Home Distiller

All good points. Just went out and checked my fermenting cart as it was at 33.4 C. My light bulb is set to shut off at 30C thus I might have to wire a fan to my controller as the fermentation really took off.

I have made fine rum from both feed store and fancy molasses.
I like the flavors that come over from the blackstrap, not everyone's thing but I like it.
The Panela has everything from the sugar cane so it has the sugar and the molasses and everything so my hopes are that after aging both white and on wood I'll get a smooth full flavored rum.
I think no matter how you do it as long as you are careful not to include chemicals (pesticides, sulfur, etc...) then you will make a fine rum with any of the T&T recipes.
My rum is a modification of some of the T&T recipes that I've developed with an eye to simplicity and my own tastes.
I make my rum big, make it fast and try to make it good.
Then age it out in the non climate controlled shed for a year in an oak barrel and see what I've got.

Drip drip!

Stripping my first 5 gallons. 1 quart and fores in... I think the cuts are going to be hard on rum. The early heads were not bad in any way. They had a slight burn at 68 %, but not that nasty type. May change on spirit run withe concentration.

The hearts are very clean. I can see the need for tails in this, for sure. We'll see how it goes.

Fun!

I will do my 3rd stripping run tomorrow followed by a spirit run with 1 6 gallon fermentation plus the three stripping runs.

Nice Bushman. I just finished a Hook rum run. Was a 60l ferment so stripped 1/2 and the did spirit with the remaining 30l hoping to retain the flavors.

Not as strong a rum flavor as I was hopping for but we we see how the cuts go. There is 1 jar that is cloudy.. but man it has nice smell. Never mad rum cuts before so we will see how things go..

B

bitter wrote:Never mad rum cuts before so we will see how things go..

B

Me neither. And I have committed to cuts off the still. Whiskey is second nature now. Will the rum get me?!?lol.

3rd strip now, will fill boiler tonight before bed with the 3 strips, the 1/2 gallon wash left, and the rest in dunder to get my dilution and fill. Then tomorrow, the spirit run and I will be throwing together an all grain imperial stout. Wide is taking the kids to a meet up, have to get the most in!

Rum is fun! Nice having a 10% wash again. And, if the stripping 'cuts' are any indication, there will be a lot of final product. That I can drink right away! Probably put some on oak for a couple weeks to have a gold rum for the meet.

ShineonCrazyDiamond wrote:Nice having a 10% wash again. And, if the stripping 'cuts' are any indication, there will be a lot of final product. That I can drink right away!

Yep, run is very rewarding, easy to prepare, high yield, good right off the pipe, wide cuts, a little sugar and lime?, what's not to like??

Sorry to diver the thread a bit but MCH, How wide are the cuts?

I got 20 pints (after taking a full 500ml of 96.x% in full reflux) Then opened up to run in pot for the rest of the run. How wide are your cuts normally. About jar 16 is cloudy (First that went cloudy) but darn it has some of the most intense rum smells there than the rest of the batch. How many of 20 jars would you keep on average? I know every run and recipe is different... I'm bad for making tight cuts and I don't think that will give me the dark rum flavor that I like and looking for. This was a 1.5 run stripped 30l and then added low wines that were stripped down to about 17% back to the next 30l of wash and run the spirit run to get as much flavour across as possible. The cloudy jar is about 30-35%

B

How deep into the stripping runs did you guys go? After 40% I started to feel like I was loosing flavor and the taste was a bit off so I cut it off on my previous runs. I will be doing my 3rd and final stripping run today then a spirit run tomorrow.

I have been stopping once down below 30% I forget who it was told me for rum you need to strip lower. After the first cloudy jar of mine the taste/smell of tails overrides any good in there. The jar at 40% is were the rum flavor was just starting to be nice to me but could tell tails were not long behind. This was my first rum... so not sure what to expect myself. Heads hurt me so will make a nice clean cut there. At the beginning of the run though there is one early jar that smells nice of rum but might have a very slight hint of heads.. so mostly likely will not make the cuts as heads give me a migraine.. making cuts often results in one..

Also my run was a 1.5 and I'm running in a boka also. So took fore shot of 500ml first (96.x%)... to minimize the heads jars like I do when I run my whisky. I am thinking though that Rum definitely would benefit from a try pot still to get maximum flavor across. and also thinking 100% molasses washes is were the flavor is at so next time thinking will go that way instead of Hook

B

bitter wrote:Sorry to diver the thread a bit but MCH, How wide are the cuts?

I just ran a panela rum and collected 9 quarts, stopping right as things went cloudy.
I collected in half-pint jars. I actually did the run in two strips, so I ran down lower with my first run and added the feints to the second run.

Out of the 9 quarts, I tossed the first one as it had some headsiness about it. Not a lot, and not all bad, but it was there.
Q2 was a little fruity and I'm going to say it contained late heads, but I kept it. Q3-Q8 were all great smelling, tasting hearts.

After that the jars started to show a slick on the surface, then went cloudy, so I tossed those.

So out of the 9 quarts, I kept 7 which is way wider than I can cut my whiskey normally. I've been able to make cuts this wide with all my rums, including those made with panela, supreme baking molasses, even blackstrap.
I bet your funky jar near tails would make a fine addition to your blend, I would add it. Even if it brought a slight cloudiness, you would never notice in a dark rum.

