Lallemand RM

[Oldvine Zin]

I've been experimenting with this RM yeast, this is my second ferment with this yeast. Both being a panella wash, the first one was good but was wondering if anyone here has tried using this.
I'm used to a having a almost violent ferment with good old bakers yeast, with the RM it's almost like small shooting stars in the fermentor, no big bubbles just little sprites shooting around - normal or am I doing something wrong with this yeast.


OVZ

[MtRainier]

I can't contribute any info, but I'm interested in learning more about it. I have been wanting to try this yeast with a rum.

[NZChris]

I've done one small ferment with it and made the worst rum I've ever smelled coming off the still. I threw the dunder and lees out even though I had been wanting them for the next ferment.

The ferment was controlled in the recommended temperature range.

[Odin]

Baker's yeast is the better option. Customer of mine makes rum, took my procedures on it. Then Lallemand came by and "upsold" him their specialty rum yeast. Destroyed the rum. They also advised to use 10 times more than my protocols. A whopping 7 grams per liter (27 grams per gallon). Sales pitch? I confronted them on a show later and their reply was: "Yes, well, we actually found out our RM specialty rum yeast is not as good as our plain sugar yeast when making rum!" My follow-up question: "And that's basically baker's yeast, isn't it?"

The answer was yes.

Regards, Odin.

[NZChris]

Was it supposed to be 0.7g/l?

I used their recommended 0.5g/l. It was a slow starter in the bub ferment but I ignored that warning and went ahead and pitched it anyway. *** does face palm ***

I've spirit run it and put it on oak. Hopefully, the esters that give it it's bouquet of human excrement will evolve into something much nicer in a couple of years.

[SaltyStaves]

For Panella, I think there are better options out there. I'm planning on doing a Jaggery rum soon and I won't be using my RM.
For 100% molasses, RM has given me much better results than Baker's yeast. However, that is for full bodied 'tropical' style rum that is generally not for sipping.

[bluefish_dist]

I ran a lot of RM for rum and thought it ran well. For me it was a violent fermentation and looked like a rolling boil. My pitch rate was .7 lbs for 110 gallon to which I added 175lbs of sugar and 1gallon of molasses for a white rum. For aged rum I used 11 gallons of molasses and 150lbs of sugar.

My pitch rate for bakers yeast on the same sized fermentation was .8 lbs. the bakers ran a lot faster, 3-4 days vs 2 weeks for the rm.

[Bushman]

I ran a lot of RM for rum and thought it ran well. For me it was a violent fermentation and looked like a rolling boil. My pitch rate was .7 lbs for 110 gallon to which I added 175lbs of sugar and 1gallon of molasses for a white rum. For aged rum I used 11 gallons of molasses and 150lbs of sugar.

My pitch rate for bakers yeast on the same sized fermentation was .8 lbs. the bakers ran a lot faster, 3-4 days vs 2 weeks for the rm.

Taste wise which one did you prefer?

[bluefish_dist]

I only ran bakers yeast when I during development. Then went with RM for production. What I made in production was better than the development runs. I also switched from C&H to raw sugar, so I can’t say one yeast was better than the other. I liked RM and how it fermented, I also had great luck with bakers yeast in my vodka. Rum was by far the easiest fermentation and best yield.

I found that bakers yeast made small bubbles, and thus didn’t foam as badly as yeasts like DS. It also ran quickly and I could dry pitch it. I did not have good luck with RM when I dry pitched. If I didn’t have any RM on hand I would not hesitate to use bakers instead.

[Odin]

Not all bakers yeast is created equal. For rum it is important its actually grown on molasses. I think in North America Fleischmns is? In Europe I use Bruggemans.

Regards, Odin.

[NZChris]

If I was to try RM again I wouldn't pitch it unless I had a very active bub ferment going and I would never pitch it into a large ferment until it had already proved itself in a single charge ferment. I think I've already dodged a bullet by not pitching it into a large ferment

My usual bread yeast starters are always more active than the RM was when I pitched it.

