Show us your dunder pit

[Grayp]

Let's see what your dunder pit looks like.

This is mine and smelling gooood!

[Prairiepiss]

Here is mine.
viewtopic.php?f=40&t=31761

[Monty671]

I do not have a picture of mine yet.
Will get one soon to put up here.

This weekend I pulled from my dunder pit. It has been sitting almost 6 months.
The smell was just about the best thing ever. Complex and fruity with a great molasses smell.
So much better than last year.

This is the third year. age has helped make something great.
My dunder pit is a 26 gallon fermentor. Normally used for wine.


Monty

[Grayp]

Has anyone noticed changes in the smell of your dunder over time? I have one 10 gallon bucket that went from nutty and sweet to now not do nice. It is my hopes that this is just a stage in a long process and it is still good. I wonder what I would see if I checked out the dunder with a microscope? Could be scary!!

[firewater69]

I'll have to go sniff my dunder when i get home tonite. i've been wondering anyway.

[Grayp]

It is my hope that even thou the dunder surface may smell funky and not pleasant any more that below the mold layer the dunder is still a nice clear brown with a great smell and worthy of use in the next batch of rum.

[freshwaterjellyfish]

i just posted this pic on another dunder thread..been a month..has seemed to evapourated a bit after the last week. does smell good.

[boda getta]

I have never done a rum but it's on my list. I am wondering, when you do use the dunder for your next run, do you just dump the whole thing in or sipion off the middle partr and discard the top molded part?

D

[freshwaterjellyfish]

usually you siphon from the middle. check for hook's rum recipe in tried and true category.

[Mikey-moo]

Old thread I know, but I didn't fancy starting a new one... here's what mine looks like after about 5 months unattended... smells a bit like soya sauce so should boost the umami flavours somewhat

What do people think?

[Badmotivator]

Old thread I know, but I didn't fancy starting a new one... here's what mine looks like after about 5 months unattended... smells a bit like soya sauce so should boost the umami flavours somewhat


What do people think?

Looks foul. Perfect.

Mine also gives off a smell very strongly suggestive of soy sauce. I wonder what that is?

[Mikey-moo]

I think it's amino acids. You can buy soy sauce alternatives such as Braggs Coconut Aminos and they smell similar too.

I've added 2L to my 20L ferment, which is almost done - hooray.

What do I do now though Badmo? Throw the rest out? It's not a big bucket and 2L was all the clear liquid I could get out... do I just keep the mould cap and refill after my run? Or should I start again from scratch?

[Grayp]

Looks perfect. I wish it was a scratch and sniff so I could have a smell

[Padre_nz]

first attempt at dunder so i thought i would try and control it and added some cheese bacteria to it...
this is it after 1 1/2 months



my next one will be open air if this one fails

[Yummyrum]

If you stand the bottle up right , you won't need a cork in it
Dunder will start growing stuff naturally in a week or two if open to the air . just put a cloth over the top to keep the insects out .

Cheese mold

[Badmotivator]

I think it's amino acids. You can buy soy sauce alternatives such as Braggs Coconut Aminos and they smell similar too.

I've added 2L to my 20L ferment, which is almost done - hooray.

What do I do now though Badmo? Throw the rest out? It's not a big bucket and 2L was all the clear liquid I could get out... do I just keep the mould cap and refill after my run? Or should I start again from scratch?

That's a tough question. I am in the middle of a 350-lb panela project, so I replenish my muck pit with dunder every cycle. If you are doing one good run and then moving on to some other project, you could keep it around just as an experiment in the hope that it could be useful six months or a year from now. You could even feed it now and then with a dose of boiled yeast and some brown sugar. I don't know, I'm just throwing out ideas.

[Yummyrum]

I keep my Dunder in 10 liter plastic buckets with a lid loosely fitted

with in a week or two it will look like this

or this

sometimes whats on top starts to sink and other stuff grows on top

I found an old bucket that had been hiding for a year or two.
This is when I realized that all this funky Dunder stuff is really not helping the cause .
Maybe in a really light flavored Rum you might pick the subtle nuances of all this moldy shit but I certainly could not taste any advantage in my heavier Molasses Rums

Now I just use fresh Dunder .

If I can't make a new batch using fresh stuff from the still , I'll keep it a few weeks or a month but I am over chasing skanky Dunder

[Mikey-moo]

I think it's amino acids. You can buy soy sauce alternatives such as Braggs Coconut Aminos and they smell similar too.

I've added 2L to my 20L ferment, which is almost done - hooray.

What do I do now though Badmo? Throw the rest out? It's not a big bucket and 2L was all the clear liquid I could get out... do I just keep the mould cap and refill after my run? Or should I start again from scratch?

That's a tough question. I am in the middle of a 350-lb panela project, so I replenish my muck pit with dunder every cycle. If you are doing one good run and then moving on to some other project, you could keep it around just as an experiment in the hope that it could be useful six months or a year from now. You could even feed it now and then with a dose of boiled yeast and some brown sugar. I don't know, I'm just throwing out ideas.

