Help, I'm Lost Somewhere on the Rum Trail

[Slow & Steady]

Wow! chocholate... I havn't ever gotten that... It would be interesting to have a Dunder-Sniff-Off where we all got together with our dunder samplings and compared aroma.

sniff hmmm notes of Pineapple with a hint of old sock

S&S

[rumbuff]

Good to know about the chocolate. I didn't have any mold on my dunder, and I think it's cause I was using an old fermenter and I hadn't cleaned it properly, and there was still some active yeast, so it just kept slowly fermenting... But that's been fixed, as I cleaned everything and put the boiled dunder back in. I'll keep an eye on it, but not much activity as of yet. One more thing to experiment with.

[Buccaneer Bob]

I did my stripping run yesterday, and I came up with 5 1/2 liters of low wines with an average ABV around 55%. By my calculations, the ferment must have gone to around 15%, so maybe I have a little more sugar in my blackstrap molasses than usual?

Or perhaps the process I have been using is allowing me to use more of the harder-to-digest sugars?

Either way, I am THRILLED! WOOHOO!

One important observation I made yesterday. Every time I get toward the end of my tails, I wind up with a good deal of black scum floating on the top of my final collection jar.

I had assumed that this black scum was those elusive "rum oils" I have read so much about, but yesterday I decided to taste this black stuff just to see. BLAH!

That stuff is BAD NEWS!

If I didn't know better, I would think somebody poured some 40-weight motor oil into my fermenter when I wasn't looking. Seriously, it tastes just like motor oil.

"Rum oil" or not, I can't imagine this stuff contributing anything good to the flavor, so I skimmed the black scum off the top and discarded it. And that is what I am going to do from here on out. The black stuff has got to go.

That said, I will do my spirit run today and follow up to let y'all know how it comes out.

Seems to be a fairly labour intensive method! I've been experimenting with dunder lately. I've been leaving all the trub in the bottom of my fermenter, and adding the sugar, hot water and molasses into the container, and then 30% dunder straight out of the pit, and repitching yeast. I don't need to add yeast every time, but I figure that it'll counter the bacteria before they can get too much of a hold, and I have enough sugar to kick it to 14% and that seems be be killing all the nasties after they contribute their flavor. Seems to be working, and adds a good deal of complexity each time, without the extra effort you're describing. That said, if it's working for you, then great! As a side note, have you ever noticed a chocolate like aroma in your dunder? I'm curious to see how much the local flora has to do with the flavour of the dunder, and therefore the rum. Any thoughts on that?

Yes, this way I am experimenting with is a little more work than some recipes/processes. But is has gotten that way through an evolution of sorts.

I needed a way to limit the amount of time that the dunder microbes can do their worst on the wash. By doing my stage 1 process, I have complete control of that. And by working with 5-6 liters during this stage, it is much easier to boil in a cooking pot on the stove than it would be if I were working with a full 20 liters at that stage.

Next, I thought it would be beneficial to feed the yeast in stages, rather than put all the molasses sugars and granulated sugar in at one time. I read about "high osmotic pressure" being detrimental to the fermentation, so it made sense to feed the yeast in stages, rather than all-at-once.

It seems to working. By adding the extra nutrients and feeding the yeast in stages, I am getting much less heads than I got in my earlier runs. Before I was getting maybe 30% heads, and now I am getting maybe 10% heads.

I haven't done my spirit run or made any cuts yet, but I did a taste test yesterday after the first 800 ml of the stripping run, and it tasted really clean. I might be able to compress that down under 500 ml during the spirit run.

So that is my reasoning in doing things the way that I am doing them.

As far as chocolate aroma in my dunder, I haven't been getting that.

During the first week or so, my dunder has a really nice, complex, mollases-y smell, but after it starts to get funky, all I can ever smell is something akin to rancid beer.

But that is the dunder I am using, the rancid beer smelling stuff, and after incorporating it into my fermentation process and doing my final distillation, I am winding up with a curious cherry-like taste in my rum. Go figure.

Maybe it's something my Lallemand bakers yeast is contributing?

Either way, I am liking it. It may not be the quintessential rum, but it definitely is nice with 7-Up.

Now, if I can just get some to last long enough to age ...

[rumbuff]

I am getting much less heads than I got in my earlier runs. Before I was getting maybe 30% heads, and now I am getting maybe 10% heads.

