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+1 with Stoney. I follow this recipe to the letter, including the pinches. Recipe is simple easy to follow, ferments out well. It's in the tried and true and should be kept as undiluted as possible

Trapped , if you have what you consider is a better recipe and method for a Rum then it might be a good idea if you typed it up, then put your ideas on the subject in the forums Recipe Development section.
That is how my recipe started out on this forum, it had already been accepted as a Tried and True recipe on several other forums well before I ever posted it here. In both of those cases it started off in the Recipe Development section of those forums as well.
If your recipe that you add to Recipe Development is good enough the forum members will soon make enough noise that it will work its way to Tried and True.

Thank you to those who use and have supported this recipe

4+ months on oak and the taste is starting to turn, for the better

Saltbush Bill wrote: ↑Fri May 13, 2022 5:06 pm
way to Tried and True.

Bill, molasses comes in a container, ferment it, hang a hat and badge on it, can call it ‘Recipe Development’……….. with curiosity... did you during those years of challenging development inquire how much magnesium is in molasses before adding the elixir of Epsom Salts?

..

Trapped , Aussie soil is quite deficient in minerals such as Magnesium and Zinc . It stands to reason that the Molasses will also be deficient .
How hard is it to add a pinch of Epsom salts .

And while you make it sound like a no brainer , “just ferment Molasses “ , getting the right proportions of Molasses , Dunder and water worked out so a guaranteed long succession of reliable batches happens , does indeed take a hell of a lot of development .

Sporacle wrote: ↑Fri May 13, 2022 4:57 pm +1 with Stoney. I follow this recipe to the letter, including the pinches. Recipe is simple easy to follow, ferments out well. It's in the tried and true and should be kept as undiluted as possible

Sporacle,
If running a plated column do you prefer a single run, 1.5 or double? I’ve yet to try this recipe but have recently bought some molasses.

Yummyrum wrote: ↑Fri May 13, 2022 8:47 pm getting the right proportions of Molasses , Dunder and water worked out so a guaranteed long succession of reliable batches happens , does indeed take a hell of a lot of development .

And a level of patience that garners respect.

Yummyrum wrote: ↑Fri May 13, 2022 8:47 pm
Aussie soil is quite deficient in minerals such as Magnesium and Zinc . It stands to reason that the Molasses will also be deficient .

Any evidence of this magnesium deficiency (?) because my Australian molasses lists magnesium at 277 mg per 100 g

Yummyrum wrote: ↑Fri May 13, 2022 8:47 pm
getting the right proportions of Molasses , Dunder and water worked out ... does indeed take a hell of a lot of development .

Add molasses to desired ABV of wash (easy enough to estimate fermentable sugars of molasses by comparison with sugar wash yield).
Add dunder to preference, can be anything from 10% to 25% of wash.

..

Stonecutter wrote: ↑Fri May 13, 2022 9:29 pm Sporacle,
If running a plated column do you prefer a single run, 1.5 or double? I’ve yet to try this recipe but have recently bought some molasses.

This is where I differ, I'm pretty sure Bill runs his through 4 plates and I think it may be a one and done now, I'm sure Salty will answer this

I strip to cloudy as hell and run my low wines in a 2 inch pot, I cut pretty hard. I'm still at around 8 months aging with the eldest in an old barrel and it's coming along nicely.

I did do a 1.5 run through a detuned CCVM with either 3 or 4 sections of copper mesh spread out through the column, I'm terrible at notes but I might have got a touch over 90abv. It's showing a lot of potential, different in a clean way if that makes sense but still rummy

Whatever method , I think the secret (actually it's no secret, I think Bill states this pretty clearly in the recipe) is cuts and time. I've got another 5L at 65ish and I'm finally at the stage (production wise) where I can leave it alone. Got some all corn about to come out of a small barrel that I can then fill with this run of SBB and forget about it for a couple of years, i know a lot of guys don't like the bourbon profile with the rum but hey...

Lets get this thread back on topic .

I think I got it. I can't thank Bill enough, thanku sir. After about 5 batches of adding from my dunder pit, my rum is super tasty. I'm adding a simple syrup ( a mixture of brown sugar,more molasses and some cinnamon)after aging on oak. And people are going crazy for this stuff. (OBVIOUSLY JUST FAMILY AND FRIENDS).Iv got lots on oak to compare as it ages.
My longest age on toasted oak is only about 60 days. So that's really encouraging given the short time frame of aging.
Again thanks Bill,I'm a rum guy by nature and you've helped me immensely.

