The dunder of death

[Wheelup]

Picture 1 Jan 6

Picture 2 Jan 17

Dunder left from a wash that was run on December 15 in a very hot and humid room.

Smells like typical food / bread mold.

Thought you might like to see the horror!

I'm planning to bin it, unless anyone disagrees?

[Reefer1]

I vote keep it, havin seen your dunder i just had a look at mine its 14 months old lol i did use some in my last batch of rum, just gotta boil it to kill the bugs.

Loads of layers of mold sunk to the bottom.
May be YummyRum could comment ehh.

[Wheelup]

I'm thinking it might be too acidic? for anything that interesting and would need some other additions to get it working up some good acids...just started reading a bit more about dunder / muck pits should be plenty more dunder available in my future so will read a bit more before getting too far ahead of myself.

[Reefer1]

If its very acidic i suppose you gotta be careful chucking it in the wash bucket, i will test mine see what ph it is.
To be honest Wheelup, i used a few litres in my boiler when i distilled my last batch of rum, i have it sat on oak for over 12 months, i i havent noticed any difference with the previous batch with no dunder in it.
I reckon i got some learning to do as well.

[Yummyrum]

LOL I’ve never been keen on festering Dunder pits , preferring to use fresh or pasteurised stuff that is stored sealed .I once had one grow a Scobby that sank as well Reefer. At that point I was nearly sick and dumped it and started again.

So I am no expert .

I believe Salty staves went right into it . He’d be able to tell you more .

[Reefer1]

I will have a look see if i can find his post.

[Yummyrum]

If you have used all molasses , your Dunder will consistently have a pH of 5 +-0.5 Run after run after run.

If you have Dunder made with a lot of sugar and little molasses , then yes the pH may be a lot lower .

Interestingly , I believe the Jamaicans deliberately add Lime to raise the pH to encourage “growth”

[Yummyrum]

I will have a look see if i can find his post.

This one Reefer ( Have your Barf Bag ready )
Muck Pit life cycle

[Reefer1]

i had a good cringe, i'm used to maggots being a fisherman but that's a bit much. Lol
Thats a good read Yums. But crikey i'm not sure i have the patience for that process.
There are too many uncontrolable elements and time. And lots of adjustments, ph and stuff.
Whats your take on that Wheelup.

[Wheelup]

I think i'm getting rid of this one Reefer - not really worth the risk of potentially spoiling something else. I have access to lots of molasses so not too worry.

I'd previously read Salty's thread and still baffled by most of it. I know that there needs to be some things added to dunder to get working the right way.

Matt Pietrik, author of Caribbean Rum and all round rum guru has just written an article about this exact subject:

https://www.rumwonk.com/p/jamaica-rum-d ... dium=email

[SaltyStaves]

I'd previously read Salty's thread and still baffled by most of it. I know that there needs to be some things added to dunder to get working the right way.

I'll try to clear up something that may have caused confusion in that thread. I started with making vinegar in the tub first, then used some of that to kick off the muck. I would not repeat this and it is not standard practice. Muck and vinegar are produced separately and combined in other parts of the process. I only had one suitable vessel at the time.

The common misconception I see with muck is that a pleasant aroma is somehow desirable. Dunder is acidic, Vinegar is very acidic, but muck is kept at a pH that is much less acidic to encourage putrefactive bacterial development (which smell terrible). Nice smelling muck isn't muck. It won't create the esters that the tropical rums are known for.

[NZChris]

Matt Pietrik, author of Caribbean Rum and all round rum guru has just written an article about this exact subject:

https://www.rumwonk.com/p/jamaica-rum-d ... dium=email

There is a statement in that article that doesn't sound correct. Using dunder to replace most of the water in a ferment would build up high non-sugars in very few generations. It should be ok if using cane juice, but I suspect it would quickly become 'the dunder of death' and stall your ferments if using molasses.

[MooseMan]

The common misconception I see with muck is that a pleasant aroma is somehow desirable. Dunder is acidic, Vinegar is very acidic, but muck is kept at a pH that is much less acidic to encourage putrefactive bacterial development (which smell terrible). Nice smelling muck isn't muck. It won't create the esters that the tropical rums are known for.