That seems like an awful lot of heads! I save up my low wines and do a spirit run, and get maybe 2 pints out of 5 gallons. and before that it would be about 2 pints out of a 5 gallon wash. I like your idea of doing the dunder microbes seperately, for the control. I might have to copy that, once I have a couple of free fermenters

[Buccaneer Bob]

That seems like an awful lot of heads! I save up my low wines and do a spirit run, and get maybe 2 pints out of 5 gallons. and before that it would be about 2 pints out of a 5 gallon wash. I like your idea of doing the dunder microbes seperately, for the control. I might have to copy that, once I have a couple of free fermenters

I wasn't very clear on that. What I meant was that the heads would be around 10% of my distillate volume, rather than 10% of my wash volume. Sorry about the confusion.

I did my spirit run yesterday, and I collected distillate in separate jars that I covered with cotton cloth to allow each batch to air out before I make my cuts in a day or two. The jars are as follows:

#1) 500 ml -- Definitely heads. I didn't even mess with this one. It went straight into my "Denatured Alcohol" jug for shop projects.
#2) 200 ml -- Good chance of being heads.
#3) 200 ml -- Fair chance of being heads, but could go either way.
#4) 200 ml -- Fair chance of being hearts, but could go either way.
#5) 200 ml -- Good chance of being hearts.
#6) 500 ml -- Hearts.
#7) 500 ml -- Hearts.
#8) 500 ml -- Hearts.
#9) 500 ml -- Hearts.
#10) 500 ml -- Probably hearts, but could be tails. This one had a little bit of clear oil floating on the top that I skimmed off before covering the jar with cloth. It tasted okay with an ABV around 30%.
#11) 750 ml -- Tails that will go into next spirit run.

So I took off 4550 ml total distillate. If I only forfeit the first 500 ml, my heads would be 11% of my overall distillate. But I am still waiting to decide on the 200 ml jars. If I forfeit, say, the first 3 batches, that would be 900 ml, which would be very close to your 2 pints.

Hopefully, once I get my process ironed-out and I start to reach some degree of repeatability, I can make my cuts right off the still, but at this point, I am still trying to figure out my cuts.

Edit: I almost forgot to mention about the Stage 1 deal: allowing the dunder microbes to attack the molasses for awhile and then killing them off before the start of fermentation.

During the first 24 hours after mixing the dunder and molasses, all I can smell is my usual "rancid beer" dunder smell.

But after 48 hours, the smell shifts to a very complex, more molasses-y smell. And that is as far as I have gone with it, allowing the dunder microbes to attack the molasses for 48 hours.

However, I very much want to explore different time periods to see how much allowed time is best. Maybe three days or four days or five days would be better.

It's just that I am trying to wrestle with so many variables right now, I haven't had a chance to explore the dunder-microbe-on-fresh-molasses variable as much as I hope to in the future.

[Buccaneer Bob]

Okay, a few more observations.

First, I went to buy another bucket of molasses today, and it turned out to be considerably thinner than my last bucket of molasses. The last one flowed about like putty, and this newest bucket flows much more like syrup at room temperature.

So I have adjusted my recipe to read "3-4 liters blackstrap molasses (4 if it flows something like syrup at room temperature, 3 if it flows more like putty)..."

I knew that there was a lot of variation in molasses suppliers, production runs, seasons, etc., but wow, what a difference.

Second, I kindof rushed through getting this latest batch of distillate ready for drinking, because I wanted to post a followup for anyone still interested.

Normally I would have left the resulting liquor at "barrel strength" for aging purposes, but I was really curious how things were going to work out.

Besides, the last batch of rum mysteriously disappeared long before the next batch could be completed, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if this newest batch of rum does the same.

Third, and this is the really big surprise I encountered: the increase in alcohol that I achieved with the added nutrients ended up shifting a huge part of the flavors I have really grown to like more toward the tails.

I mixed up jars 5-10, tasted it, and something was definitely missing. Well, on a whim, I tasted jar #11 -- the one originally earmarked for tails -- and that was where about half of my flavor went.

These tails seemed pretty clean -- probably due largely to the fact that I had skimmed off the oils in the stripping run -- so I went ahead and added jar #11 to my mix, which definitely bumped up the flavor closer to where I was on the last run of rum.

It may have been a bit too much flavor, actually, but I'm sure it will mellow a bit with some aging. I just did my spirit run four days ago, so the flavors are much more edgy than they will be, later on down the line.

Another week will tell me more.

So after all the stuff I liked was mixed up and diluted down to around 45% ABV, I came up with a little over 4-liters of crystal-clear rum -- totally free of any floating oil-skim -- from a 20-liter wash.

I can totally live with that.

I know this use of tails flies in the face of a lot of peoples' way of doing things, and I will probably be discredited by admitting to it, but I know what I have come to like, and much of it seems to be lurking in the tails.