Home Distiller

Are you heating the whole wash, yeast trub and all, or just the clarified wash that you'd normally put into your pot still? My understanding of ShineOn's instructions is to load your wash up into your still but don't set the whole still up, and then heat it to 135F for 2 hours, then cool overnight. Then the next day set up the still completely and do your cook.

I don't have a pot big enough to cook my 5.5 gal of rum wash; I was going to drain off my clarified/top wash for the still, then heat that to 135F in my still no top or anything for 2 hours, then next day do my cook as normal, but with a slow warm up. I used that Lalvin K1V-1116, if it doesn't produce diacetyl, if that's what this is, I wonder if it will produce something else?

Wondering about this yeast issue though RE trub, if I need all that in my pot, because then it's going to be SO much more work, having to then wait for it to cool, pour it out once it settles again to get the clarified wash, and then the bottom/trub save that yeast because it'll be dead but it will be GREAT for adding to any mashes as the ultimate nutrient. Dead yeast are full of good nutrition for yeast, they're like yeast nutrient or Fermaid K.

Just ran some of this Shine. 50 gallons wash, your recipie (well 6 lbs Domino dark brown sugar and 0.5 gallons molly per 4.5 gallons of tap water with chlorine/amine removed) ... same feed grade Tractor Supply critter molasses (once I finally sourced them!). Red Star bread yeast @80F 1/4 cup per 5 gallons. Light nutrients (DAP, Fermtaid K, Epsom). Wash for me starts 1.085 and finishes 1.015. Never goes lower. Finishes in 48 hours, pH usually fine for fermentation. Every so often it might crash hard enough in the first 24 hours to need chalk or stall. 10 gallons low wines @45%, 2 gallons fresh dunder into potstill. Run super slow through fores (600ml), bulk collect early heads in a thin twisted stream (1500ml) then start collecting 300ml jars till tails are obvious. Got 30x 300ml jars plus 3000ml bulk hearts collected. Will probably cut out 1/4 to 1/2 of those small jars and the early heads bulk.

*I did NOT follow the heat up protocol at all. *

Those jars have been airing out in my living room and it smells like a butterscotch factory. I'm not a fan of diacetyl... in fact I dispise it. I don't find my white rum hearts to be offensive at all. Sure it smells weird but in a pleasant way.

I'm not at all implying diacetyl is not at play here.... just adding my procedural deviations and personal take on results.

It's cool, I never really thought of butterscotch...

Might be part of what I smell and taste as well just couldn't put a finger on it.

Thanks for your results.

Jon, I put wash in the thumper and if I have any rum feints I'll toss them in as well to up the abv a little.

ShineOn would you mind giving us a quick compare/contrast on your previously stated three different wash/rum styles from the perspective of wash recipie, ageing and final flavor notes? When you get a chance of course...

It's no big thing,
1 Standard rum wash, Single pot stilled with thumper.
2 Infected dunder rum, 3 stripping runs and 25% infected dunder in the low wines for a spirit run.
3 Butter rum, well here we are. lol

All 3 have very different characteristics as one would assume, The first is a strong molasses aroma and taste, kinda pungent in a way but nice. Could be cleaned up with a second distillation, Great with med toast AO for 6-9 months.
The infected dunder rum is not for the weak, it's very strong, funky, sweet, yummy with coke. Not for every one but I make it for me

Butter rum is Awesome white and I keep 90% of it that way, It is very good oaked for 6-9 months or a year depending on how big a jar you're aging or if in a 5 gal barrel is best after a year. Very sweet, buttery and molasses-e by far my favorite rum I've ever made.

I did a rum a few months ago that I charred one side of 1/4 of the cubes I used in the gallon, right now I wouldn't give that shit away but I know in 3-4 more months it will be a very good rum or at least I hope so because it's going to S3:18 in Sept lol

That's all I can think of right now being 630 am and only 1 cup of Joe in me. Need to get ready for the weekend!!!!

Hope everyone has a great Memorial Day weekend (in the US)

Shine0n wrote:it's very strong, funky, sweet, yummy with coke. Not for every one but I make it for me

Isnt that the goal when we make our own ?.....

ABSOLUTELY Salty

Hey Shine, do you mess with sulfuric with your dunder and stuff, or do you just use infected dunder and get your funky funk results just fine? Also, what's your purpose there with the triple distillation prior to the funky dunder spirit run?

Sorry the confusion DD, I strip 3 different ferments down to low wines for a spirit run.

A triple distilled rum would be too light for my likings, I like them very flavorful and bold.

I've not played with sulfuric acid at this point, that would be a conversation for my infected dunder thread tho.

Don't want to stray too far off butter rum here. If I do happen to try different additions to my butter rum I'll probably post elsewhere.

Oh OOOOkay, that makes sense. I was wondering why you'd be stripping flavor out of your rum just to run it through funky to add flavor...

I can't wait to try the butter warm up on mine; we are still fermenting however... everyone else does a molasses wash at 90F and it gets this tremendous foamy head and is done in 2-3 days, mine never got any head and has been going since Tuesday morning and today is still working away diligently, although it's slowed down a lot. I don't know why I'm different, maybe it's the higher gravity since I had a gallon and half of dunder (a bit of apple cider backset), gallon of pineapple juice, gallon of each bs and hq molasses, lb of black treacle and db sugar.

Great thread ShineOn.

I followed the recommendation of a slow warm up (2hrs) prior to a run and got a TON of butter influence in my AG bourbon using an ale yeast. Kinda smelled like the popcorn in the snack area at the theater.

I can't wait to try out your recipe, to the letter.

Sounds interesting TB, I really think you'll be pleased with the rum too.

