First rum wash

[Drunk-N-Smurf]

After a successful set of cleaning/sacrificial runs this weekend, got my first batch of rum fermenting.

It's a slight variation and multiplied version of one of the tried and true recipe for rum (Minus the dunder and lees since this is the first run)

Using a 40 gallon hdpe barrel as a ferment barrel.
Total volume approx 120-125L

Ingredients:
20kg sugar
5 litres crosbys blackstrap molasses
4 small cans of tomato paste for nutrients
Good ole fashion well water
Approx 400g red star active yeast.


How I did it:
I used a 5 gallon stock pot to mix the ingredients in 4 batches
I filled the stock pot 2/3 full with water, and brought up to a temp that was just barely too hot to stick my finger in.
Mixed 1/4 of each of my ingredients (except yeast) into the pot, and stirred frequently to make sure it all dissolved.
Poured each batch into the drum once I could verify fully dissolved (tip, add sugar first so the fluid remains clear and once dissolved, add tomato paste, break up all the chunks since you can see them, then add the molasses...once the molasses is added, you can't see anything.)
Topped the barrel off to approx 120-125 Litres

Unfortunately I knocked my hydrometer off the counter in its case, and it shattered before I could get my SG but according to my math, and the home site calcs it should be around 1.068-1.070ish and should result in somewhere in the neighbourhood of 10.4-10.8% if it ferments dry.

Once I had it topped off I gave it all a good stir to stabilize the temp, which ended up at 72F.
I pulled 2 litres back into the stock pot and pitched my yeast and let it sit for a few minutes until it was fully hydrated, and going strong before I dumped it into the barrel.

Within about 10 minutes I had a 2" yeast head churning happily.

It smells great, and after only a couple hours was already tasting pretty good too. Would produce a nice light rum I think.

I was a little worried about the temp in my buddies garage, but the yeasties were doing a good job of heating up the wash (peaked at 92F during the first couple hours), and if need be we can stoke up the wood stove.

Can't wait to run it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biN52QC1eMU

DS

[Bulletproof]

Well written instructions. I'm gonna bookmark this. Keep us up to date on your next steps please. Good luck with it too
Oh great tunes btw!8-)

[Drunk-N-Smurf]

After just about 24 hrs of fermentation, SG is down to 1.042

Popped out to check on things, and it was goin a little slow, and temp had dropped to about 62F so, looks like I'll have to keep the wood stove going after all. Got the garage warmed up a bit, and activity perked right up. Smells wonderful.

Picked up a case of 1litre mason jars as well until I can gather enough glass bottles. Everything is all set to run as soon as the yeasties are finished eating.

Can't wait to see how it tastes!

[Drunk-N-Smurf]

Either I'm doing something right, or something so wrong that peeps are waiting to let me see....I expected at least some kind of negative feedback from someone..lol

[altaran]

If it makes u feel better...I dropped my hydrometer and broke it in pieces too...:x

[Drunk-N-Smurf]

I know most of you don't need a play by play, but some novices may find some of the information helpful.

Day 3 update:
I drove out to my buddies place at the lake to check the wash today, his garage was damn cold, as was the wood stove. Wash was sitting at 40F and doing a little better than a full stall. Turns out my friend who's garage I'm using to do "my work" in had to be out of town to work so wasn't going to be able to restoke the wood stove but neglected to let me know. So after searching the forums (as all good novices should do when they have a question) I learned that many people use an aquarium heater to keep their wash warm when it's a less than desirable ambient temp. So I drove back to the city (45 minute drive) and I picked up a 300watt submersible aquarium heater for $30 at petsmart. The heater can be fully submersed up to 4ft deep, and features a visual temperature indicator for setting the cutoff point (as opposed to the 1-6 numbered versions that hang from the top edge of the tank)

I set the temp for 75F and suspended it off a leftover chunk of 3/8" tubing across the top of my fermenter, and hung it about 2/3 down in the barrel in the center. Almost instantly, the yeast woke up, and started farting away at the spot the heater was running in.

Within about an hour wash temp was up to 60F (I did initially heat the garage quickly with a propane heater when I arrived so, the ambient may have helped with the quick temp increase) and the yeast was waking up from its little nap and getting back to work.