Glad to hear you’re enjoying it too. I’m onto batch six, following the recipe, and apart from the crazy good fermentation smell, the 2.5 month old (fancy molasses + 10g med toasted oak dominoes split per L) tastes really nice already, but gonna leave it a while longer. Switched to feed grade molasses for the last two runs and it came out a bit tastier (and cheaper). $65 NZ for 20L. Not cheap cheap but ok considering the end product. I’m now fully turned on to rum, thanks. I didn’t even know what rum was a year ago…

I really like this recipe, probably my favorite of everything I've made so far. Last year I concentrated on this recipe only.
My plan was to fill a 5 gallon barrel, I saved up all of my best cuts only to find that the barrel actually held a bit over 6 gallon.
That was about 8 months ago and have been working on filling the second barrel. I would love to get a solera system going in the future.
My 8 month old barrel is already amazing picking up all kinds of flavor from the barrel and mixing very well with the spirit.
Thanks Bill for sharing this recipe.

Good to see that you fellas are all liking the recipe and are enjoying the end results.

JustinNZ wrote: ↑Wed May 18, 2022 2:15 am Switched to feed grade molasses for the last two runs and it came out a bit tastier (and cheaper).

Thats all that's needed No point in buying the fancy stuff , just costs more and doesn't work any better.
Can get 200L here for $100 at the right time of year, price fluctuates depending on supply and demand.

I’m having trouble leaving the rum to oak another 8+ months, it tastes too good already after 4 months on oak!
Thanks SB

I put up two 5 gl. bourbon barrels hoping to get my solara system up and running. It's coming on 3 years now and I haven't had a chance to get my still running with a property move and all. Haven't even looked at them. Just kind of hoping they're nice when I get around to it. I've got a third barrel waiting and ready when the time comes.

Saltbush Bill wrote: ↑Wed May 18, 2022 12:15 pm

SBB
I stripped 25l yesterday, very disappointing yield, stripped down to 10% I got maybe 4l in total.
Last strip I got at least 5l and I stopped at 20%. Got first 3l at average of 50% ABV, second 2l at around 30% ABV
The key difference I tink is that I let this ferment sit for maybe 2 weeks due to me being interstate. I am wondering if it started to turn to vinegar and I lost some ABV.
Any thoughts or suggestions?
Finally, your recipe uses dunder from previous runs. I am not sure I will be doing another one anytime soon, how long do you keep your dunder for may I ask?

CB

CoogeeBoy wrote: ↑Sat Jun 04, 2022 10:36 pm I let this ferment sit for maybe 2 weeks due to me being interstate.

I doubt that the 2 weeks made any difference Coog, I often leave mine much longer .....sometimes months. I know of at least one member here that left a rum wash for 4 or 5 years and it was still ok when he ran it.
Was the Molasses the same stuff as the first time?

CoogeeBoy wrote: ↑Sat Jun 04, 2022 10:36 pm I am not sure I will be doing another one anytime soon, how long do you keep your dunder for may I ask?

I don't keep Dunder as such, Id rather keep 25-30L of wash around.....currently Ive got one thats 8-9 months old.......when I want dunder to kick off Rum making when the Molasses comes in from the new cane season I will just strip that and use the dunder from it for a bigger ferment.
Some people freeze dunder......you could try that.

Coogee
I agree with Salty that a couple of weeks in the fermenter won’t matter . I can’t say I’ve had any negative effects from leaving it longer .

I also wonder about the source of your Molasses and if it was from a different batch . Sugar cane is a crop and some years are better than others .

Regarding Dunder , I’m seldom able ti put doen a batch when I have finished a Run .As I now make 200litre washes , store 10% of that , or 20litres in a pale until I’m ready .

When the time comes , I open the pale . Usually , if it was hot when I stored it , it will still be mold free .

Sometimes ,it had grown a mold . I’m not into all that Moldy Dunder shit and its not part of Salty’s recipe .

So I rack it off the mold and regardless of if it had mold or not , boil it .
Then proceed as if the Dunder was hot off the still .

Saltbush Bill wrote: ↑Sat Jun 04, 2022 11:17 pm Was the Molasses the same stuff as the first time?
.... Id rather keep 25-30L of wash around.....currently Ive got one thats 8-9 months old.......when I want dunder to kick off Rum making when the Some people freeze dunder......you could try that.

Yummyrum wrote: ↑Sun Jun 05, 2022 4:50 am Coogee
I also wonder about the source of your Molasses and if it was from a different batch . Sugar cane is a crop and some years are better than others .

Regarding Dunder , I’m seldom able ti put doen a batch when I have finished a Run .As I now make 200litre washes , store 10% of that , or 20litres in a pale until I’m ready .

When the time comes , I open the pale . Usually , if it was hot when I stored it , it will still be mold free .

Thank you both YR and SBB.
I did use the same molasses, I had a 20l tub.
Lets see how this batch goes.

