Pugi's Rum or "Pugirum"

[Snackson]

If this is your very first wash and you have no dunder, how is the recipe modified?

It's right in the original recipe, substitute water for the dunder.

I just threw down 25 gallons of it using 5 gallons of golden barrel blackstrap molasses and 8 pounds of raw cane sugar. The garage smells fantastic and I can't wait to run it this weekend.

[Canaanite]

If this is your very first wash and you have no dunder, how is the recipe modified?

It's right in the original recipe, substitute water for the dunder.

I just threw down 25 gallons of it using 5 gallons of golden barrel blackstrap molasses and 8 pounds of raw cane sugar. The garage smells fantastic and I can't wait to run it this weekend.

Damn... read it 2 or 3 times and I skipped over that part every time. Thanks

[youngdumbfullofrum]

what would be the ratio's for your butter all brown sugar rum wash? any SG ratings to go by? sounds like a good recipe, bulk browns sugar is cheap as chips where I am. Molasses is attainable but requires a fair drive out into the country.

[GSP]

On the stripping runs, just go to 20%, correct? All that is left in the still goes towards the dunder pit?

[shadylane]

On the stripping runs, just go to 20%, correct?

20% probably is in the ball part. But I like to strip until the first fusel oil starts floating on the low-wines
Then save the tails in smaller increments. There maybe some good low proof flavors hiding in the tails

All that is left in the still goes towards the dunder pit?

Rum distillers of old, would dump the spent boiler charge in a hole in the ground.
Then use the nasty water in the next still charge.

[BoisBlancBoy]

For a pot still/thumper combo what do you think would be the best to put into the thumper for a spirit run? I was thinking a 1-2 gallons of fresh wash because of the flavor.

Also do you collect the rum oils on stripping and spirit runs?

[Windy City]

Just collect rum oils on the spirit run.
Everything from the stripping run goes into the boiler for the spirit run.

[wtfdskin]

I use two thumpers for rum. One charged with tails one with heads from previous spirit runs, both diluted with dunder. If you dont have dunder fresh wash would work excellent if your looking for a heavy flavored rum.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

[BoisBlancBoy]

I use two thumpers for rum. One charged with tails one with heads from previous spirit runs, both diluted with dunder. If you dont have dunder fresh wash would work excellent if your looking for a heavy flavored rum.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

Would have happen to be able to describe the difference between the flavor with the thumper charged with Dunder vs wash?

[wtfdskin]

I cant really say as far as a difference, ive never used wash for dilution.im assuming the flavor would be concentrated more with dunder since its been cooked, and aged, infected dunder has all kinds of funky esters goin on in there i couldnt even begin to describe

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk

[buckwheat2016]

Pugirum:

After many, many pounds of fermentables and different washes and procedures, I have come up with this recipe for Rum.

I want to say thanx to many people that have helped me and you may see some of there ideas in my recipe. THANX

I will start with my " Yeast Bomb "
2 vitamin B, crushed with mortor and pestal
5 teaspoons of 20-0-0, agrcultural fertalizer
1/4 teaspoon of epsom salt
1/4 cup bakers yeast
1 gallon water
Boil all for 15 minutes and strain.


The wash: 10 gallons total
2 gallons of feed molasses
4 LBS of cane brown sugar
the "yeast bomb" = 1 gallon
4 gallons water
3 gallons dunder or water for the first time you make the wash. Dunder is whats left in the still after a STRIPPING run!!!
1 cup bakers yeast

This will ferment out in less than 36 hours. So give it plenty of head room in fermenter or buy a good mop. Let sit for a day to settle.

Drain fermenter and leave about 1/2 gallon of wash in it. This leaves the yeast in there ready and willing to go with next wash. Strip this as fast as the still can go and I mean FAST. We are forcing the flavors through.

