Crow's Rum

[thecroweater]

I just put down a rum, first one in a while so I thought I would run though how I do it although it is very similar to how many others go about it.
This is for an 80 litre fermenter so around say a 74 litre ferment (19 to 20 gal)
8 ltrs (2.1 gal) stock feed molasses
7 kg (15.5 lbs) of raw (turbinado) sugar
4 tblspoons of tomato paste
Teaspoon of Epson salts
Approx 50 to 100 grams (1.8 to 3.5 oz of dry bakers yeast
Method
OK so I put about 10 or so litres (aprox 3 gal) of hot water in and ladle the molasses in a litre at a time turning with a paddle with each litre. Then I add another 10 or 15 litres (4 gal) of hot water and add the sugar using the same method stirring as I go. I them add the tomato paste, some guys use vitamin b tablets but I think the paste is a cheap all rounder and some of the molasses we get is stripped to blazes. I've found this small amount of paste contributes nothing to the flavour so I'm good with it. After giving it a good stir with the paddle I then top with hot or cold water to get a temp in the high 30s Celsius (around 96'f). Some guys will say that's a bit hot but not really for most bread yeasts and rum does fine to run hot. When I'm satisfied I'm in the temperature range I want I pour the dry yeast over top evenly, you can hydrate the yeast first but I don't bother for rum. I don't stir it in and at this stage seal it up. A bit of insulation will come in handy around the fermenter if the weather is cool as run likes it warm, its not the end of the world if its not though. I didn't add dunder to this but if ya do don't go overboard, I wouldn't use more than 1/8 of the total volume unless ya enjoy messing around with pH.