Rum Theories

[blind drunk]

Just trying fruit for the first time. Thanks for the heads up. Not sure what's better, but where I live, not a lot of quick options, so I did some quick reading and threw in some baking soda. As kiwi would say, three sheets to the wind!! Cheers, bd.

[kiwistiller]

what, are you pissed?

Calcium carbonate is a better PH raiser btw, yeast don't like much sodium.

[blind drunk]

It worked bd.

[kiwistiller]

Yeah sodium bicarb is alright for a while, but it'll build up if you're recycling dunder, and sodium slows down yeast. One of the reasons salt is essential in bread

[blind drunk]

Thanks kiwi. I was a little panicked and that's all I had in the pantry. No place where I live to get what's better, especially late at night

bd

[CaymanRumBaron]

Kiwi, I am awaiting your results of the EDV 493 almost to the point of cold sweats I am expecting to get my own sometime tomorrow, came all the way from White Labs, California and cost a pretty penny too.


Good to know though about the calcium carbonate vs sodium bicarbonate though. i would have just used baking soda and then wondered which my yeasts arent happy.

[kiwistiller]

Sorry mate I'll get to it the last few days got a bit busy, and yesterday there was a good weather window so I buggered off diving as the freezer was almost empty.

It's an extremely good flocculator, I've never seen a yeast cake so thick after a day of crash cooling. So I've got some clarified wash. What would you like me to do with it? I don't really feel this run will give a fair impression of flavour, especially as there hasn't been any dunder or feints built up yet. I was thinking about giving it a long reflux and then a fast run through my partially detuned VM, but feel free to suggest something.

My dunder smells awesome by the way! looks like hell though.

[CaymanRumBaron]

I dive myself, scuba and I used to spearfish as well. Nice when you have good weather and visibilty.

I run a simple CM still myself, with a 20" x 2" SS column attached to 8 gallon boiler. It has a external cooling jacket right below the take off which means Its getting some reflux but just enough to allow for a consistant flow starting at 75% and be able run the 1500w hotplate flatout (it cycles wildly otherwise). I usually only do a single run. I have read Arroyos paper which recommends full reflux for a while to allow the lighter vapors to mingle with the heavier ones. This supposedly creates new mixtures which are desirable for the rum profile.

That being said, if i were you, for consistency, I would prolly run it as usual just to compare it to previous washes apples to apples.

My dunder is also quite ripe for being so young, no lumps on the surface though as i like to mix those in, to get some new real estate available for new strains to colonize. It has boiled yeast, live bread yeast and various wild beasts. Its a jungle in there

[kiwistiller]

Ok well I'll do a white run, lightly refluxed, as I normally wouldn't shoot for a full bodied and oaked rum on the first generation.

[kazanas]

Good thoughts boys.
But I thought something to try. Has anyone try to ferment a rum wash in open air? What would be like!

[CaymanRumBaron]

Kazanas,

That has been tried before but is very random. You cannot decide whats going to ferment your wash and could end up with a whole lot of vineagar or much worse.

What people recommend for wild strains is put some simple wash in several small jars, then put them around your place uncovered or with a loose fitting lid. Then see what grows in it. If it smells sweeter (if thats what your going for) than before, add the infected container to a larger container of wash so it can multiply enough to be able to ferment a full sized wash and then pitch it. It may work slowly though and you may not get the usual final ABV you get from normal yeast so aim low. What ever you do though do not taste the wash as you do not know whats in there.

I actually used some of infected dunder in a wash but I also reused some bakers yeast that was left over from the previous ferment so it was more of a mixture of wild and bakers yeasts.

[CaymanRumBaron]

So the EDV 493 has arrived.

I started a wash and its going slow although i did not pitch it correctly as i did have anything to measure the dose correctly. The yeast is fast muliplier so I dont doubt it will finish dry, just might take a day or so longer than expected. It also likes heat so hopefully today it will warm up and get really going.

[CaymanRumBaron]

The rum wash using the EDV 493 is done. SG was 1.055 and FG is 1.010. The ferment was not violent compared to Kiwi's but was still very quick, think quiet storm. I will probably charge the still on the weekend which will hopefully let more yeast settle out so I can harvest and reuse the yeast.

