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nerdybrewer wrote: Live?

Don't be silly! What would be the point of a dead catfish in your ferment!

Might try a salmon and what the f a few live oysters, might end up with a great cioppino.

OVZ

Badmotivator wrote:

nerdybrewer wrote: Live?

Don't be silly! What would be the point of a dead catfish in your ferment!

Shit. I'm crying here.

Might be on to sumpthin' here.......Panela catfish. Panela smoked salmon. Panela shrimp. Hell with the booze.

GrassHopper wrote:Might be on to sumpthin' here.......Panela catfish. Panela smoked salmon. Panela shrimp. Hell with the booze.

Oh yes, I have done the Panela smoked salmon...
Yummmmmm

OVZ

But back OT my current dunder has developed a great tropical smell, going to let it age and start a new ferment maybe next week.

OVZ

Mine smells a bit fishy, but otherwise nice. I wish it was nastier actually. I want to smell the butyric and propionic acids more strongly.

I have it temp controlled to 85F and I feed it a handful of panela every day (per 20 gal) just to keep all of the organisms productive. I'm hoping that the yeast population scavenges all of the oxygen so that the obligate anaerobes are comfortable. Does anyone think I'm on the wrong track, feeding it a little bit every day? If I'm trying to keep the bacteria numerous and productive?

You can buy the starters for them as cheese culture, I have them in my freezer. Did you read the Bryan Davis article, Hot & Dirty? I don't know if it is still available on the net.

NZChris wrote:You can buy the starters for them as cheese culture, I have them in my freezer. Did you read the Bryan Davis article, Hot & Dirty? I don't know if it is still available on the net.

I'm pretty sure I've run across that article, but I'll look it up again. Thanks.

I'm sure that I have some C. Butyricum, P. Freudenreichii, and others in the dunder. I just want to know that I am keeping the cell count and the carboxylic acid production up.

I did 2 spirit runs on 100 lbs of panela. I ended up keeping approximately 6.5 gallons @ 120 proof average, after cuts. Ive got one gallon on Pugi's suggestion of pineapple, cloves and raisins. I also have a gallon on medium plus french oak and a gallon on Hungarian oak. The rest is still white until I can figure out what to do with it.

I was pleased with the results and will buy and run panela and use it as a break from squeezing grains.

Well, I finished a strip the other night and added 3 gallons fresh dunder to fermenter, added in 3 gallons of wash from last batch that I couldn't get below 1.015, covered it and continued cleaning up the garage and still after the strip. Whoops, forgot to mix in the new panela and water and left it. After I was all done out there, I went inside, showered and got ready for bed.

Well, last night I opened it up and there's a good lacto on it. Options. Mix the panela and sugar in with huge yeast bomb to ferment out, drain and boil and then mix it up, or just toss it in a bucket for the dunder pit.

Right now leaning towards boiling it up and then using it. Have any of you used live dunder off the bat?

Snackson wrote:Well, I finished a strip the other night and added 3 gallons fresh dunder to fermenter, added in 3 gallons of wash from last batch that I couldn't get below 1.015, covered it and continued cleaning up the garage and still after the strip. Whoops, forgot to mix in the new panela and water and left it. After I was all done out there, I went inside, showered and got ready for bed.

Well, last night I opened it up and there's a good lacto on it. Options. Mix the panela and sugar in with huge yeast bomb to ferment out, drain and boil and then mix it up, or just toss it in a bucket for the dunder pit.

Right now leaning towards boiling it up and then using it. Have any of you used live dunder off the bat?

I have, and I will again.
I've got some waiting out in the shed right now that I've added a bunch of live probiotics in and I'm planning on heating up some water & Panela and pumping it all into the fermenter together.
Not boiling it up just mixing in and then adding a big load of yeast.

Thing is, after this ferment gets stripped, I am planning on mixing low wines from first two 20 gallon strips with the strip of this for a nice long spirit run through a couple of plates and the hearts are going into a 5 gallon barrel. Don't know if 1/3 being from a funky run will affect the flavor too much. I'm sure it'll be fine, just don't want to wait a year and regret using the funky one.

Snackson wrote:Thing is, after this ferment gets stripped, I am planning on mixing low wines from first two 20 gallon strips with the strip of this for a nice long spirit run through a couple of plates and the hearts are going into a 5 gallon barrel. Don't know if 1/3 being from a funky run will affect the flavor too much. I'm sure it'll be fine, just don't want to wait a year and regret using the funky one.

Don't worry,
I've heard that "time and Oak will sort it out"

I hate to jump in as a newbie on an established thread. But would a chunk of fresh sugarcane have the wild bacteria on it to Jumpstart a dunderpit?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

lowpull wrote:I hate to jump in as a newbie on an established thread. But would a chunk of fresh sugarcane have the wild bacteria on it to Jumpstart a dunderpit?

No guarantee, I'm afraid. But if you pounded the hell out of the cane and soaked it in a low-ABV (under 6%) and low-sugar dunder, and kept it warm (near 90F) and when you checked it later it smelled a bit pukey or like a funky locker room, then you got something good.

You can buy most or all of the cultures you'd want, and then you'd be certain you had those critters in the zoo.

When I have a healthy bread sourdough starter I take a couple of ounces of it and smear it really thin on some saran wrap. It dries overnight into a real thin cracker-like material. I crumble this up and put it in a bag in the freezer, and this is my backup starter. When I mess up my regular starter by ignoring it too long I start over by rehydrating my backup. The re-hydrated backup can be back up to full strength in three days.

I promise there's a point coming up here, folks. Bear with me.

