HbPs' double retort potstill build.

[jessespa]

I really enjoyed reading about this build. Turned out really nice. It would be great to hear how she runs out for you.
And the different combinations on what goes in each of them. Very interesting possibilities.
Thanks for sharing so far.

[HDNB]

finally repaired the network in the stillin' shack, so i'm catching up on my reading while the whisky is on the make.

top notch build, looks awesome!

i read twice here that the second retort is filled with heads? why? do you cut them again?

i can see re-doing the tails, but why the heads?

whats the still look like inside now that it made a run? i did a moleass rum wash in my whiskey still and really regretted it, took me forever to get back to clean for whiskey (made the next AG taste like moleass....) so i spent about 4 hours getting the staining out....question being, do ya suppose you'll do whiskey too? maybe panela is not so bad?

[Hillbilly Popstar]

finally repaired the network in the stillin' shack, so i'm catching up on my reading while the whisky is on the make.

top notch build, looks awesome!

i read twice here that the second retort is filled with heads? why? do you cut them again?

i can see re-doing the tails, but why the heads?

whats the still look like inside now that it made a run? i did a moleass rum wash in my whiskey still and really regretted it, took me forever to get back to clean for whiskey (made the next AG taste like moleass....) so i spent about 4 hours getting the staining out....question being, do ya suppose you'll do whiskey too? maybe panela is not so bad?

So I'm new to the rum game, but from my understanding the alcohols in the heads mix with the acids to promote esterification.

I still have a lot more reading, experimenting and learning to do.
I'm sure I'll lock down some techniques that I like for the product I'm trying to make.

For now, I'm kinda just reading a lot and throwing shit at the wall.


As for cleanliness... Its not something I've ever really had a problem with. I have never noticed any more or less mess in the boiler after a molasses wash, as opposed to a corn mash.

[matjans]

One word. Beautiful!

If it's high ester rum you're after, try searching for the H. Cousins high ester rum process. Supercharges the ester content of the thumper.

[rubberduck71]

15 gallon boiler with two 5 gallon retorts.

Hillbilly: been a while since this thread was discussed.

Have you done any whiskey recipes with it recently, & how have they turned out?

Thanks!
Duck

[juana_b]

I've gotten inspiration from this build, so I'm making one. All 2 inch connections. Here's where I'm starting. Had to trim the reducing bushing and the short radius 90. Still need some 1 inch pipe and awaiting 2 relief/vacuum breakers.

Edit: Just want to give HbP props for getting me going on this. I'll start another thread when I've made more progress.

[Wildcats]

I've gotten inspiration from this build, so I'm making one. All 2 inch connections. Here's where I'm starting. Had to trim the reducing bushing and the short radius 90. Still need some 1 inch pipe and awaiting 2 relief/vacuum breakers.
20230709_120444.jpg20230709_120418.jpg
Edit: Just want to give HbP props for getting me going on this. I'll start another thread when I've made more progress.

Nice. I will definitely be following this when you start your build thread. Thumper's is all I been reading about for the last few days. Won't be long now till I'm ready to put the flame to some copper. Good luck with your build man.

[Yummyrum]

Any feedback HbPs ?

I come across that graphic of the 50:50 Low wines , 75:25 High wines again today and it thinking again about if its 50:50 Wash and Low wines or is it Dunder and Low wines ? And how much charge is in those Thumpers .
Same question on the High wines .

Then of cause the old question of what is High wines , heads or Feints above 35% ?

So it got me thinking about your setup and if you had come to any conclusions yet?

[Bolverk]

Any feedback HbPs ?

I come across that graphic of the 50:50 Low wines , 75:25 High wines again today and it thinking again about if its 50:50 Wash and Low wines or is it Dunder and Low wines ? And how much charge is in those Thumpers .
Same question on the High wines .

Then of cause the old question of what is High wines , heads or Feints above 35% ?

Grim found it

https://www.stilldragon.org/discussion/ ... w-wines/p1

[Yummyrum]

Thanks Bolverk. Think I may have heard about that some time ago but hadn’t actually seen the wording .That kind of makes sense but it still doesn’t explain what the other portion of 50:50 or 75:25 is . Could be wash , Dunder or even water of combos of any . How full they charge the Thumpers is also a mystery.

Getting back to that drawing , it does kinda imply that the High wines are heads by virtue of the order of the tanks . However , I suspect there is no heads cut done at all , and all the fruity heads go straight into the barrel for aging . It otherwise makes no sense to go through all the palaver of creating esters if only to cut them out .

[MooseMan]

Yummy et al I have been trying to educate myself as much as possible on Rum and listened to a podcast a while back that went into detail about how the double retort setups came about for rum distilling and what they did with them.

There was also a discussion about what they called high (Heads) and low (Tails) wines and what they did with them, and of course dunder and muck etc along with the horror stories about human excrement being put into the muck pits to stop the workers drinking it...

Not 100% on this as it was a while ago, but either this one:
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cH ... MzJi?ep=14

Or this one maybe?
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cH ... hZTI?ep=14

[Bolverk]

Thanks Bolverk. Think I may have heard about that some time ago but hadn’t actually seen the wording .That kind of makes sense but it still doesn’t explain what the other portion of 50:50 or 75:25 is . Could be wash , Dunder or even water of combos of any . How full they charge the Thumpers is also a mystery.

