Rum-focused newbie

[stonedwolf]

Hi

Just looking to make cheap rumshine.

Have watched a few dozen distilling Youtube tutorials, from different people, so reading the Wiki everything is familiar.

My original plan was that 4 litre "coffee-pot" (!) but already before I've bought it I know I've outgrown it so, looking at a T500 type setup, like that adjustable spiritworks boiler and the "anbiq" condenser.

I plan on simple dark brown sugar mashes. No molasses, not yet. Local German stores Aldi/Lidl have dark brown sugar, a mix of cane and molasses, for £2.20/kg (€2.60/kg) or in American currency $1.25/lb. So if I'm looking at 5kg of sugar (23 litres wash, 13% alcohol) that's £11. Looking online there are bulk £25kg sacks for £40 (£1.60/kg) Tate & Lyle Dark Brown Cane Soft Sugar (delivery included) so perhaps that'll be in the future.

But to start, a few washes of supermarket sugar. I'll look at molasses/black treacle run if only to make some dunder colourant, I have the Buccy Bob recipes PDF for that, but I'd rather start with easy-peasy first, build up from there.

[SW_Shiner]

Welcome to the forum.
There's lots of good rum threads and recipes here, from white sugar with added molasses, to straight molasses. Ive made many runs of just soft brown sugar, makes a nice light rum. Small jars or bottles of baking molasses can usually be found amongst the sugar shelves, at least here it is. One or two can be added to bump up the molasses content a bit.

I envy your cheap sugar prices. I moved to straight feed molasses to make it a bit cheaper to make nice flavourful rums.

[stonedwolf]

Thanks.

NAF Molasses (intended for horses) is about £12 for 5 litres, it's a human food-grade unsulphered unadulterated easy-pour blackstrap about 44% sugar, so would need boosting (I know Buccy Bob's recipe does that with a secondary sugar add). I actually have a couple of 500 gram out-of-date (but still good) jars of Molasses from my days as using them for feed for certain... botanicals.

I just don't want to deal with "goo" on my first runs. Dissolved sugar seems like a good, simple, uncomplicated start.

[SW_Shiner]

Wow, thats a great price. Depending on availability, molasses here can be up to $41 for 5L. I save making rum for when they occasionally have 25L for ~$70.

In my opinion, a simple molasses rum wash, like SBBs, is much simpler than a sugar wash. I've given up on sugar washes as i can never get them to finish fermenting. Have not had any issues with molasses washes.The one sugar wash that has worked for me in the past, and it seems to be rather popular, is Shadys Sugar Shine. Its also a great thread to read though and should have most of the answers you're looking for if you have any questions about sugar washes. I've never experienced any "goo" with a molasses wash, unless of course you are referring to the actual molasses.

[FatJim]

Honestly as a newbie i found molasses to be very easy to deal with, as long as you have a workspace that you can mop up xD just use hot water to rinse out the container and pour a gallon or two of hot water on top of the molasses in your bucket and it will dissolve quite quickly. Brown sugar is really not going to give you a nice spirit on its own, its basically just refined sugar, with a tiny bit of molasses added back to it, you would be better off doing "raw" less processed sugar washes imo.

SaltBush Bill's (SBB's) rum recipe (in the tried and true section of the forum) seems to be the go-to for rum aficionados i scaled it down for my purposes to a 5 gallon batch (19l) and had my first go come out quite nice.

If you can get decent molasses cheap id go that route

best of luck!

[Rusty Ole Bucket]

Welcome to HD! You definitely found some rum reference material. From simple light rum to dunder and muck, double thumpers, it's all here.

Dougmatt's panela and molasses rum recipe is pretty easy to pull off and it's really tasty. I just finished a batch this past fall. It was my second ever batch and came out amazing. It's this good...my wife loves it so much that she has been collecting supplies for TWO more batches. That's 78 pounds of panela! I'm ordering molasses this week.

Rusty

[MooseMan]

Welcome to HD! You definitely found some rum reference material. From simple light rum to dunder and muck, double thumpers, it's all here.

Dougmatt's panela and molasses rum recipe is pretty easy to pull off and it's really tasty. I just finished a batch this past fall. It was my second ever batch and came out amazing. It's this good...my wife loves it so much that she has been collecting supplies for TWO more batches. That's 78 pounds of panela! I'm ordering molasses this week.

20250126_095922.jpg

Rusty

That wife of yours sure is the definition of a keeper Rusty!
Although two other words could also apply...
Bad influence!

[Yummyrum]

Welcome to HD stonedwolf.

Agree with others that Saltbush bills all molasses rum is easy peasy and the brown sugar washes aren’t very Rum like at all IMO basically because there is Bugger all Molasses in is .

Also try and avoid making washes as high as 14% .Sure , you get more alcohol but you also get more horrible byproducts . Try to stick to 8-10% tops .

Anyway thats three things I shouldn’t have said because this is a welcome topic , not a Rum discussion section .

[JustinNZ]

Welcome!

[stonedwolf]

Thanks for all the welcome, hints and tips, people.

[Dutch41]

Welcome to the club. You owe it to yourself to do SBB's All Molasses Rum in the future. You'll find it under Tried & True recipes. That recipe provides a stellar rum. It seems that I can't make it fast enough, lol. I oaked it, bottled it and drank it. Don't be afraid to ask questions, you can always shoot me a private message if you need assistance. Have fun...