens is that their sales people just keep phoning me asking how many dozen I want per week! So what's the secret? How does a hobbyist manage to get single 25kg containers off Bako, and what's the 2019 price?
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Re: UK - Looking for Blackstrap Molasses?

Post by WeegieDistiller »

Cool stuff man! I find the Ragus molasses closer to NAF than black treacle flavour wise and looking at the tech specs the different between the molasses and treacle is the ratio of molasses vs added invert sugar to up the % sugars.
I think the burnt rubber probably would of came from scorching the residual sugars in a molasses wash, the lowest final gravity I've had using Ragus is around 1.024 so quite a bit of caramelized sugars left over.

Yeah the weekly calls can be slightly annoying... my secret is that I also do the micro distillery side of things and still do my own stuff at home so I tend to order a few hundred kg at a time and add a bit extra for own use!! It's currently sitting about £23 to us but I guess prices vary depending on quanities bought.
I'm not sure why they say its unavailable. You could maybe called Ragus themselves and find out if there are any other local distributors.
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Re: UK - Looking for Blackstrap Molasses?

Post by Dan P. »

Burtonian wrote: Mon Apr 08, 2019 6:56 am I was loftily pooh-poohed, so make of that what you will!
You weren’t loftily pooh-poohed. You were politely contradicted because the “scorched yeast” explanation is an unimaginative HD meme that did not apply to my experience.
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Re: UK - Looking for Blackstrap Molasses?

Post by Aitch1969 »

The gold label looks like a popular choice, even sold on amazon with rum yeast



What kind of results have people been getting
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Re: UK - Looking for Blackstrap Molasses?

Post by DSmith78 »

I pay 9.99 for 5l of gold label in a local animal feed /flour mill.
There are three types of people in this world - those who can do maths and those who cannot.
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Re: UK - Looking for Blackstrap Molasses?

Post by Reaverman »

Aitch1969 wrote: Sun Feb 28, 2021 1:54 am The gold label looks like a popular choice, even sold on amazon with rum yeast



What kind of results have people been getting
That's for horses and cattle, won't there be presevatives and other additives in there?
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Re: UK - Looking for Blackstrap Molasses?

Post by AlWorms »

Granted, I'm in NZ, so everything is different, but:

I have a local animal feed producer nearby - horse, alpaca, chicken, pig pellets etc. They have molasses in massive tanks and use it in the manufacturing of the pellets.

I drive about 25 minutes to them and fill up a car load of re-used 20L containers. It costs NZ$1 +tax per kg. so that would be £0.52 + tax@15% per kg 8)

Last load: 112L = 157kg = NZ$180 =~ UK£95

It's all imported into NZ, so I suspect it could be gotten elsewhere cheaper.

It's feed grade and has made some variable rums... but I'm pretty sure that's my fault - I've only burned though about 300 litres so far.

Finding somewhere like that may be hard, but if you can find a bulk wholesaler (who sells it by the tonne, often farming fertiliser/nutrient sellers etc), they may either fill containers, or tell you somebody they supply who will.

I also have thousands of farms nearby, and a lot of them use it for silage, so farming supply places have it too, though they usually sell you a plastic container every time and charge like wounded bulls.

If you know dairy farmers - talk nicely to them :wink:
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Re: UK - Looking for Blackstrap Molasses?

Post by Bren »

I bought some feed molasses from my local tac shop cost me £20 for 10ltrs.
I made my first run and as someone up the thread said i had a foul taste of molasses it was rank so it sat for about 2months and the misses drank the lot so i guess with just a little aging it got better.
Ill have another go next month see what happens.
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Re: UK - Looking for Blackstrap Molasses?

Post by Knife_man »

I get my horse molasses from eBay, whatever is cheapest at the time and got good results.

Would love to find somewhere localish but the "horsey people" I've asked have always come back with a price similar or more then getting it from eBay WITH shipping.
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Re: UK - Looking for Blackstrap Molasses?

Post by Knife_man »

Aitch1969 wrote: Sun Feb 28, 2021 1:54 am The gold label looks like a popular choice, even sold on amazon with rum yeast



What kind of results have people been getting
I've used this one with results similar to others. I like it and the people I share it with like it to.

In fact to be honest have never really noticed a difference with any of the molasses I've used. Perhaps it's my palette that needs work 🤣.
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Re: UK - Looking for Blackstrap Molasses?

Post by witch »

Have you tried farm super store by you that sell's to farming communities like the one by me.

https://www.tfmsuperstore.co.uk/product ... 5-litre-2/
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