Specific gravity was at 1.035 @ 60F (very small change from day before, obviously due the the temperature getting so low with no heat source in the garage)

Talked to my friend when he got home a couple hours ago and the wash was up to 69.4F and SG had already dropped to 1.030. He says the wash is bubbling almost as good as it was on day one. So sounds like the heater is doing its thing. And hopefully I won't have anymore temp issues.

I do have one question to ask (it may be mixed into a post somewhere on the forums, but I wouldn't know how to type it in to bring it up in the first 100 posts)
Are there any negative effects from the yeast being put to sleep so much like its been?


DS

[UtahViking]

I'm far from knowledgeable about this in any depth but from my understanding a yeasts job is to eat shit and reproduce. So.if some yeast died with the temp.changes then oh well. If its still bubbling away then the remaining yeast will reproduce enough to.make up.for it. It will.just slow down for a bit as yours has.

[Drunk-N-Smurf]

That's kind of my understanding too, but wanted to be sure.

I know when I keep getting woken up I get stressed and miserable, just worried about stressing the yeast. Hopefully it won't be an issue anymore with the heater anyway, but hey, when a question comes up, I gotta ask!

[Drunk-N-Smurf]

Day 5: heater is working great, -7C outside, 76F in the ferment barrel, SG down to 1.01 should still be able to run it this weekend! Can't hardly wait! Other than that, no news to report!

DS

[altaran]

Congrats

[Drunk-N-Smurf]

Running my wash tonight. SG was down to 0.99, and got impatient lol

I guess, I might as well make as many newbie mistakes as possible on the first wash, and get it out of my system right?

I knew I should let the yeasties settle, yet, in my excitement, I just said screw it, what's the worst that could happen?

Ok. Lesson learned, let the yeasties settle out, cause while I don't mind the flavour, my finished product tastes a bit yeasty.

Did my cuts, they were pretty consistent between batches, started with 30 gallons of wash, and ran it in 10 gallon batches, got 2 litres foreshots/heads, and 4 litres cloudy tails (went wide with my cuts I'm sure, especially in the heads department, but went by smell, and taste.)


Is there any way to get the yeast taste out? Run it again?

[Drunk-N-Smurf]

Guess I should also mention that I ran it until 26% abv.and got 7-9 litres of hearts per batch. I added my cuts back to each successive batch which gave me one extra litre of hearts per batch.(7litres on first batch, 8 on second, and 9 litres on 3rd)

Total drinkable alcohol was 19 litres (I had guesstimated about 20 after cuts) which I just combined to balance it out at 50% abv (my next batch, I will focus more on the flavour profile while blending)

I plan on recycling my backset into my next ferment. It must not have been totally done because when I recovered my backset, the SG was 1.010, and when I added it back to the yeast bed it wildly came right back to life.

Anyway, that's all I can think of right now.

Look forward to any blasting,criticism, and or recomendations!

[Drunk-N-Smurf]

Wow, no bash?! Good I guess.

After a two drinks mixed with my "lack of patience" yeast cake rum, I simply had to deem it "barely tolerable".

It's amazing how something "I can live with" quickly turns into "what was I thinking"....


So.... I dumped everything through a carbon filter (twice) and while it still has some light yeast notes to it, it has gone from "barely tolerable" to "drinkable".

I'm workin on my 5th drink right now, (2oz in a glass of ice tea) and its still enjoyable.

I tell ya, I won't make that mistake twice. Now that I have a bit of a stockpile, I have the time to be patient with the next batch.

Mistakes are good.....as long as you learn from them!

At least I'm learning how to fix my mistakes....right?


DS

[Drunk-N-Smurf]

Well, I must have made my cuts right.

Polished off my first half litre last night - got feeling really good. Woke up this morning didn't even feel like I had a single drink. (Usually wake up with some good gut rot from Bacardi)

[Drunk-N-Smurf]

Not that anyone seems to be watching this topic lol, but I can't help but report things.

I've broken into my 3rd litre of my (ahem) rum, and I gotta say, I don't know what to call this elixir, after all my messing with it to get rid of the yeast, I have something interesting all bottled up....(ok, it's in jars, but a jar is just a wide mouth bottle right?)

