My method to rums

[distiller_dresden]

Hello! If you're a new distiller then welcome to the right place. Here are concentrated all MY rules or guidelines for rum washes, and information about aging after you've made your product.

If you're an experienced distiller, and hip to rum, please share and suggest so we can have this be a place someone can come wondering, "How do I do a rum?" Let's get them off on the right foot so that they're able to jump past a bit of the learning and reading for reference to start making their own good rums!

Here we go-
I like wash potential ABV% at around 9 +/-1%. A typical rum wash, for 5 gallon pots (thus washes):
1 gallon dunder (this is what's left of a rum wash in the pot after you distill it; reserve this for your next wash at a rate of 20-25% the volume of your new wash)
4 gallons water
4500-5000g sugar equivalent (meaning the grams of sugar in the source of it you add to the wash)**
7g yeast of choice (493 EDV or Lallemand RM, K1V-1116, Lallemand Belle Saison {any 'saison' yeast is good})
-you can also under pitch yeast, so 4g, in order to stress it and cause the production of more esters (good for rum...=flavors and nose!)
Yeast nutrient (amounts vary; what many don't know is sugar washes -- vs grain washes -- need double the nutrients of grain, Fermaid K calls for 2g/gallon of wash -- and 1g/gal for grains)
HEAT - rum washes develop more flavor at higher temps; high temp also stresses the yeast - more esters = good - suggested 85-95F ferment temps
Oxygenate? -- Not oxygenating can also stress yeast (esters baby!). This is up to you, you can also oxygenate the wash, or skip it and use a drop of extra virgin olive oil. There's studies behind it.

Have thumper(s)? GOOD if so, thumpers, and especially multiple, are great for rums due to the ester formation process. It's called 'Fischer's Esterfication' and it happens in sealed, heated environments with copper raising it due to the reactivity with the metal. Which brings me to-

ALWAYS run with a cleaned pot. Especially if you have copper, your copper should be SHINY inside to assure it's reactive. Do this by filling the pot with 2 gallons vinegar, some cut this with water at a 50/50 ratio. I just do straight vinegar. Then don't run water/cooling on your worm. Run this for 30 mins without cooling, then I like to do an additional 45 mins with cooling (water on worm). Let everything cool on its own. You may need to scrub inside your pot, depending how much patina has built up. If so, mix 4c vinegar with 3tblsp citric acid (powder, available in brew shops or online), and 1/2c salt -- use this solution with a non-scratching scrub pad (just non-abrasive, typical dish sponge is okay) and scrub the insides until shiny, you won't need to press very hard or do much 'scrubbing' as the solution works on it's own very well, 5-6 swipes of the wet pad will clean almost any spot shiny.

Okay, now you've fermented your rum wash; you've cooked your wash (heating up low and cooking slow is best for rums).
COOK - heat up low, I usually take about an hour and a half to start getting alcohol from my worm, with my 5 gal pot, 2.5 gal thump, and 1 gal thump hooked up inline. Collect smaller amounts in multiple jars. I use pint jars and collect 8oz at a time. NOTE: Once you're into your late heads/early hearts, increase heat to speed up a little, smearing (having some heads or tails mixed in with your hearts due to cook speed) is GOOD for rum.

For 5 gal wash, throw out first 2-3oz that come out, these are foreshots and you can discard or use to strip/clean around your home/shop. They'll also usually smell awesome. Next comes heads, then hearts, then tails, then your oily (foggy distillate) tails. ALWAYS collect up through oily tails with rum.

SAVE your heads and tails not used in the cut. I personally save the first jar or 2 of heads, and then ALL the tails including the foggy ones. I like to pour all this into the same container (I use half-gal mason jars). If you save all your 'discard' cuts this way (just discard the extra heads I don't save; you can also use these for cleaning with those fores) when you have enough (5 gal for my pot) you can then cook this, and you'll get about 40% more hearts out of it -- that's 2 gal for a 5 gal tails/feints run!

You'll also use this feints you've saved if you have a thumper for part of the thump charge, the rum oils in these feints are worth TONS of flavor.



Now, CUTS:
I typically only take 50-60% of my total distillate in cuts I keep. I am very picky about heads/tails. This is an art in itself, learning heads/hearts/tails and cuts, I won't get into it here... But to say you probably shouldn't keep more than 65% of a run at most, as a soft rule.



AGING:
You want to age rum at anywhere from 55-62% ABV. This is the ideal percentage for aging on oak; less will pull more undesirable 'woody' flavors and not what you want. More will, I don't know, pull faster? Shoot for 60%.

Rum - almost always age on oak, unless you're making a white. Studies have shown it takes approximately 210 days with 60% spirit in contact with oak to extract vanilla compounds in the wood. I like my oak medium-plus toasted for the most vanillan compounds available. However, when you age on 'char' level of wood toast, as if it were inside a whiskey barrel, the rum will pull sugars caramelized in the wood by the char and become sweeter. HOWEVER-

Rum should be aged on oak that's already been used to age something at least once so that it's not as heavy with the oak tannins and flavors. If not rum can easily be over-oaked and begin to taste more like a whiskey or bourbon; this is opinion, some like that, I don't. I made rum, I want RUM.

More time is better than less; if you're aging in large glass vessels then you want to probably age at least 3-4 mos with the top loose for heads/higher alcohols to evaporate out and smooth as they would through the side of a barrel. WHEN TO PULL? I pull my rums when the oak intensity is about 20-30% MORE than I desire. As you proof the spirit down to 40% and as time goes by, the wood character will change and smooth/mellow out to exactly where you like it. So always pull it after it's stronger than you'd like, by 20-30%. The fact is glass aging is different than barrel aging. Barrels breathe more, and there is a higher ratio of volume spirits to surface area of wood. Glass aging can get oak flavors and tannins quicker because of the nature of dominoes/wood chunks submerged in the spirit. If you have made very good cuts, then this is how glass aging can make perfectly great drinkable product in a shorter amount of time.

BACK SWEETENING:
There's debate about this. Personally I feel a rum blossoms with a touch of sugar source. I prefer to start at 20g/sugar (check nutrition label for g/sugar per serving and adjust for 5g to know how much whatever you're using to add) per gallon, which is 5g/L. From there the next clear 'level' of difference is 40g/sugar per gal, or 10g/L. Each 5g/L is when you'll note a difference from the lower level. DO it slowly. I like to add only 5g/L once a day and try the next day, adjust like so until you're happy. You don't want the 'sweet' to overpower the bitterness of the oak, you want them in harmony/balance. To put this all in perspective: 2 tablespoons of maple syrup have about 50g sugar in them, so the initial 5g/L or 20g/gal sugar is suggesting, at least with maple syrup (as different sugar sources have different sugar content) one tablespoon per gallon of rum. Lookout! That's a new bar-back cocktail creation, wait til you see the glass it's served in!

So much more, but this is a great start I think!

**sugar source: I used 'grams of sugar' as in nutrition labels, which aren't concerned in the calorie panel about types of sugar, just 'caloric' sugars. Yes, rum is traditionally molasses (or fresh sugar cane squeezings), and is technically only cane sugars. I'm not here to enforce rules on you; use the sugar source of your preference, it's 2019. Unless you're a commercial distiller and are making a 'rum' for production, nobody is enforcing rules as to what you call rum (except people who will attack you for calling it rum if it isn't from cane sugar, then they'll also attack you for calling a 'scotch' something with all liquid or dry malt extract, because 'scotch' has to be made from mashing GRAINS, NOT using someone else's mashed grain wash that's been concentrated and rehydrated -- don't ask me the difference they will be so salty and imperative about)