Make the wash again and pour on to the yeast left in the fermenter. Then strip again. Add the 2 stripped washes into still with equal amount of dunder that you have saved and the RUM OILS( see below )

Now for the tricky part. On the spirit run:
Run it easy, not to fast, not to slow.
Make the heads to hearts cut like normal and add heads to the vodka/neutral container, do NOT reuse these in your rum.
Run out hearts till you start to get the wet cardboard taste. On my still this is between 85% ABV and 50% ABV. Collect wet cardboard spirits and add to vodka/neutral container. Do NOT reuse these in you rum. For me this is from about 50% ABV down to 40% ABV.
Collect the 40% ABV down to 20% ABV in seperate container. These are your RUM OILS. Handle them with care and treat them special. Always add them to your still when you do a SPIRIT run and always collect them from the spirit run. The more times you use them the more concentrated they become. It wont take long and they will overflow into the hearts. This is the KEY to My rum.

To the full strength spirt run distillant I add:
One slice of pinapple per gallon
2 cloves per gallon
1/2 ounce of raisens per gallon
leave for a month shaking every now and then.
Cut to proof

I use home made carmalized sugar to color. Do not burn the camalized sugar but do make sure it colors up good. I have tried molasses but prefer the carmelized sugar.

This is a full body/taste rum. It is a fairly heavy rum and you will taste and smell the molasses.

Enjoy, Pugi

For the yeast bomb you boil the yeast to?

[Still Life]

For the yeast bomb you boil the yeast to?

Yes. In "the bomb", the yeast is boiled (and killed) for its nutritional value only.
Pitch your live, fermenting yeast separately as usual.

[redfrog]

Thank you so very much for this recipe and detailed walkthrough. First product i made i can actually say i really like! Not particularly a rum fan and been at it for over 5 years trying a variety of recipes... was kinda losing hope trying it but this stuff tastes amazing

last post on HD goes back to 2013... sry for not keeping with you guys for so long

So i had a few copper pipes laying around and time ahead of me. Decided to start new build and why not try a new recipe to shake things up. The design is a simple still, pretty much like the HD logo, with a 4' x 2'' column mounted on my 6 gal boiler with a 12'' 1/4'' coil with 1/2"" cold finger. The build is a thing of beauty and i must say im pretty proud of myself. Much easier to run than the bok tho it doesnt offer the option of reflux, apart from adding packing in the column, which i didnt do this time around, might try in the futur spirit runs to try and fine tune things.

i do 2 small batches in 5 gal buckets. Scaled and followed the recipe to the t exept a few things: didnt really made a yeast bomb as i mixed and heated to around 180 all in one go. Also replaced vit b, epsom salt and 20-0-0 with a multi-vitamine, a few drops of 10-15-10 and a table spoon of marmite (stumbled upon it at a new grocery store i went to, only heard of it before here in hd and didnt kno we had this up here, seems quite effective). Both started at around 1.09 and ended a little under 1.01 (or should i say i ended both... they slowed down alot after around 3 days and were pretty much stalled when distilled at 7 and 6 days respectivly, maybe couldve used a few more days... i gotta work on my patience. also didnt clear the molasse nor did i transfert to secondary to settle, so maybe couldve helped). Both strips gave around 4L avg 60% each - started dripping at 85, tossed about 200 mil of fores and started collecting at around 76 down to 10%. Racked 8 L of cleared cooled backset from the 2nd stripping run, tossed in the 8L of low wines bringing everything back to 30% and do the spirit. Collected a litlle less than 5L in the spirit run including the rum oils. Final heart cuts were from 72% thru 52% giving a little over 2L of 65%. 1L is currently aging on pugi's rum flavoring recipe (2 weeks in and its amazing) and the other is aging on JackDaniel's barrel smoking oak chips (gives a very nice color, flavor is not bad alone but mixed with the pugi's rum its gives a interesting complexity... both are still young so very promising assemblage potential). Gives a very tasty rum, nothing to do with bacadi (that shit is foul! ive had a bottle laying around for a few years now, never really tasted it alone so i gave it a try for comparison )

