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Paulinka wrote:I try makeing rum from birdwatcher's wash and give molasses* only to the low wines for flavour (as molasses are not easy to aquire here)

Paulinka Im pretty sure your going to find it hard to make a reasonable rum that way.

Paulinka wrote:*Lyle's black treacle, it says it is sulphured, will three heaped tablespoon (<200g) added to the low wines give a recognizable sulphuric smell or taste?

Id be surprised if any sulfur smell would be recognizable from 3 heaped table spoons of treacle.
I do have a solution to the problem though, send me a bottle of that spirit you make from plums and I will send you a bottle of good Rum.

That would solve my hunger for great rum too easily. Bad thing is that this years' plum is not something I would happily send, it would be an early end of a fresh friendship due to quality of the 2014 plums. Anyway, this spirit I'm distilling now (I will not call it a rum again) is something I threw all the leftover fruit-feints (and some AG-feints too) in it's low wines, will be heavily packed with dried fruits and a little oak will help to make something.. drinkable. I hope.

if molasses is hard for you to get, id see about using a wack load of turbinado sugar..ive made (somewhat) decent rum without molasses...that's going against the rule of (rum) thumb though.

I sure wish I could send you some blackstrap. Can you aquire cane sugar or at least brown sugar? You could make a nice light rum with those.

Anything other than white sugar is quite expensive here in Central-Europe, so I guess I stick with making booze from AG if other than fruits, but only from next spring.

Not a lot of molasses flavour distilled through from the enchanted whitesugar-wash, however there are multiple fruits recognizable with a slight soapy background it inherited from the AG-feints. More than a gallon of 110proof strong booze to make some fancy liquors with, I am not disappointed at all.

I know people who have eaten mouldy cheese, mouldy bread and other foods over the years...none of the stories involved people being sick....the stories were always about their horror when they realised what they'd eaten in the dark the night before.

So in relation tot the topic, mould, bacteria etc isn't always going to make you poorly....is it?

....with that being said:
ya we all know rum backset can be kept at rt for long periods of time, but what about whiskey backset? i kept 15 L frozen on the balcony- i moved and it got left in the corner of the basement and it thawed. i used it after two weeks of being thawed yesterday for odins CF recepie ...had some floaties but still had a decent smell...

Now that this thread is revived, any updates from those that are using dunder pits. Just started mine yesterday with the dunder
from my first rum.

it makes a big difference the dunder. it kicks up the heavy taste. my pits got about six generations of rum backset. its been moved here and there which has disturbed the moldy top

Well, this thread was a good read, so thanks for reviving it! I'm on the hunt for molasses now, and when I finally find some, I'll be makin' myself a dunder bucket!

I love my dunder pit, i wont make a batch of rum without it.

Paulinka wrote:I try makeing rum from birdwatcher's wash and give molasses* only to the low wines for flavour (as molasses are not easy to aquire here) before distillation, I wondered is the spent wash (sugar+tomato+citric acid+yeast) should work as a dunder too? Also, should one also pour the dead yeast cells that thickened in the fermenter's bottom into the dunder pit?

*Lyle's black treacle, it says it is sulphured, will three heaped tablespoon (<200g) added to the low wines give a recognizable sulphuric smell or taste? Never done it before, so I thought those who play with dunder-pits here are the pro's in rum making, this is why I dare to ask here.
Thank you.

Hi Paulinka, I've done something slightly similar to you in that I made a rum based on the birdwatchers recipe, but I substituted all the white sugar for feed molasses (unsulphured) and Lyle's black treacle (which states that it contains some natural occurring sulphur).

I have to say that even with the large quantity of the black treacle in my ferment (7.25l) the ferment took off like a rocket, fermented to dry quickly and smelled delightful throughout its ferment and subsequent distillations. There was never a hint of anything sulphurous throughout.

I have saved my dunder from my 1st strip (about 18l) and this is ageing in a bucket waiting for my next ferment which will probably be made of demerara sugar and black treacle.

Hi Phill, I found molasses in a VetShop... is it very expensive, £13 for 5 Liter?
Can you please tell me the exact ratios, FGM:LBT:Water:Yeast?
Did the ferment needed citric acid for souring and/or tomato paste for yeastfood?
Damm, this hobby is getting more and more expensive, my rum's ingredients will be 10x the cost of a corn+millet whiskey.