It's simple, good rum either white or oaked, I prefer it white but oak will do just fine. Just need to wait 6 months for that.... Nahhhhh

Ale yeast? Hmm...

distiller_dresden wrote:Ale yeast? Hmm...

Ya. S-04, my favorite british ale strain from my brewing days. The buttery notes didn't come over strong in the distillate, but I'm wondering how much of it is diacetyl versus esters created through the overnight preheat/rest.

Well I think that your experiment with the S-04 shows it's not just baker's yeast that does it, though. I'm going to try it with my rum ferment, I have F1V-1116 in mine. I haven't peeped it today, but last night at 3am it was still working off slowly, it's just almost finished because the alcohol smell is there, but there are also yeast dancing around clearly on the surface and swirls and whorls moving actively. I'll check here in a bit, after I'm done watching the race.

Just wait till you do my method, carries over to the distillate with vengeance

I am wanting to make a hazelnut rum badly, I was getting impatient, I'll hold off and use your full method with baker's yeast and all for one of my upcoming batches and make that my hazelnut rum, a hazelnut butter rum would be absolutely freaking divine.

I'm still gonna do it with this batch, but this batch won't be the hazelnut.

I'm sure it would be pretty freaking good, you could always make the butter rum and keep a quart of it and macerate some hazelnut.

One thing I did forget to mention is with so much butter it's really hard to tell where the cuts should be made.

Just collect is pints to be sure of them, let them air 24 solid hours 36 wouldn't hurt either.

I air everything for 48 hours anyway.

Also, update, just checked on my ferment; no yeast activity on the surface. No swirl or whorl. No nothing going on and it is very, very still. No sound on the side. I believe overnight things finished, as it was very slow last night (er, early this morning). I think by this evening it will be ready to set up in the pot and heat to 135F for the 2 hour hold, and overnight cool down. My dunder is definitely ready, it's looking funky. But also, my pellicle is starting to thin out a little, so I think it's good I'm back to rum because my dunder needs a refresh and once I get this batch done it will get the refresh it needs.

I don't believe adding fresh is what happening, when my pellicle falls it's an indication of ph dropping. I make a slurry with pickling lime to raise back to 5.5ish

I check mine twice a month and raise when needed, a few times last year I would let it fall and set for a month then bring the ph back up. I let it age over the winter and this spring it came back on its own and hasn't fallen no for 3 months and the ph is 5.

Good luck and post some results when finished

Curious as I’m getting ready to do a run

I can strip it easily, but then how would you do a spirit run in a column? Minor packing? No packing?

Thanks ShineOn

Use it like a pot still would be my suggestion, no packing.

Saltbush Bill wrote:Use it like a pot still would be my suggestion, no packing.

So strip, usually averages 40%, and then simply run again thru my Liebig?

Guessing both runs would be slow and steady ones

If you're going for double pot style, I'd blast the first one, and go deeper than 40% low wines. Like at least 30%. Pencil lead steady stream on the spirit run. No need for slow.

I've done the butter treatment on a highly refluxed single run, as well as a refluxed 1.5. They are sitting, airing, chilling so I wont really comment on them to the point of recommending it until I get to tasting them. I refluxed heavily, ran off in the low 90's% looking for a nicely flavored but well tamed white rum. If you want heavier flavors I wouldn't reflux, or if you know your still well enough, run it out somewhere around 75% - 80% maybe?

zapata wrote:If you're going for double pot style, I'd blast the first one, and go deeper than 40% low wines. Like at least 30%. Pencil lead steady stream on the spirit run. No need for slow.

I've done the butter treatment on a highly refluxed single run, as well as a refluxed 1.5. They are sitting, airing, chilling so I wont really comment on them to the point of recommending it until I get to tasting them. I refluxed heavily, ran off in the low 90's% looking for a nicely flavored but well tamed white rum. If you want heavier flavors I wouldn't reflux, or if you know your still well enough, run it out somewhere around 75% - 80% maybe?

Good info. I’ll have to give this some thought

What did you use for packing for your reflux runs?

A mix of copper mesh and lava. It's just what I had in the column for neutral.

zapata wrote:A mix of copper mesh and lava. It's just what I had in the column for neutral.

Thanks

Don't know if you saw the recipe from Corinne for a 'vanilla' rum with malted red wheat and high quality molasses, I'm planning my next mash after I run this weekend using that recipe, then doing the butter treatment to that. I'm also adding .5lb of honey malt to that, and once I have the distillate I'm going to get some hazelnut flavor in there either with natural flavor in my thumper and a hydrosol, then for proofing down, or just adding an alcohol-based to the finished, aged spirit.

But hopefully this will end with 'honey butter vanilla hazelnut rum'. Eh, EH?? Of course that will call for some of zapata's caramel treatment, his recipe (prob common) for natural caramel to color/slightly flavor rums.

Dare I say.... honey butter caramel vanilla hazelnut rum?

distiller_dresden wrote:Don't know if you saw the recipe from Corinne for a 'vanilla' rum with malted red wheat and high quality molasses, I'm planning my next mash after I run this weekend using that recipe, then doing the butter treatment to that. I'm also adding .5lb of honey malt to that, and once I have the distillate I'm going to get some hazelnut flavor in there either with natural flavor in my thumper and a hydrosol, then for proofing down, or just adding an alcohol-based to the finished, aged spirit.

But hopefully this will end with 'honey butter vanilla hazelnut rum'. Eh, EH?? Of course that will call for some of zapata's caramel treatment, his recipe (prob common) for natural caramel to color/slightly flavor rums.

Dare I say.... honey butter caramel vanilla hazelnut rum?

Man. It’s posts like this that have me wanting to continue learning, and get into grains!