heres a few things i think i finally figured outwith this recipe and will def try to apply while revisiting others :
- running deeper in the tails on stripping runs:
i used to stop collecting at around 40... hard to say really as i never used the parrot in stripping runs. only went by feel and stopped when it wouldnt light up in a spoon... sometimes went deeper when smell and/or taste was promising but not by much. I think this is key to strip any recipe, weither you plan on collecting rum oils on subsquent runs or try to do assemblage with specific tails cuts or not. I think collecting larger amounts of tails kinda eases the transition from hearts to tails in the spirit run and helps detect smaller hints of tails when making cuts. For example, in my previous runs the temp would go up and alc % go down in a drastic way at around the same temp in the spirit run as in the stripping runs used in it while i didnt hit that kind of wall during this last spirit run. cuts were def easier to make and i believe the end product is improved because of this tho its takes more time.

-use of backset in spirit run:
first few times i used backet in the spirit run didnt turn out great for some reason so i stopped doing it and only used water to dilute back to 30%. It kinda made sense in my mind since most of the times i wanted either a neutral or get rid of a weird off taste that was pretty much always there by refluxing and outputting highest % with the bok. Now with this recipe i realize this off taste is kinda still there, but so well surrounded that its almost not noticeable and even plesant. kinda like i was isolating this specific flavor in previous batches by only cutting with water. So i guess its always advisable to use some % of backset, nomatter the recipe? inversibly, is it ill advised or commonly known not to use only water to dilute back in the spirit? dont remember reading any specifics about this and cant believe ive been beating around the bush on this for so long...

-and of course those rum oils, which i have collected but yet to experience their effects since this was my fisrt go at this recipe.

so again thanks for the recipe. I started a second batch yesterday using backset and lees saved from the previous batches. This time the molasse and brown sugar were thinned and the wash will be racked before distilling, hoping to have a more complete ferment this time around. Think ill skip the packing in the column this time around too.

I'll try to keep you guys up to date sometimes before 2023 i promise

Cheers

Redfrog

[redfrog]

ok so quick update
last batch stalled at 1.02 after 3 days. Suspected low temp at first (was around -40C outside) but temp is steady at 80F in the bucket (insulated with a thick towel and heated with an aquarium heater). So ordered a ph meter and went to the brew shop to get some ph upper and maybe a quick reader like ph strips or whatever since i didnt think i had this issue before. Ended up buying a 9$ acidity test which i couldnt read because of the darkness of the wash and 1.50$ worth -few cups - of calcium carbonate (looked for potassium carbonate as per recommended by dundr but thats all they had). Seemed to help a bit; apart from the initial fizzing it def brought a bit of activity in there. added a total of around 3 tbsp gradually over the course of a few days and it ended at around 1.01 in 8 days starting from 1.085, pretty much like the other batches in terms of yield, a bit longer because of the stall

Since the secret of this recipe seems to be in part in the fast ferment, i figured i was doing something wrong (well maybe not so wrong because the fisrt batch is incredibly good but 6-8 days is far from 36 hrs) so i went over things and tried the yeast bomb (which made me cut the amount of marmite i used by more than a half seeing the smell and effect it has in a 2l boil), thinned the molass separatly and also realised i was using way less yeast than the recipe recommended in the ferment - a couple tbsp vs 1/4 cup. Also added to a bit of calcium carbonate to bring starting water at around 7.5 ph to compensate for acidic backset (i have an aquarium ph test which only goes from 6 to 7.5, still useless with a wash this dark so trying to semi blindly get my way thru till the meter gets here)

So this ferment started at 1.080 and was at 1.025 at the 36h mark. Added a heaping teaspoon of calcium carbonate as the activity seemed to be slowing down. 12 hours later (48hrs total)the wash is still slowly working at 1.015. Im guessing it'll be done in about another 12 hours until i rack it for a day and then run it. Wash taste definetly better too. First ones were incredibly bitter when done (or stalled) while this one is much lighter and will go much deeper than all previous batches.