I've got two more batches to go after this one. I don't get round to doing it that often. I'll replenish the existing pit I think, keep all that good mould going for now, then maybe start off my Molasses adventure using some of it.

Cheers for the help

[Mikey-moo]

Now I just use fresh Dunder .

If I can't make a new batch using fresh stuff from the still , I'll keep it a few weeks or a month but I am over chasing skanky Dunder

I don't run often enough to have fresh dunder - I really need to up my game!

[Yummyrum]

Now I just use fresh Dunder .

If I can't make a new batch using fresh stuff from the still , I'll keep it a few weeks or a month but I am over chasing skanky Dunder

I don't run often enough to have fresh dunder - I really need to up my game!

LOL ...I seem to have that problem too Mikey .... my ferments hang around for awhile waiting to get distilled ...keeps the Dunder fresher that way

[Wino2Distill]

Are you guys just hoping that the right type of bacteria will end up in your dunder or are you inoculating with something? Seems to me like the open air technique is a plan to make vinegar. As for myself, I just combined some panela back set with some beer lees and wondering what the next step should be...


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[der wo]

Seems to me like the open air technique is a plan to make vinegar.

Vinegar is normal in dunder pits. No way to keep vinegar out. If there is sugar in the dunder (and there is always sugar in dunder) there will be wild yeast creating alcohol. And when there is alcohol there will be vinegar bacterias creating vinegar from it.

And look here at 1:50
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AckevcF71og
You see all the flies (carrying vinegar bacterias)?

[Wino2Distill]

Seems to me like the open air technique is a plan to make vinegar.

Vinegar is normal in dunder pits. No way to keep vinegar out. If there is sugar in the dunder (and there is always sugar in dunder) there will be wild yeast creating alcohol. And when there is alcohol there will be vinegar bacterias creating vinegar from it.

And look here at 1:50
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AckevcF71og
You see all the flies (carrying vinegar bacterias)?

Awesome, thanks Der Wo.

Looks like they added some tropical fruit in there or something.



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[der wo]

Yes. I don't know what they do there exactly. But I don't think a dunder pit without such ingredients would have less flies in the tropics.

BTW, they not only let bacteria create vinegar, vinegar is an ingredient to their mash:
http://cocktailwonk.com/2016/03/days-of ... dient.html

30% molasses skimmings
40% stillage from prior runs
10% acetic acid (cane vinegar)
10% molasses
10% muck (aka “flavor”)


Please Wino, try to stop that "Sent from..." signature in your tapatalk setting.

[Wino2Distill]

http://cocktailwonk.com/2016/03/days-of ... dient.html

30% molasses skimmings
40% stillage from prior runs
10% acetic acid (cane vinegar)
10% molasses
10% muck (aka “flavor”)

Would be interesting to know the concentration of that vinegar, because 10% pure acetic acid would stop any fermentation!

[der wo]

Very good point.
This detail seems very unscientific. Or a mistake. I think it should mean 10% vinegar. And vinegar normally has 5% acetic acid. So it means 0.5% acetic acid in the mash. But of course the vinegar they use could have a different acid content than the vinegar we use for salad.
So probably the only thing we can see is, that in general vinegar is sometimes used to ester up a mash. And perhaps it means, we shouldn't have fear of vinegar infections, only of too long vinegar infections.

[Wino2Distill]

This is all very interesting. I had to go back to some organic chemistry 101 to look at carboxylic acid/ethanol esterification and indeed it is done via an acid catalyst. Is acetic acid a strong enough acid to serve this purpose? How much is needed?
I assume some commercial distilleries have figured this out and understand the process very well.
I may just add some apple cider vinegar in my next cider run!


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[der wo]

Esterification is rised with:
-amount of acids
-concentration of ethanol (or methanol, butanol...)
-low pH
-high temperature

When you add vinegar to a mash, you will get mainly ethyl acetate with esterification. And the lower pH will help the creation of other esters (if the needed acids are present). But the due to the dilution lower abv will reduce esterification. And the low pH will eventually lead to a bad fermentation, then you buffer it perhaps, what rises the pH, and so on.

I am not sure if it works with vinegar. Generally I rather like to add backset to the low wines, not to the mash or wash. So I would do it same with vinegar.

Because the backset of my backset pit is not very acidic (I buffer the pH to help the bacterias), I think about when adding it to the low wines, also to add a strong acid to lower the pH. Perhaps sulphuric acid. I currently add a bit citric acid. It lowers the pH of low wines with backset from about 4.5 to around 3.8. I don't know if it helps in practice.

[Wino2Distill]

Cool, thanks for sharing.

PS: I hope the tapatalk signature will be gone this time. Clearly didn't last reply.

[ShineonCrazyDiamond]

Well, it was hunkered down under my grill convert all winter. Stayed pretty clean, until something chew the side of the lid.

So now we have some action. But it looks more moldy than bacteriary. Oh well. Still got a month or two before rum running weather.