First batch of rum, need some help.

[charredoakbarrels]

Hey everyone. Just last week I did my first batch of rum. Took an easy recipe (2lbs brown sugar for every gallon of water), made 24L worth and added a cup of mulling mix for spice. For yeast I got a package of "Super Yeast X-Press by Liquor Quik" which is enough yeast for 6.5 gallons or 24.5L. I melted all the sugar in my water, poured into my fermenter, let it cool to room temperature and then added the yeast. Swished it around for a minute and then added my airlock. I popped it into my bedroom closet for a week.

Today I took it out and it didn't turn out as well as I was hoping. The colour is a light caramel and cloudy, you can smell the alcohol off it, but it smells a lot like an old skunky flat draft beer (like a stout that has been sitting in a glass for a few days), and tastes pretty similar as well.

I figure I have a few options..

1)I did something wrong, back to square one.
2)I'm not finished, I need to do something else before distilling.
3)The recipe was a bad one, try a different recipe.

I was hoping this would be much more straight forward, since I am working my way up to rye and eventually, hopefully, bourbon.

Can anyone give me specific advice?

[Dnderhead]

and what you call it? sugar-molasses wine?

[rad14701]

Why, may I ask, did you "added a cup of mulling mix for spice"...???

The brown sugar wash would have fermented just fine with simple bakers yeast... Brown sugar as virtually all of the nutrients it needs for a proper ferment and you ended up with way more than you needed by using Liquor Quik which contains additional nutrients as it's pretty much a "turbo"...

If it has fermented to dry then just let it clear, which may take up to a week, rack it, and run it... Only then can you decide whether it was a success or not... What you start out with is no real indication of what you'll end up with...

Good luck...

[charredoakbarrels]

Yeah after changing it from my fermenter to a sealed glass carboy it's already starting to get a darker colour around the top, a few hours in and the dark ring has extended to about 1/2". I added the mulling mix just for flavour, the recipe said I could add some honey but I didn't have any on hand and thought the mulling mix would taste pretty good.

As for the yeast. Should I have used bakers yeast instead? The guy at the brew shop told me all the shine guys were using what I used because it'll get up to 20% right off the bat and bakers yeast will die off at a very low percentage. I guess I was trying to get more bang per buck out of it. I was actually hoping to drink the wash as-is this weekend and then working on my pot-still next week.

[Dnderhead]

2 lb sugar per. gallon=14% that can be acheved with most yeast.including bakers.

[charredoakbarrels]

From what I've been reading so far on this site is that any kind of turbo yeast is a bad idea because it's going to give me bad flavours before it dies. I guess I'll try and salvage this wash and next one I'll do with regular yeast and see what I can get. Right now I've got a couple growlers full of my wash to play with to see what I can do with the rest of the batch. I'm running some of it through coffee filters on my computer desk to see what kind of residue I can get out.

[kiwistiller]

just so you know, rum wash usually tastes bad (to me) and spices are normally added after distilation. if you want to be making really good rum you need some molasses really. brown sugar has some in it (thats what makes it brown) but it is really just a substitute in my mind.

[charredoakbarrels]

I never knew that the spices were added later, that's good to know. I did add a couple cups of molasses, just left it out because it's already in the brown sugar. I think I'll try another wash this week and let you guys know how attempt #2 works out.

[Dnderhead]

you wont know untill you distill.

[armstrong]

Here is a fairly good rum recipe that i have used a few times with great sucsess. 5 Gallons of hot water , 4 multi vitamins , 12.5 lbs brown sugar , 1/2 gallon fancy mollassas , 1/2 tbsp of DAP (optional it just takes longer to ferment without it ).Adjust starting S/G to 1.110 and it will finnish off at .99 . I strip it first in my pot still and then do a spirit run later .It turns out great enjoy.

[HookLine]

An SG of 1.110 is getting high. Most here do not go above about 1.080.