Cant wait to run this and its spirit (both batch will have had calcium carbonate added, so maybe it'll give a tell, good or bad). Also cant wait to start and do the 3rd batch to see the evolution and difference with the oils and everything that took 4 full ferment to get thru this thick skull...

cheers guys

[mass thumper]

I've made some great rum with Pugi's rum. First batch was in August and it fermented so quickly it blew the air locks off of my 5 gallon carboys, yeast bomb on steroids. I tried using feed grade cane molasses and I had really slow ferments even at 80*. I switched over to Black strap and it ferments so well. Is there preservatives in feed grade? The 5 gallon bucket said nothing. Now I get 5 gallon buckets from golden barrel. I now have some fermenting in 5 gallon buckets with fish tank heaters in them for a fast ferment. Yeast bomb was working within 3 minutes. I distill using a thumper so it takes it's time but it is worth it.

[redfrog]

another quick update
did my third batch about a month ago and i suspect some kind of black magic going on with this recipe as the stuff is litteraly disapearing into thin air

seriously tho, ive again realised ive been doing a few ''mistakes'' but made very interesting discoveries in the process. Turns out my i didnt measure my alc% in the first spirit and overestimated my low wines collection to be around 60% (see first post above) while they probably were between 40-45%, as measured in the 2nd and 3rd go. So the charge % in my first spirit was probably around 20% - which gave an incredibly mouthy rum with an overwhelming molass taste, tho i only use less than half the recquired amount (1.5 to 1.75 liters of blackstrap per 5 gal wash... which is another mistake i realised i was doing tho i kept this one as is for now)

second time around i measured my things correcly and went to my usual 30%alc/vol target in the spirit charge. This time the stuff was still very good, but had a little offtaste to it, reminding me of previous sugar wash recipes. Still very good, but much less ''mouthy''

So aimed a 25% charge in my third spirit, keeping the same ferment recipes, and the results are out of this world!

Also got my pH meter. The acidity spike was def what was stalling or slowing my ferments. Now i try aiming a pH between 5.5-6 before pitching by adding a few teaspoon of calcium carbonate. This worked fine few ferment - batched is racked clear within 4 days - but ill still try to get my hands on a few oyster shells. Also got myself a few extra buckets so next batch ill try rain water and see if its as mystical as they say

thanks again
cheers

[still_chillin]

I recently made this recipe and the final result has no "fruity" flavors at all. My rum is has a fairly heavy rum taste, but none of the fruity aromas.

The only thing I did different was skipping the "yeast bomb". I used good doses of DAP instead. I used a packaged Rum Yeast, instead of bakers yeast. Also, I did not add the pineapple, cloves or raisins.

I made 3 ten gallon batches, and kept the "rum oils" from each, which I added to the spirit run.

Is Pugirum supposed to be heavy, with no fruity aromas? Do all of the fruity aromas come from the additives?

[Big Stogie]

I just did a modified version of this today. 2 gallons of fancy molasses, 7 lbs of brown sugar and topped up to 13 gallons total. used the DAP did not do a yeast bomb but I did use Ferm Solutions 927 Whiskey/Rum yeast. It took off within 4 minutes and smells amazing. I will use some dunder from this for the next batch and do 2 of my 16 gallon fermenters (13 gallons again cause my boiler is 15) with the dunder strip them with no plates in my flute and them add the rum oils to the spirit run with 4 plates i think. we will see how it goes. thanks for the inspiration
B.S.

[Big Stogie]

24 hours in and the airlock sounds like a machine gun, the barrel is warm to the touch, I need air freshener in this scent it’s fantastic

[Big Stogie]

72 hours and it look like we are done im going to let it sit a day then get a gravity.

[DetroitDIY]

I'm running my 5th batch right now B.S., though I believe I'm deviating a bit from the recipe. Fermenting with no dunder, then adding infected dunder a few days in. Only did a yeast bomb on the first ferment. 3rd ferment was in a 55 gal barrel, so this 5th batch is the 3rd of 3 runs from that 3rd ferment wash. And I can't seem to get much in the way of rum oils off my flute, so I'm skipping that at the moment. Been running 1 and done on my flute. Looks like you're following the proper 2 distillations on yours, in a stripping mode the first time through.