Getting back to that drawing , it does kinda imply that the High wines are heads by virtue of the order of the tanks . However , I suspect there is no heads cut done at all , and all the fruity heads go straight into the barrel for aging . It otherwise makes no sense to go through all the palaver of creating esters if only to cut them out .

In all the reading I've done, that drawing is the only place I've seen or heard reference to those specific ratios. I'm not saying it's wrong. I just dont know the source. Without more info I'd go off what we do know and that's what's in the 1905 sugar plantation report and what's in the HH Cousins manual; ie high tails collected from 40-60% and low tails collected from 20-40%.

I've not seen any mention of how much to fill the retorts (that i recall). I've used 10-25% of the retort volume as a baseline and had very good experiences.

I believe (and im prepared to be wrong) in HH Cousins guide to high ester rums it says heads are recycled into the boiler. Doing this allows the aldehydes to further break down and gives you more alcohol diversity for more than just ethanol based esters.

[Hillbilly Popstar]

Hey guys it's me.

I appreciate your interest.

So my wife left me in Aug if 2023. It's been a rough year.

Last thing I did with my rum still was make a bourbon.
My ex wife and I embarked on a journey to fill.a.5 gallon barrel and it had about 6 months of age on it when she left. My still has been gathering dust since.

Not at all coincidentally, I now know exactly how long it take me to drink 5gal of 120 proof bourbon. The answer is about 5 months.

At any rate, I am doing better now and plan to buy some molasses soon. Looking forward to picking this experiment back up.

[Yummyrum]

Hey guys it's me.

I appreciate your interest.

So my wife left me in Aug if 2023. It's been a rough year.

Last thing I did with my rum still was make a bourbon.
My ex wife and I embarked on a journey to fill.a.5 gallon barrel and it had about 6 months of age on it when she left. My still has been gathering dust since.

Not at all coincidentally, I now know exactly how long it take me to drink 5gal of 120 proof bourbon. The answer is about 5 months.

At any rate, I am doing better now and plan to buy some molasses soon. Looking forward to picking this experiment back up.

Hey HbPs

Thanks for checking back in .
Hope you are doing all right …… miss you bro
Whats up… keen to hear that you do with all that molly

[Tammuz]

Thanks Bolverk. Think I may have heard about that some time ago but hadn’t actually seen the wording .That kind of makes sense but it still doesn’t explain what the other portion of 50:50 or 75:25 is . Could be wash , Dunder or even water of combos of any . How full they charge the Thumpers is also a mystery.

Getting back to that drawing , it does kinda imply that the High wines are heads by virtue of the order of the tanks . However , I suspect there is no heads cut done at all , and all the fruity heads go straight into the barrel for aging . It otherwise makes no sense to go through all the palaver of creating esters if only to cut them out .

In all the reading I've done, that drawing is the only place I've seen or heard reference to those specific ratios. I'm not saying it's wrong. I just dont know the source. Without more info I'd go off what we do know and that's what's in the 1905 sugar plantation report and what's in the HH Cousins manual; ie high tails collected from 40-60% and low tails collected from 20-40%.

I've not seen any mention of how much to fill the retorts (that i recall). I've used 10-25% of the retort volume as a baseline and had very good experiences.

I believe (and im prepared to be wrong) in HH Cousins guide to high ester rums it says heads are recycled into the boiler. Doing this allows the aldehydes to further break down and gives you more alcohol diversity for more than just ethanol based esters.

Here is an article mentioning the amounts in the retorts.
https://www.velier.it/en/rum/6211-an-an ... still.html

[fzbwfk9r]

Thanks for posting, the update, and pics

this is something I want to do also

couple questions:
are you worried about your thumpers over filling? Is it not a better practice to have the lyne arms inclined?
Easy to do, just reverse the input/output
I'd be concerned about putting fill into the thumpers with the condensate being able to run down into them and fill them.

is there info on this on HD??
I remember reading about a steam rig adding, then removing fluid, but that was in a system where the lyne arm was inclined. I didn't see where a test was done with the lyne arm declining.

And Hey, HbPS, I don't think it would take much more time for you to up your game in the bling department. Your work looks amazing. I think you would easily have the skill, if not the patience to polish up your copper and SS.

I look forward to updates.

[Yummyrum]

are you worried about your thumpers over filling?
I'd be concerned about putting fill into the thumpers with the condensate being able to run down into them and fill them.

I think HbPs would be fine . I found on mine , that if I started with about 5 litres in each thumper of low and highwines respectively and 60 litres of wash in the boiler , I would end up with with around 13litres in the first and about 9 in the second .
So concidering HbPs boiler is 3x larger than his thumpers and that he would leave a fair headspace in it , there should be no chance of them over filling .
The only issue being a puke from boiler to first thumper
In experiments I did in the past , a puke will travel up a 2” inclined lyne arm at 45° no worries . So I don’t thing having uphill lyne arms will make that much difference .

[fzbwfk9r]

Thanks Yummy. Good info for me to know

leaves more options open to me.

[Tammuz]

Having your lyne arm inclined up may not stop a foamy puke but it returns water back to the boiler keeping from diluting the thumper.