I was fully planning to add my fairly well developed muck to my last rum spirit run Salty.
But I pulled the amount I was planning to add and the smell just hit me so hard, I could not bring myself to mess with it. I know it is meant to be full of putrefactive bacteria aroma and organic acids, and that these are needed to get the reaction required for the good stuff, but I was simply terrified that even a miniscule whiff of that stuff left in my rum would render it undrinkable.
50+ years of life experience just said, No don't do it!

A question here for those who mess with muck.
Can you create a reaction outside of the still/wash/low wines, that will produce what is required and remain stable enough for it to be added to the still when the fear subsides?
So for example if one were to mix muck with some acid and some feints from a previous rum, just in a bucket or whatever, to be sure that the evil smells do disappear, will that then still produce the required reaction and will it still carry into the rum if you then add that mix to the spirit run?

I'll be honest here, I'm literally scared of it.

[SaltyStaves]

Salts (Cousin's process) will allow you to run it later. But that is a whole different rabbit hole.

[Saltbush Bill]

There is a statement in that article that doesn't sound correct

Interesting that he also keeps referring to a Rum wash as a "Mash"
On the other hand there are some interesting titbits here n there.

[NZChris]

There is a statement in that article that doesn't sound correct

Interesting that he also keeps referring to a Rum wash as a "Mash"
On the other hand there are some interesting titbits here n there.

Mistakes like that make me wonder if the article was just another AI product.

[Saltbush Bill]

His book on Caribbean Rums won an award, before Rum his book writtings were about Microsoft Windows as far as i can see.....so who knows.

[Bolverk]

This is honestly why I went the pure acids approach... No botulin toxins to worry about lol

The vinegar pit is far less scary and far safer. I've met some pros that call this "live dunder" and while in the Caribbean process there is no mention of live dunder by comparing their processes it seem like they are kinda emulating the cane acid cistern that Hampden uses. This one can have somewhat fruity and floral smell because there is alcohol in this and esters are being formed. The muck pit, not so much, it is putrid.

As for the mostly dunder... I feel like this deserves some context.

So in the Hampden process they use 40% dunder and to them it is a "mostly" dunder because they only add 10% molasses and 30% skimmings, so it is the greatest proportion.

Im using big round numbers here to explain:
So 100 gal ferment
10 gals molasses
30 gal skimmings
40 gal dunder
10 gal cane acid
10 gal muck

The cane acid and muck are added later so the ferment base is the 10 gals molasses, 30 gal skimmings, and 40 gal dunder
This is roughly 35 gals of water to 40 gals of dunder. Because when they say mostly water they aren't explaining that skimmings is basically just sugar and water, but since they are not "adding" water it gives this appearance... I hope this makes sense lol.

If you are reusing the dunder (and you should be in my opinion) this does reach a point where your gravity will level out but it is quite high. You're looking at a starting gravity of around 1.1 and ending gravity of 1.060-1.065. After about 5 batches of an ever increasing final gravity it will level out.

[Stilljoy McFlavour]

I also had a muck bucket once that, among other things, smelled like bread mold. This smell actually came over after distillation and pretty much ruined the batch. It cleared up somewhat after a few years on wood, but not enough (yet?) to classify it an acceptable drink. All the other smells and nastynesses are welcome, but I steer wide away from mold since then

[Bolverk]

Leaving a bucket of dunder out to fester and mold uncontrolled is not muck. What goes into the muck pit is important.... It needs a butyric acid creating bacteria like clostridium, brett makes butyric acid, hell even dirt contains traces of butyric acid bacteria. The butyric acid bacteria is going to keep most of other nasties down because very few bacteria tolerate the butyric acid.

I see on FB all the time people throwing shit tons of fruit trash and other crap in a bucket with the hope itll turn into a usable muck but that's just not the case.

While it may be putrid, it is still a carefully curated bio reactor.

If you want to try a real muck pit buy some mirysan tablets (Japanese probiotic) off eBay, this has been pre-screened for botulin toxins and should be safe. Then prep a bucket with a 50/50 dunder/water. Take a potato microwave it, cut into quarters, then immediately put it in the freezer to cool. Once its cold (not frozen), put one of these pieces of potato in the bucket. This is a starch resistant food for the clostridium bacterium. Add a few chunks of white marble and wait for 3-6 months, use an air lock. Once the clostridium bacterium colony is established you can play around with letting other things innoculate it but let your butyric acid bacteria get established.