I looked up the yeast you're using. It's titled as a Whiskey/Rum yeast (as are a couple others on their site) but none of the description talks about rum at all. I'll be curious to see what you think of the final product.

[Big Stogie]

I run this yesterday the smell is great and some of the jars taste very good, when I got to 40 new the end I switched the jar and collected down to 20 in that jar and I’ll be damned if that jar was a cloudy mess none if the others were at 20 I put another jar in and that one was mostly clear so something happened in that range. I’ll bring you some of that yeast to try

[BoisBlancBoy]

Anybody running some rum lately? I’m going to attempt this recipe as my first here pretty soon. I see a ton of people that alter the recipe and wonder why?

[DetroitDIY]

I've been running a variation, and have been happy with my results.

My modifications have been:
1) Using blackstrap instead of Barbados molasses. That's because I'm interested in the more intense flavors, and it's what I had on hand from ordering it long ago.
2) Using an infected dunder, as I want to explore that funky stuff and I'd been reading some threads about it (and purchased a bottle of Smith & Cross... a bit too funky for me to drink straight ).
3) Foregoing the rum oils. I believe this recipe is best followed closely on a pot still. When I ran one a few years back, I got lots of rum oils. Now I'm running a flute in order to spend less time watching my still (at least, less time per liter collected But my flue doesn't seem to produce much in the was of oils coming out of the parrot.
4) Using white instead of brown sugar, as traditional brown sugar is simply refined white sugar with molasses added back in (at least I've read), so why bother with brown if I'm dumping it into a bath of molasses?

And shortly, I'll switch to Panela sugar. Did this before on my pot still and liked the results. Combined them with the blackstrap runs and liked that too. Now I've come across a good amount of Panela. So... I really stopped making the Pugirum before I started, but I'll just say that these runs have been very inspired by Pugidog (and Der Wo).

[BoisBlancBoy]

Good info Detroit. Thanks!

I can honestly say one of the reasons I wanted to try the Pugi rum was because of the collection of rum oils. Which I’m hoping I can discern and find using my pot/thumper combo. The thought of being able to continue running a recipe and for it to conceivably get better(more complex flavores) with each generation with the rum oils, Dunder etc is just very interesting to me.

The one thing I do want to try is run this with recipe standard with my pot still for the heavier flavor but also through my CCVM for a light white rum for comparison. Besides I’m a firm believer your likker cabinet can’t have enough options.

[popcorn2014]

Anyone know why neither me or a buddies molasses will clarify while following these instructions? We both did exactly what was written but after letting it sit overnight and siphoning there was basically nothing at the bottom.

[Saltbush Bill]

Are you using Stockfeed Molasses or fancy stuff made for Baking and other Human consumption purposes?
I have never noticed in the original recipe anything about the need to clarify.

[popcorn2014]

Are you using Stockfeed Molasses or fancy stuff made for Baking and other Human consumption purposes?
I have never noticed in the original recipe anything about the need to clarify.

Whoops may have taken that from hooks recipe. Either way it sounds like it helps all run.

I’m using food grade molasses from cash and carry.


Also curious if the sugar listed on the label is all fermentable. Example, I did the math on servings per gallons and grams of sugar and found out it has 7 pounds of sugar per gallon. Is that all fermentable?

[Saltbush Bill]

Either way it sounds like it helps all run.

Some clarify , some don't, personally I think its a waste of time and effort.

I’m using food grade molasses from cash and carry

As far as I am aware Food Grade has already been processed and purified to remove any muck that was in it, thats probably why your not finding anything much to remove.

[stevethebartender]

I just buy it at the local horse feed suppliers. Not sure exactly what grade it is, but it is on the expensive side, $50 (AUD) for 20 litres. However it tastes pretty good, and makes a nice rum.

Many years on but where in Aus was this from? $50 seems very reasonable for 20L/kg..

I’ve sourced 20kg for $75 + shipping ($100)... and bulk (200L barrels) for $1180 per tonne (I think it works out to around $1-$2 per kg)..