I won't be freezing any, although I could just leave it outside at the moment!

All the best

I recently read of the backset from the spirit run being used as make up water in rum ferments. I haven't tried it with rum yet, (I have a bucket of molasses in the queue). I tasted some from my latest UJSSM and it tasted very nice and corny, surprisingly better than I had expected considering how nasty the tails get at the end of the run, so I have been using it in the next generations, with excellent results, so far.

I have used it to make lime salts before, but it never crossed my mind to use it in the ferment.

Lime salts, viewtopic.php?t=70947

You might be thinking of "sweet water" thats not exactly backset..........Ive used it in UJ dilution and yes it works well......but never in Rum as of yet.

No, not sweet water. I'm talking about the contents of the boiler after the spirit run.

I used to kill the weeds without tasting it, but my last two lots from rum have been converted into Lime Salts for recycling and concentrating the missed flavors. It may be possible to grab these flavors by adding the spirit run lees to the next ferment rather than going to the trouble of making Lime Salts. Experimentation will tell if it's worth the effort. MY UJSSM experiment suggests that it might be worth it.

I’ve finally got a big enough fermenter to start doing runs in the plated column. I’m going to be at 23 liters of Molly and top up to the 76 liter mark. Does that sound right? I’ve got funky numbers because I’m really going to be using imperial measurements. 6 gallons of Molly topped up with water to the 20 gallon mark. I’m sure I’m splitting hairs here but I’d like to get as close asi can to the recipe as it’s written. Also, is 4-6 gallons of boiling water going to be sufficient to dissolve all that Molly for my first wash? Then substituting the same amount of fresh hot dunder next run? Again I’m just trying to do this right for my first attempt. Thanks for the recipe Salty.

Stone cutter go back to the first post, Ive just updated with a version in US gallons for you folk who are metric challenged.
Been sipping on rye whisky before and while doing the conversions .....so hopefully its correct. You will have to up size if you want on your own...I aint doin that ATM.
Its a forgiving recipe so a little one way or the other with measurements shouldn't matter a great deal.......I do suggest though that you do use all of the ingredients listed. There has been talk that the Epsom salts/ Magnesium Sulphate is unnecessary, in my opinion its worth putting in as healthy yeast cells use plenty of it.

Stonecutter wrote: ↑Tue Jun 21, 2022 6:48 pm Also, is 4-6 gallons of boiling water going to be sufficient to dissolve all that Molly for my first wash?

Might just take a bit more stirring to get the job done, other wise if you have a pressure washer just hook it to the cold tap and blast away, as shown at the beginning of the thread.
PS , if you see anything wrong with my conversion to US GAL's let me know.
Will work on a few other converted sizes soon to make it easier.

Well how kind of you SBB
Thanks for the update. this should help my brain from hurting too much
Looks like if we want to break this down even further you’re at .2625 gallons of molasses per one gallon of wash. So, I was a touch off in my above post.

I was curious to know if anyone has used this recipe, but replaced the traditional molasses with squeezed natural Sugar Cane juices that were boiled down to turn into a sugar cane molasses?

Thanks! Just curious to know if anyone had feedback on this idea.

Shine_Dad wrote: ↑Thu Jun 23, 2022 7:57 am I was curious to know if anyone has used this recipe, but replaced the traditional molasses with squeezed natural Sugar Cane juices that were boiled down to turn into a sugar cane molasses?

Thanks! Just curious to know if anyone had feedback on this idea.

"First, manufacturers crush sugar cane or sugar beets to extract the juice. They then boil down the juice to form sugar crystals. Molasses is the thick, brown syrup left over after they remove the crystals from the juice."

Above is a extract on how mollasses is made, hope that helps

Shine_Dad wrote: ↑Thu Jun 23, 2022 7:57 am I was curious to know if anyone has used this recipe, but replaced the traditional molasses with squeezed natural Sugar Cane juices that were boiled down to turn into a sugar cane molasses?

Thanks! Just curious to know if anyone had feedback on this idea.

That is called panela, jaggery and other regional names. Search the forum for panela and you should find some threads on it. I've successfully used jaggery from India.

Shine_Dad wrote: ↑Thu Jun 23, 2022 7:57 am but replaced the traditional molasses with squeezed natural Sugar Cane juices that were boiled down

If I had easy access to freshly squeezed sugar cane juice I wouldn't be wasting my time boiling it down. I'd be making Cachaca from the fresh juice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cacha%C3%A7a

Sporacle wrote: ↑Thu Jun 23, 2022 11:07 am or sugar beets to extract the juice.

99% of what Ive read , including reports by hobbyists about trying to make Rum from Sugar Beet says that it makes a really crappy product......most try it once and never again I think.