Hi Paulinka,

I paid around the same price for my molasses (5l). I actually used 5l of black treacle (7.25 kg), not 7.25l.

I did a thread on my rum http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 32&t=53785

From that:

Ingredients for a 46l wash:

7.25kg (5l) Tate & Lyle's black treacle;
7.25kg (5l) NAF feed-grade molasses;
2 tubes double concentrated tomato puree;
Juice of 2 lemons;
1/2 tsp Epsom salts.
Tub Allinson's Dried Active Yeast.

I calculated the treacle (64% sugar) would give me 4.6kg of sugar and the molasses (44% sugar) would give me 3.2kg of sugar, giving my wash a potential of 10% abv.

It was the most expensive wash I have produced to date but it yielded after stripping, spirit run, cuts and tails run 4.5l @ 78% ABV and 1l (from the tails run) @ 77% ABV.

Perfect, thank you very much!

Just thought i would update this for you. I stored my dunder in my 220 litre drum outside in the barn over a UK winter.

This was some time ago. When i opened it up and took a sniff i thought i was going to die. Vomiting, headaches ill for several hours. Probably got a lung full of spores and god knows what else. I disposed of the contents and the drum.

In the future, in this climate, i will use fresh dunder. I will probably store it short term in sealed containers or frozen. I will NOT be ageing it again.

Molasses is sold by farm shops to horse breeders. It is also sold to flour millers. I buy 25 l for £10 and dilute to 35°Brix while checking pH is raised with Lime water to at least pH6. Any dunder is going to make the wash too acid so that too needs adjusted by slaked lime. A basic sugar wash is good at pH4.8 but not good for a dunder microbe where pH, T° and ABV% is critical within narrow parameters.

Myles, you covered your dunder pit?? It's meant to be an open pit outdoors in soil. But our problem in Britain with dunder pits which are not dug near to cane sugar fields, the Clostridium Saccharomyces bacteria is just not in the air.

But it can be got, cultured and inoculated. It grows eg as black mould on white onion skin.
But arroyo outlines that such dunder is only added to the wort after fermentation has started and the sugar has reduced. Also it is very temperature sensitive. Can't survive high sugar or alcohol above 6% nor temperature outside 29°-33°C
I found a better flavour boost boiling the lees from the last wash with sugar and some dunder before adding molasses, make sure the final mix of sugar to Molly (around 50:50) is no more than18°Bx to yield ABV8%. This wash will ferment out fully in 3 days at up to 33°C

casper the Irish wrote:
Myles, you covered your dunder pit?? It's meant to be an open pit outdoors in soil. But our problem in Britain with dunder pits which are not dug near to cane sugar fields, the Clostridium Saccharomyces bacteria is just not in the air.

But it can be got, cultured and inoculated. It grows eg as black mould on white onion skin.

Clostridium is a bacterium while Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a yeast.
i read that Clostridium can metabolize many things other than sugar but yields not only ethyl acholol but also propionic acid, butanol, and ether

Darned spell checker.
clostridium saccharobutyricum bacteria
I read that dunder pits are dug by the still houses and sugar plantation where the canes are crushed. (This product being cachaca rather than rum, made only in harvest.) Rum made in situ can benefit from these outdoor dunder pits where the boiled beer from fermented molasses was ditched and became infected by bacteria blown from the plantation

recently i felt it was time to renew the dunder pit. ive taken out and put back in for close to three years.
i used my regular recipe for rum (Hook's- i tweeked it because i use turbinato sugar), but used half the dunder. im used to a bbq sauce smell, but ill admit the dunder took on a "dusty" note to it. the dunder was brought to a good boil and cooled a bit before i added for ingredients. I did this for three batches. I kept a bit of back set from each to almost fill a six gal carboy. I used a tight coffee filter w elastics to cover.
ive been thinking about aerating the dunder pit every blue moon w a aquarium pump. maybe it'll keep the anarobes at bay. any thoughts?

Check out Bryan Davis' article about hot and dirty fermentations in the latest issue of Distiller magazine. As I understand it anaerobic bacteria is what creates the carboxylic acids that bind with ethanol to create the desirable esters in finished spirits. He even references a book that describes adding the contents of a chamber pot to rum fermentations. That's a bit much for me. Apparently you haven't had any issues with pathogens if your dunder pit has been going for three years. I just started mine with a 5 gallon bucket.

