Rum Experience #1

[subbrew]

This thread is mostly for me to record what I did, keep the info all in one place, and allow me to go back and learn from it later. It will be added to over the next year or more. The main thing I am recording is I made a rum and am aging it in glass, on oak I toasted at three different levels.

The recipe:
3 qt golden barrel molasses
4 lb golden barrel raw sugar
2.5 tsp Fermaid K
First generation 2 tbsp DADY yeast - following generations pitched on yeast bed
1 to 1.5 gal dunder on all generations after the first
Fill 7.5 gal fermenter to 6 gallons more or less

Process:
Combined all above except yeast in a pot and stirred. Used hot tap water. Stirred until all sugar dissolved. Put in fermenter and topped of to about 6 gal if necessary. Put in aeration stone powered by aquarium pump for 15 to 30 minutes. Added airlock and set in hot water bath heated by an aquarium heater to about 75 to 78 degrees to ferment. Fermentation took 7 to 10 days. Stripped each wash, getting about 1.5 gal of low wine per strip. Combined 4 stripping runs and about a half gallon of feints from my first attempt at rum and did a spirit run. Low wine tested at 38% abv. Spirit run hearts yielded 1.6 gal at 72% abv. Proofed down to about 58% abv gave right at 1.85 gallons

Equipment:
8 gal old school, two milk pales welded together boiler. Hot plate heat source, boiler in tamale pot filled with oil to moderate cycling of hot plate. Column very similar to this https://www.essentialdistilling.com/com ... -II-Column

Thoughts:
I love running rum, it smells so damn good. When proofed to 40% the rum has a molasses taste but a bit of harshness as well. I think I was pretty conservative on my cuts although I did go into the tails a bit to get the molasses.

Wood:
Stave from a 5 gal barrel which was used once for bourbon by a craft distillery. Had been empty for a long time as I could only smell the bourbon when I was cutting the stave. Cut staves into approximately 1 inch X 3/4 inch by 5 inch sticks. Charring rasped off then toasted in the oven, light at 325 F, medium at 380 F, and dark at 440 F all for 90 minutes.

Experiment:

Filled three 1/2 gal jars with about 6.5 cup rum. Added two oak sticks to each jar, light toast in one, medium in one and dark in the other. Large cork closure. Remaining rum put into a gallon jug also stopped with a cork. Will store in my "brewery" which is heated to 55 during the winter and will hit 90 during the summer. Hope to post pics and tasting notes every few months.