Bundaberg Red using Australian Red Gum

[kiwistiller]

This comes up fairly frequently. No one's done it with red gum.

[blanikdog]

I've been going to try but haven't done any rum for a long time. Maybe soon now that the weather is a little warmer. I'd be interested in your results, spud.

[kiwistiller]

You've got to charcoal it - turn it completely to charcoal by heating in the absence of oxygen. then grind, and filter through it. Well, that's what I do with manuka, anyway.

[Ayay]

Yes it's the charcoal used in the filterin, not the wood. The charcoal will impart something from the wood that it was derived from. Better be charcoal because it will absorb more than it gives out. Thus BundyRed has more sucked out than pushed in, and RedGum is the cheapest sourse available in that region....spin-an-doctorin as usual.

[kiwistiller]

Just for clarification, I have no experience with red gum - my charcoal filtering was done with manuka (similar to your tea tree I think), it's an extremely strong flavoured wood, used a lot for smoking and so on here. I got heaps of flavour after using ground charcoal in three or four coffee filters and a funnel, and just slowly pouring the stuff through. if you want more flavour you can do a second or even third pass. My experience was that the second pass bought the manuka to the foreground in taste rather than just a background flavour, and a third pass made it too dominant. Of course, you can always blend it back to reduce as well, so have a play around with some small samples.

I used only dried heartwood from mature trees.