Most pathogens will be killed either during the fermentation process by the yeast producing alcohol, or during the heat-up and boiling during the distillation process. Time and temperature. Plenty of it during distillation. You mentioned prions in an earlier post; those are usually transmitted from the carcasses of animals. Don't add animals to your dunder pit, and you should be fine.

ill have to look for that reading. i have put a airlock on my pit for short periods and noticed minute signs of fermentation. in my experience anaerobic conditions in an uncontrolled atmosphere creates STANK.
as long as you boil, your dunder will be fine. i havnt used dunder in a rum mash that smelt totally nasty mind you.

To add my experience....I started making rum about 18 months ago. At that time obviously I had no dunder or backset, needless to say my first batch was pretty weak in flavour. From the first run I used some backset and also started a dunder pit in a stainless 3 gal pail which I covered with plastic wrap.

Over the course of about 4 months I made 5 batches adding both fresh backset & dunder from my young pit. By the 5th run I was amazed at how much the rich complex rum flavour increased. From the last run I also put some fresh backset in a plastic pail for another dunder pit.........this one had a tight fitting lid.

When summer came I got too busy to make any more so my dunder pits sat in disturbed until just about a week ago.

When I went to use both of these they it smelt pretty much as I remember from last year the biggest difference was the large lumps of mold floating like icebergs on the one in the stainless pail and yes they were much larger under the surface. The other in the plastic pail had almost nothing growing on it. Surprisingly they are remarkably similar in flavour & smell.

Having gone from rum without dunder to rum with dunder my plan is to keep a dunder pit replenished from each run and unless it starts to smell putrid keep using it.

Just did a new run on some BBSGD recipe and decided to try some with a new dunder pit. I've put about 15 litres in plastic pail, covered it with a tee shirt and set it outside in my backyard.

I figured, being spring, now would be a good time to see what occupies my new pit.

I'll post what the outcome is......favourable or otherwise.

Dave

So do you all use a clearing agent (Turbo Clear for instance) in your wash before distilling? I was curious if this would affect the dunder.

Also, what ratio of Dunder do you use to your wash?

Cheers!

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I dont. It clears pretty well on its own, but i dont run immediately after its finished. It usually sits a while for flavor development. Always have a nice tight yeast bed on the bottom

Daemientia wrote:So do you all use a clearing agent (Turbo Clear for instance) in your wash before distilling? I was curious if this would affect the dunder.

Also, what ratio of Dunder do you use to your wash?

Most here don't use turbo yeast and if they do it is for neutral spirits, not rum... Turbo yeast is the wrong tool for the job when it comes to rum... And, that being said, you probably wouldn't end up with "dunder", or backset, worth saving... And, to compound that, the use of turbo clear would further taint any such efforts... The whole turbo yeast experience is one of throw away... Most would suggest throwing the turbo yeast away from the get-go but if you use it you would toss the backset rather than attempting to reuse it... Again, wrong tool for the job... Turbo yeast is only good for use with plain white sugar, and no other ingredients, for neutral spirits...

wtfdskin wrote:I dont. It clears pretty well on its own, but i dont run immediately after its finished. It usually sits a while for flavor development. Always have a nice tight yeast bed on the bottom

Thanks for this! How long does it take to clear on average? ... How long is "a while"? [WINKING FACE]

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rad14701 wrote:

Daemientia wrote:So do you all use a clearing agent (Turbo Clear for instance) in your wash before distilling? I was curious if this would affect the dunder.

Also, what ratio of Dunder do you use to your wash?

Most here don't use turbo yeast and if they do it is for neutral spirits, not rum... Turbo yeast is the wrong tool for the job when it comes to rum... And, that being said, you probably wouldn't end up with "dunder", or backset, worth saving... And, to compound that, the use of turbo clear would further taint any such efforts... The whole turbo yeast experience is one of throw away... Most would suggest throwing the turbo yeast away from the get-go but if you use it you would toss the backset rather than attempting to reuse it... Again, wrong tool for the job... Turbo yeast is only good for use with plain white sugar, and no other ingredients, for neutral spirits...

I didn't use Turbo yeast - I used a rum distiller yeast blend. Took 7 days to ferment at 15%.

rad14701:

Sorry just getting used to this app lol. Thanks for the advice on Turbo Clear that was my concern.

Cheers!

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