The wash does have a bit more fruitiness/floral to it than usual, much more along the lines of the mixed culture of wild and bread yeast that i did previously.
Cant wait to still it to get a good impression on the rum vs regular breadyeast. The only down is that I dont have enough storage for 2 sets of dunder/feints so the old stuff (was just getting good too) will be chucked out. This will allow me to start with a blank slate as it were.

[GuerillaDistilla]

This thread is very interesting. I just started my second rum ever and am curious how the EDV 493 came out. Also, I could use a little advice on dunder recycling and rum oils and what you think is a good "formula" or fail-safe so I can have a jump-off point. If I change a lot of things at once I won't know which change did what. One more thing. Is it me, or do rums have quite extended tails. It seems to me that there are a lot of tails in rums, but they don't taste as harsh as tails of other washes I've made. Do you usually keep a lot of them for mixing with the hearts, or would you say you're more conservative with them. I feel like just as I start to get this craft I try something new and there's a whole new profile of things to learn.

[Tortuga]

So here is my understanding of the Arroyo method:

The yeast and the bacteria work in symbiosis to speed up the ferment overall. Arroyo reports that the combination of yeast and bacteria, along with the purification method he prescribes for the molasses, causes the total ferment time to be around 36 hours. Arroyo describes that the bacteria are able to convert some of the yeast's waste products into desirable esters. I would imagine that the consumption of some of these yeast waste products removes a potential inhibitor of yeast activity, thus contributing to some of the increase in fermentation speed.

Arroyo also talks about having the yeast addition equal to approximately 10% of the volume of the wash, while the bacteria addition being equal to 2% of the volume of the wash. This large yeast addition is also likely a contributor to the fast fermentation.

Arroyo discusses a series of pretreatments for the molasses. In his patent application he describes not only clarification and increased viscosity as a result, but that 2 of the processes convert some of the ingredients that lead to aromas and flavors in the final product being basically locked into the molasses before a heating phase (which would apparently remove them), and then unlocking them again to make them available during the ferment. As Arroyo attributes the clarification process to a reduction in down time due to cleaning, this may not be an essential step and may not affect overall taste and aroma.

As for distillation: Arroya states that a full reflux should be induced for 1-2 hours, partially for esterification, but mainly to adequately separate and concentrate the heads so that they can be easily separated with minimal loss of desirable distilate.

Arroyo describes 8 fractions in his patent. The first and third are the fractions that are discarded, the second is kept, and the fourth down are collected together with the 2nd. Arroyo finds the 8 fractions under reflux conditions which he does not use during production distillation, which is why he describes collecting 4 fractions rather than the 8, the later fractions simply combine together more easily and thus the benefits are derived.

This is similar to what I have found when using a reflux column in making flavored spirits. When each of the fractions are carefully separated it is easy to determine that there are later fractions that are more desirable as to flavor and aroma that come later than some fractions which are not desirable at all. This also matches somewhat with Pugi's method of obtaining rum oils, although Arroyo's method allows a full flavored rum without recycling and with a single pass through the still. Careful separation removes the baddies in one fell swoop, and proper collection at the end allows those Pugi described Rum Oils into the product on the first run.

Arroyo describes that aging is not necessary to remove any of the bad stuff usually associated with distillation of rum, and that a 3 year aged rum through the Arroyo method will equal a significantly much older rum, if not surpass it.

I'm contacting a few yeast distributors to see if they can help me match a yeast better to the Arroyo description, and I'm scouring the globe for the bacterial strain Arroyo uses. While my home method will not be as complex as Arroyo's, due mostly to my inability to process the molasses as he does, I think I can make a crude replica, then run it through my reflux slowly to collect the fractions Arroyo describes, and end up with a good rum on the first batch (or the nth try at a first batch, once I work out the kinks) without having to save and recycle dunder. If I find anything useful to report (if and when I get started) I'll report back here. If I find a good source for the above mentioned ingredients and all goes well I'll write up a method and include links for the bacteria/yeast.

I'd love to hear how the OP's experiment turned out, seems like he left us with a 3 year cliff hanger. Sad, or maybe now is the perfect time to taste that errant jar he left under the porch.


*Edit* likely another reason for the fast ferment is the nutrient additions from the pretreatment as well as the pH optimization at various stages of the proces.