Clostridium Dunder Pit

[tommysb]

I had recently been making a lot of rum low wines by stripping SBB's all molasses recipe, and read that the best flavours come with addition of dunder/muck. Der Wo's thread on infected Rum seemed to suggest that he had a lot of success adding the dunder to low wines, letting it sit for about 24 hours, and then doing the spirit run. So this is my intended use of this muck. I already have been collecting up low wines, and have more strips to do until I have the right quantity for my spirit run.

To try to be precise with Rum terminology, let's call the fresh 'backset' from the still 'DUNDER', and the infected dunder MUCK. Please correct me if this inaccurate.

I wanted to make some MUCK, by infecting my dunder that was left from a stripping run. I wanted the process to be somewhat repeatable, so decided to infect the dunder with some commercially available CLOSTRIDIUM BUTYRICUM in the form of Japanese Miyarisan tablets.

This bacteria should produce BUTYRIC ACID in anaerobic conditions, which when esterified with alcohols, should give Methyl Butyrate -

it has a fruity odor, in this case resembling apples or pineapples

and (in much bigger quantities!) Ethyl Butyrate (amongst others)

It can be used in a variety of flavors: orange (most common), cherry, pineapple, mango, guava, bubblegum, peach, apricot, fig, and plum.

According to Wikipedia both are fruity, pineappley esters.

This is the butyricum supplement that I used. I had to order from Japan via Ebay, and it arrived after about 3 months. It had been sitting on my shelf waiting for its time to shine.

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I crushed and used roughly what's missing from the bottle. I would estimate 40 tablets?

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So, the only thing you guys are probably really interested in is how the muck pit looks.

The crushed tablets were added to a combination of dunder leftover from a stripping run, a little molasses, yeast, brown sugar and honey. I left the bucket outside, uncovered in a shady place, and there didn't really appear to be much happening. Yesterday, I moved it into the sunny part of my garden to get some heat, and activity started enough that I thought it was worth documenting here. Some leaves and petals fell in, but I'm not bothered.

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In the direct sunshine it's probably getting to temperatures of 28-30c at the surface. I didn't want to disturb what has started to form on the surface, so just measured air temperature above the surface.

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And finally...another bacterial mix getting ready for another experiment. This was purchased from India via ebay, and has STREPTOCOCCUS FAECALIS (mmm yum), Clostridium, and some Lacto bacteria. I think that some EXTREME caution needs to be exercised with this, and some more reading is required though. I recall reading about that microbe being detected in Jamaican muck pits, and also about its use over on the Stilldragon forum.

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Anyway, cheers everyone, let's see how this progresses.