Thanks MCH. Looks like 1 and 2 are out jar 3 maybe 4 to jar 15 are in. Maybe add part the 16th that went cloudy. Not making the cuts todays just sniffed the jars. Will do full sniff and cuts at some time later. I get shot glasses and distilled water and put in front of the once I think might make it and sniff/ taste at about 35-38% I find things open up and lets me do a much better job. My whiskey is as low as 38% take to abotu 58% depending on the run most times about 50% 11-12 jars from the batch sounds pretty decent. more than I was expecting. Jar 16 might add like 1/4 to 1/2 depending.. must wait and see how it tastes. Will see what this is like 6 months from now so a few tails might be nice in it and add complexity. If jar 16 tastes really good I will say to heck with can live with a little could if it tastes great (I did take a little tast of a drop off the still and really got decent flavours coming acros just need to see if its worth it). The next jar the tails smells more than I like no nasty ranky cardboard but starting to get there.

Bushman let me know when you make the run and what you got for cuts.

I also took a but of dunder and put in a bottle to settle to make a dark rum essence.. will also use caramel I make to sweeten and darken the mix as needed.

B

Bitter, did you mean earlier that you got (20) 1/2 pint jars?

If you did 15 gallons, you probably got 4 gallons max to run. Say you fill boiler with 5 gallons of 40%, getting back 10 quarts, or 2.5 gallons is quite something, especially in pot still. But maybe you did. Ran really deep on spirit?

So, I did a spirit run today. I took 250ml fores, then the first quart, almost to the nose, was heads. Right then, the drip slowed, and senses said it was hearts. I collected and kept the next 2.25 quarts, then the cardboard came for about the next half quart. I kept some later ones, but let it keep running. Then. Then, oh my god. Behind the cardboard was a delicious pint or so, it was like drinking fresh cane sugar water. It was probably around 68%. It was beautiful. I caught a little under a pint of it before I tasted it leave. I kept all I could of that segment. It was where the rum was hiding.

Ran down till about 45%, then cut it. Got around 3/4 gallon, 76% to keep, another 3/4 gallon fients. Gonna put it all on oak, used bourbon, then pull a jar off in 2 weeks to take to S3:16.

Great turn out, in the end.

Disappointed in the amount of alcohol in my third generation stripping today (less than a gallon) but the fermenting got too hot one of the days and I tried to cool it down so I think that might have been part of the problem and it didn't complete. It went from 20.5 Brix down to 12 Brix. Who would think that in the PNW it gets hot enough that I might actually have to add a fan to my aquarium temp control.

PS: Got a notice in the mail that they are shutting off my power for 4 hours tomorrow so will have to wait until Wednesday to do my spirit run.

I find you get what you get.

I did get 20 pints (assuming a pint is 475ml) It was actually more than the 60 L hook rum wash though. I had done a couple gallons of pfshine fast fermenting to test the molasses as was from the feed store. It want from 1.080 to 1.030 so about 6.5%. Because was feed Molasses, I added 1 extra L to the wash. Was 1.100 down to 1.022 so 10% . SO 60 * .1 = 6L of 100% and about .5L form the other stuff. Thats about a possible 6.5l of 100%
Have not measured my proof on all jars yet but will know more once I get there. Hoping to get about 55% stock to age on oak, caramel dunder etc for a nice dark rum.

EDIT: Did the cuts tonight. 20th jar was 27% Ending up with a gallon jug full to the top so a bit over 1 gallon and about the same in feints. both ended up at 60% total. Started a jar 6 and went till jar 14. I did nto use the cloudy jar. It may have smelt nice it did not taste so good and I got tails so did not go that far.

B

Ever do your spirit run there Bushman?

Yes, I ran my stripping runs with a 6 gallon fermentation. It is currently on oak and I have one more 12 gallon run that I did not strip to do when I get back home from the east coast.

What are your initial thoughts? I found my rum tasted rough compared to whiskey.. and I made cuts closer to whiskey cuts. It should smooth down though.... I'm just not much a rum drinker I guess.

B

bitter wrote:What are your initial thoughts? I found my rum tasted rough compared to whiskey.. and I made cuts closer to whiskey cuts. It should smooth down though.... I'm just not much a rum drinker I guess.

B

My initial thoughts are the same, my first stripping run was with a gallon of regular molasses with the panela and it seemed a bit smoother than my other runs using blackstrap with panela. Unfortunately I combined all of them for my spirit run so have no conclusive data. If I buy more panela from sugar daddy I think I will try a whole set without molasses in the recipe.

I'm doing the same figure wait 6-12 months before I give it a try.

It’s been over a year since my last rum run and fate decided to step in, pushing me back into it.

My last run was the same as Bushmans “Modified Hooks Rum”, with the exception of using pomegranate molasses and I had dunder saved from an all molasses run (so no citric acid used). I also used a rum yeast over bakers. The flavor has been going through a number of noticeable changes as it ages and has changed my opinion of rum altogether (in a good way). Countless fruit flavors have developed and changed over just a year on oak. I have been pulling small samples every month, just to see where it’s at. The last pull, I noticed strong cherry, pineapple and gum flavors coming through.

I noticed a new Indian grocery store had opened, so I decided to stop in and look around. I found a good variety of jaggery for sale. After taking into account all the options, I noticed some larger blocks of wrapped jaggery on another shelf. $8.99 for 11 lbs of pure sugar cane juice jaggery!
The panela I found was right around $1.20 a pound, this is $0.82 a pound. WINNING! I took the two large blocks and talked to the owner about getting more.

Need to decide if I’m going to add any molasses to this run, or go all jaggery.

Bushman, have you ran all panela? If so, did you prefer all panela, or the panela / molasses blend?
Other members?

Cheers all!
Irish

I thought the all Panela was too light for my taste, I have always done a combination as my first results turned out pretty good so why change?

Thanks for the input Bushman!
Need to head to the market for some more pomegranate molasses.