[SaltyStaves]

My last success with it, I made a starter with Panella and Muscavado (2.7 gallons with a gravity of 1.038) and used only 20g of RM.
24 hours later, it was down to 1.020, so I pitched it into my 7.5 gallon ferment (all molasses). It finished after 4 days. It slowed down after a fast start, which gave me some concern, but I never got any aromas that were cause for concern.

I then used the same yeast bed to make a 15 gallon ferment and lost that to acetobacter within 36 hours. Lesson learned.
If I was going to repeat it, I'd have harvested the yeast and created another starter rather than trying to do back to back fermentations.

[Oldvine Zin]

Finished my spirit run last night.

Did the cuts tonight and tossed a few jars of heads and many jars of tails, jars 56&57 had some cool aromas and where kept.
All the keeper jars smelled great and I did did a special bottle of jars 14 & 15 proofed down to 70 ABV for an over proofed rum. Tasting a shot of that bottle poured over a couple of ice cubes was not pleasant tails and more tails even thou it was all hearts- going to let it all air out for a few days and hope it changes for the better. in the meantime does anyone want some RM yeast? I have about 400 grams that I'm going to toss.
OVZ

[MonkeyRumKing]

Was it supposed to be 0.7g/l?

I used their recommended 0.5g/l. It was a slow starter in the bub ferment but I ignored that warning and went ahead and pitched it anyway. *** does face palm ***

I've spirit run it and put it on oak. Hopefully, the esters that give it it's bouquet of human excrement will evolve into something much nicer in a couple of years.

Chris - have you tried this yet? Curious if it cleaned up nice after aging. There's a distillery about an hour north of me and they make a great gold rum. The owner/master distiller told me he uses this yeast.

[NZChris]

Was it supposed to be 0.7g/l?

I used their recommended 0.5g/l. It was a slow starter in the bub ferment but I ignored that warning and went ahead and pitched it anyway. *** does face palm ***

I've spirit run it and put it on oak. Hopefully, the esters that give it it's bouquet of human excrement will evolve into something much nicer in a couple of years.

Chris - have you tried this yet? Curious if it cleaned up nice after aging. There's a distillery about an hour north of me and they make a great gold rum. The owner/master distiller told me he uses this yeast.

It took five months for the low wines to lose the poo smell. I then added H2SO4 and lime salts for a month, did the spirit run then put it in my Reactor with oak and tiny amounts of botanicals. 17 months later (Aug 2019), my notes only say that it didn't have the poo smell. If it was actually nice, I would have recorded that. It's all been used in blending.

[MonkeyRumKing]

Was it supposed to be 0.7g/l?

I used their recommended 0.5g/l. It was a slow starter in the bub ferment but I ignored that warning and went ahead and pitched it anyway. *** does face palm ***

I've spirit run it and put it on oak. Hopefully, the esters that give it it's bouquet of human excrement will evolve into something much nicer in a couple of years.

Chris - have you tried this yet? Curious if it cleaned up nice after aging. There's a distillery about an hour north of me and they make a great gold rum. The owner/master distiller told me he uses this yeast.

It took five months for the low wines to lose the poo smell. I then added H2SO4 and lime salts for a month, did the spirit run then put it in my Reactor with oak and tiny amounts of botanicals. 17 months later (Aug 2019), my notes only say that it didn't have the poo smell. If it was actually nice, I would have recorded that. It's all been used in blending.

I bought 2 pounds of Still Spirits Rum Yeast. I got sucked into the hype. I'm about to try it out this week for the first time. I actually used it on a very small batch of Apple Brandy that I have on oak right now and it smells really good. I can smell apple and no bad smells that I had with my first batch of rum. It's good to know that if this doesn't go well, I can always save it for blending or maybe spice it into drinkability. Thanks for the update.