Butyric/live dunder and sulphuric acid really works!

[TheJollyBrewer]

I've had some dunder going for a good few months now, smells like vomit and very funky. I got it started by adding a handful of raw barley malt for lacto, some milk kefir grains for whatever they contain, a pinch of soil from the veg patch, a bit of brettanomycces from a sour beer and the core of a pineapple. Added a heat belt, all sorts of wierd and wonderful things grew on top befor dropping down and the vomit smell starting.

Sulphuric acid is restricted here so I tried using some of this (3 litres in 30 litre bacth) and adding some vinegar for the acid. Heated up really slowly, refluxed it for 90 minutes then ran it off. The dunder came through, it was quite grim.

I bought some battery acid (37% sulphuric acid), added 150ml to a new batch to which I added the horrible run, some feints and a further 2 litres of dunder. I also added about a foot of copper mesh to the boiler. Repeated the process of slow heat up, reflux and then collection. This run was soooo much cleaner and I could smell the fruit as it came off the still. It's a only a few days old but I proofed some down and adde some oak 'essence' i made by soaking some french oak chips in neutral to create a very strong oak essence. It tastes like a young, fruity, funky jamaican rum with a fairly strong molasses finish. I've got 2.5 litres of 88% white rum which I've got to decide what to do with. I'll probably keep half white and then age half on some american and french oak.

My plan is to make a dark brown sugar rum with the same dunder treatment and see how a lighter rum turns out. I've also got a jaggery rum fermenting at the moment so I'll collect the backset and infect with some of the live dunder and then repeat the process with that rum when the dunder is sufficiently stinky.