So anyway, I managed to rid myself of MOST of the yeast flavour/smell and this is what I have....
I have a spirit that when consumed straight gives a good burn in the mouth, but relatively smooth going down the throat, with no lingering burn. (Us Canadians normally mix our drinks, so I don't even know how store bought tastes straight outta the bottle)

As for flavour, it has some slight yeasty undertones, but so little, that I can chug it mixed with iced tea (no cash for coke to try my usual mix right now...(and please no comments on how a can of coke is less thana buck...it's been a slow few weeks at work, and I can't afford to pay attention)

The mixed drink does have a flavour to it that I can't pin point, it's not a bad flavour, I just can pinpoint it...my first reaction was almost a light tequila taste but that's not quite right either.

I can almost guarantee that I won't be able to reproduce this flavour again, but I like it...

I've coloured a few litres now (caramelized sugar), and spiced a couple (cloves, peppercorns, cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg)(the spiced turned out really nice (based on straight taste test)) and I have one litre chillin out with a handful of marischino cherries just to see what happens.

The interesting thing is, this....I tempered it all down to 40% (and verified after each run through the carbon filter) and I'm finding, it takes a lot longer to actually catch a buzz from it. (Almost have to drink double to feel the same) I know there is no hangover from it from what I've tested so far. Tough, I haven't gotten full blown drunk on it yet ( I have a party to go to this weekend, so that will be the test)

The major thing I've noticed, is that my usual rum (Bacardi white) normal give me serious heart burn after a few drinks. My stuff doesn't.

Any thoughts on my findings so far? The last time I drank anything home made was when I was 17 with my old man, and we have differing opinions on what that was like...so I don't know if what I'm experiencing is normal or not..

Whoa..buzz just hit me....I think it's time to sing off, but I look forward to some comments. (Actually really surprised I didn't get any blasting a with this topic, especially from rad! )

[Drunk-N-Smurf]

Visual of what I got..

I still have another 6 litres at 50% sitting with my still that I should pick up someday soon...

[Aussie_Distiller1989]

Sounds like a good learning curve play have fun and he safe.
The heart burn would more then Likely be from coke
It kills me but I love my bourbon and coke so I
Just deal with it lol


A.D

[rad14701]

Drunk-N-Smurf, it sounds like you're well on your way to making decent spirits... Whenever I have a batch that I may have drawn off at too high of a take off rate and, or run before adequately cleared, I just dilute and rerun... Keep at it...

[Drunk-N-Smurf]

Thanks rad!

I'm just finally tasting some with some coke. Not bad.

Do you think that the stuff I haven't filtered yet would make for a good charge booster for my next run? Or would the yeast flavour carry over do ya think?

[Drunk-N-Smurf]

Ok, so I brought samples to a buddy's birthday this weekend...was surprised to find out that quite a few of my friends have built their own stills in the past, but never actually made anything they felt ok drinking.

I am no longer calling my first batch rum..the flavour profile (which I could never reproduce I'm sure) is definitely not rum.

Here are the reviews:
The white: smells and tastes like a "good" tequila (10 out of 10 people said the same thing...) I don't drink tequila, so I never really associated it as that, but if that's what tequila tastes like, then I'm in lol

The spiced: a hit all around. The guys thought a little too much vanilla flavour to it but all around very nice. the ladies comments were all positive, "damn that's good!"

Curious how I pulled off a tequila characteristics using molasses and sugar.....hmmm. Open to any thoughts.

[Drunk-N-Smurf]

Since I've been drinking nothing but my product since I started, I thought I'd have a glass of the old Bacardi just to compare.

As soon as poured it, I could smell it, and knew it wasn't going to taste as good. When I read that people can usually taste the heads in commercial spirits after a while, I didn't think it would be so soon.

I could only drink one glass before I had to switch back to my own. And knowing how many mistakes I made with this batch, and I still prefer it over what I consider a "premium" rum, it can only get better!

[jbird1992]

Keep us posted on how this is progressing. I'm following just too new to add anything of value yet. I'm on my 2nd gen SF but going to rum after this plays out

[Drunk-N-Smurf]

Came back to my buddies place this weekend to run my second batch, and was considering tossing my tails out to recover the jars from my tails from the first run, and gave em a whiff....omg, did they smell good. Kind of a fruity coconut scent to em.

Added them to my run to a) boost the abv of the wash, and
B) hopefully add that flavouring to the rum..

