I owe thanks to everyone on Home Distillers that have helped guide me along on my distilling journey. I thought I would lay out my system, what I do now, what I did in the past and where I want to go in the future. I should note too, that all I distill is rum. That is where my interests lie. I don’t mean to diminish the wide wonderful world of distilling. I am just interested in rum.
I have been a home brewer for longer than I care to admit. This has given me a background knowledge in fermentation and documenting my processes. So, I will touch on my fermentation process currently and where I will go in the future. I do 11.5 gal washes in a 60 liter barrel. All my washes currently are 2 gallons of baking grade molasses, 7 gals of RO water, 2 gals of dunder and I add ½ gal of leftover lees and yeast cake that has been boiled, for yeast nutrients. I pitch 45 grams of Hornindal dry yeast and maintain a fermentation temperature of 82F. The original gravity comes in around 1.089 t 0 1.091 with a pH of 4.8 to 5.0. I do a temperature-controlled fermentation to try and keep results as close to repetitive as I can. The fermentation finishes around 1.009 to 1.011 after 10 to 14 days. The wash is well settled out after this time and is run into the pot. The lees and yeast cake saved for yeast nutrients for the next wash.
All of my distillations to date have been put in a solera consisting of a 10 liter oak barrel with a level 3 char that receives the fresh distillate, followed by 3 2 ½ gallon fusion hybrid barrels with a medium toast and level 3 char. The next run will top off the solera. The first draw from the solera will be this September.
My still is a double retort system consisting of a ½ barrel keg pot with a 240 volt 5500w heating element controlled by a potentiometer. Both retorts are ¼ kegs. The pot has a 3” to 1” stainless top. The lines to and from the retorts are 1” copper tubing finishing in a 21” x 2” shotgun condenser. The ½ keg can be used as a stand alone pot still and one of the ¼ kegs can be fitted with a 240 volt 2200 watt heating element to be used as a smaller pot still.
I began my rum distilling journey last July. I am on my 11th batch currently. My first run was not pretty and a bit out of control. It was pretty much the same for batches 2 -6. I was chasing temperatures and ABV. I was trying to heat things up too quickly. I was producing rum but the cuts were difficult make and not as clean as I would have liked. I have since slowed the heating up process of the pot through to the retorts. Bringing them into balance before producing the first drips. I think that this has helped to prevent smearing. I run the output at a drip, drip spurt repeat. The 1st retort is charged with a gallon of low wines, 35-40% ABV. The 2nd retort is charged with 1.25 gallons of high wines at 60-65% ABV. The fore shots come off at 90% ABV. The heads through the hearts and to early tails will go from high 80s to low 80’s ABV before dropping quickly off into the 70’s as tails start to really show up. I will end up with 3 liters of hearts that will be cut to 65% ABV for filling the solera. The tails are saved for high and low wines.
I think my process now produces repetitive results or as close as I can get. The cuts are cleaner and easier to ,make. I want that consistency for what goes into the solera. Once the solera is full after this next run, the plan is to do a clean pot still run with just molasses and no dunder. That will be followed by a muck and dunder wash fermented without temperature control in the hopes of getting a rum with higher esters. Both the clean pot still rum and the Muck rum will be used as stand alone and blending.
I realize this is a bit long… again thank you to everyone here. Any questions or comments, please feel free.
Brgds/CaptWill
Rum distallation journey
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