Would it be possible to dry out some live muck to a powder? That could be used as an inoculator for the next guy's muck hole? I know that some of the bugs are anaerobes, but would they all just die if dried?

I'm going to try it. I have a dehydrator and an active muck hole. I'll dry some muck, scrape the powder into a sterile panela wash, put it on the stir plate and watch what happens.

EDIT: I slopped some stinky SCOBY on the plate. Dehydrating at 90 deg F.

Great experiment Badmo!
BTW I received the package you sent yesterday, Thank You!

Badmotivator wrote:When I have a healthy bread sourdough starter I take a couple of ounces of it and smear it really thin on some saran wrap. It dries overnight into a real thin cracker-like material. I crumble this up and put it in a bag in the freezer, and this is my backup starter. When I mess up my regular starter by ignoring it too long I start over by rehydrating my backup. The re-hydrated backup can be back up to full strength in three days.

I promise there's a point coming up here, folks. Bear with me.

Would it be possible to dry out some live muck to a powder? That could be used as an inoculator for the next guy's muck hole? I know that some of the bugs are anaerobes, but would they all just die if dried?

I'm going to try it. I have a dehydrator and an active muck hole. I'll dry some muck, scrape the powder into a sterile panela wash, put it on the stir plate and watch what happens.

EDIT: I slopped some stinky SCOBY on the plate. Dehydrating at 90 deg F.

IMG_2720.JPG

Here's the dried SCOBY. It ended up being not powder but like dried jelly. I put it in some boiled panela, cooled off, covered to prevent oxygenation, with a little yeast to scavenge the dissolved oxygen. It's on the stir plate.

Just did a stripping run, planning to use Odins 1-1/2 distilling method. This is when you strip the first run then the next fermentation you add the stripping run and run it as a spirit run. Feels good to have the temps up to over 40 so I could do the run. We had high gusts of wind today so being all electric and running with only a 6" opening in the garage door was great.

Update on the dried dunder experiment: Negative.

Remember that dried dunder and SCOBY that I put into some sterilized panela solution? I put it on the stir plate with a pinch of yeast and waited. At no point did it ever smell like anything except yeast or show any visible sign of bacterial infection. I think the conclusion is that my bacteria do not tolerate being dried out very well. Or at least the way I did it, in a 90°F dehydrator. I dumped it.

Bushman wrote: when you strip the first run then the next fermentation you add the stripping run and run it as a spirit run.

There are references that talk about that technique long before 2010.

LWTCS wrote:

Bushman wrote: when you strip the first run then the next fermentation you add the stripping run and run it as a spirit run.

There are references that talk about that technique long before 2010.

Probably, as a member asked me to add it to the Glossary, I hadn't heard the term so while researching it Odin was my first reference. I guess the technique is more widely used in Europe than here. I had not used the technique before either adding fients to the next batch or saving up my fients for an all fients run which is different than running a stripping run adding it to the next run or doing a series of stripping runs and then a spirit run.
I guess it is like the Birdwatchers recipe given the name that introduced it to the forum although the TPW recipe has been around before Birdwatchers shared it.

Not a big deal really.

My first recollection was an old post where Punkin asked about it. As I recall he didn't get a conclusive answer so he ran it to see what the results would be.
He was suitably impressed with the results enough to recommend as a way to keep the proof elevated while ensuring flavor forward.

LWTCS wrote:Not a big deal really.

My first recollection was an old post where Punkin asked about it. As I recall he didn't get a conclusive answer so he ran it to see what the results would be.
He was suitably impressed with the results enough to recommend as a way to keep the proof elevated while ensuring flavor forward.

Always good to find a bit more about how things got started, I know Punkin has had some great ideas like his triple walled Liebig named the Punkindenser.
Probably should get back to topic but thanks for the info!

Started my second rum run with our newest order of Sugar Daddy's Panela.

Hey, I don't think I ever reported on how the high-ester rum chase is going.

I have been fermenting panela to 6%, adding 20% live muck, and adding panela back up to 2% for the second fermentation. I have either been doing single 4-plate runs with 1+ hrs full reflux for esterification OR stripping two batches and then a 4-plate fully-refluxed spirit run with the still filled with low wines and tons of live muck for the balance. Either way, the results are similar.

Heads are minimal (1 jar of 24)
Next three jars taste strongly of pineapple
One or two jars taste like puke and are omitted.
A few jars taste kind of plain, easygoing familiar raw rum stuff.
Then the jars acquire a flavor that I would describe as "biscuit" or "wheat germ". It is a pleasant flavor with good mouthfeel. I wish I knew how to describe it better. This flavor lasts for many jars.
Tails come very late, like jars 20-22 of 24. The cloudiness/oiliness is pronounced and correlates perfectly with the cut.
On some batches there are pleasant jars after the tails. On some, not.

The strong and long-lasting pineapple flavor is a pretty good indication that I have plenty of butyric acid in the charge. (See for example: http://courses.chem.psu.edu/chem36/web% ... 2syn06.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow) I wish that I could identify some other esters in the distillate though, both for complexity and for reassurance that I have a multi-species muck pit.

I would love hear guesses about that grainy, biscuit-y flavor. Time will tell if it stays in the barrel or converts to something else. It's not a flavor I recognize in rum.

Below are pictures taken of cuts on a 1.5 distillation and then giving it two 5 minute Ultra Sonic baths on JD chips. Then put in my 4 gallon Ball Jar to sit until the next run. It will sit in the jar after my next 1.5 run for a month then will be transfered to the barrel for 6 months.

Just finished a stripping run and started my next fermentation. I've got to finish up these rum runs so I can move on to something else.