Second batch (which I'm sure I may get bashed on) consisted of ALL my backset from the first run, an additional 20kg sugar, and additional water to bring the wash back up to about 35 gallons and an SG of 1.08. (Backset alone had an SG of 1.01)

For this generation I only added 2 cans of tomato paste for nutrients, and did not add any more molasses, and instead of the original amount of yeast, I only added about 100grams.

This time, I let it clear before running.

I'm still running it right now, but so far, it smells wonderful. I haven't tasted it yet though..there may still be some yeast flavour from the backset of the original wash.

Unfortunately, I forgot my friggen alcometer at home, so I couldn't read abv, and feel like an idiot. Though, since I did the bubble test on each jar on my first runs, I kind of think I have an idea roughly where the abv is sitting. I'll have to verify when I get home tomorrow.

Learned a lot from my first generation though. Got to know my still behaviour, and I'm running this generation much slower, though the take off rate is still incredible in my opinion - pulling 150ml/min. After warmup. But since my stream isn't braiding up, I think it's ok?(yes? No?) I have my burner damn near turned off its so low.

I still tossing 2litres of distillate from each 10-12 gallon run as heads, and putting aside 3 jars of tails(2 cloudy, and one more) this run seems to be a more distinct difference with the cuts, heads smell sharp as hell, and hearts are super tame. If I was an extreme discriminate cutter, I had one jar that was my fav, and the rest would have been rerun. But I'm not lol.

I'm going to run this generation through a second time, but I'd like to add some molasses to the boiler for more flavour since my wash was a little on the short side. (Should I? Yes? No?)

All in all, I still don't think this recipe is worth being a tried and true, not yet anyway, but I'm pleased with my results so far.

Will post again when I test the flavour of the spirit after this run.

DS

[Drunk-N-Smurf]

Nope.

Yeast flavour carried over. Gonna rerun the whole works.

I'll treat this batch the same as my first, but I'll be tossing the backset, and starting from scratch. Such a shame, at least I know I can fix it after the fact into something drinkable.

No matter the failure, it's still a success as long as I've learned something, and someone else has learned something from it as well.

[Drunk-N-Smurf]

This must be what a turbo yeast liquor tastes like muhahahahaha (don mind me, I'm just trying to console myself)

[skeeterbite]

I have been watching your progress drunk-in-smurf.
I don't post because I have nothing of value to add, but I have enjoyed
reading your posts.
Keep posting.

Skeeterbite

[hikfromstik]

I did the same thing on my first run . Now I make sure it has cleared . But it is a lesson learned. Im aproaching my 6th batch and every batch I learn something new .

[frozenthunderbolt]

but I'd like to add some molasses to the boiler for more flavour since my wash was a little on the short side. (Should I? Yes? No?)DS

NO! It will scorch and foam and all that shit. You might try it in a thumper, but definitely not in the still boiler that is receiving direct heat

[Drunk-N-Smurf]

Didn't add the molasses on the spirit run, figured it would be a waste anyway.

The biggest things I've learnt from this first couple of attempts is

1) if you don't let it clear 100% then there is a good chance the distillate is gonna taste like yeast.
2) if your distillate tastes like yeast, chances are generations using the yeasty backset will likely carry the flavour as well. (The way I figure it in my head is like making pasta sauce and burning it, then pouring it into a new pot and expecting it to not taste burnt. That shit don't go away no matter how much spices you add)
3) yes, it can be somewhat fixed, run through filters, carbon, flavoured to drown the yeast taste, but it becomes cheaper to just go buy a bottle from the liquor store if you have to do it too often.
4) just slow down. Don't rush, if it ain't ready yet, who cares, let it sit another week. There shouldn't be any reason to rush unless you don't have a drop left, in which case, do just enough to get you through the week, and let the rest finish out.
5) can't be emphasized enough. PATIENCE.
6) it is better to start a 30gallon series of runs in the morning, then to start after a long day of work....man, staring at a still till 7am without dozing off is tough.

Gonna be a little bit before I can start another wash, been sick alot lately, and slow at work when I can get there, so pinching pennies for a couple few weeks.

Play safe, be patient, and put love into every drop you put in, so you can get love out of every drop you get out!
DS

[DuckofDeath]

I let mine finish and rack it to a secondary glass carboy where I can see it settle. Usually 1-2 weeks later its ready to run.