Buccaneer Bob's Silver, Gold, and Black Rum Recipe

[Buccaneer Bob]

How do we feel about a 1.111 original gravity using DADY yeast? I think it's possibly a touch high but not beyond the realms of possibility! I was using Black Treacle rather than molasses and it turns out black treacle has a lot more sugar in than molasses.

Hi Welly, if you check through some of the previous posts, a 1.111 original gravity isn't out of the ordinary. There are a lot of unfermentable solids on every form of molasses. Check your final gravity after the first stage fermentation is done, and plug that into a calculator. Based on that, you could make some adjustments to the sugar in the second stage of fermentation if needed.

[welly]

How do we feel about a 1.111 original gravity using DADY yeast? I think it's possibly a touch high but not beyond the realms of possibility! I was using Black Treacle rather than molasses and it turns out black treacle has a lot more sugar in than molasses.

Hi Welly, if you check through some of the previous posts, a 1.111 original gravity isn't out of the ordinary. There are a lot of unfermentable solids on every form of molasses. Check your final gravity after the first stage fermentation is done, and plug that into a calculator. Based on that, you could make some adjustments to the sugar in the second stage of fermentation if needed.

Cheers! I'm going to do that. I do tend to read this particular recipe post fairly regularly as I've been having some success with it but tend to only read what I'm looking for at the time!

Thanks BB!

[TrailerDan]

Just started this recipe myself and have just completed my first stripping run ...so far so good .. loving the results

[Buccaneer Bob]

Sure thing, Welly.

And awesome, TrailerDan. Let us know how it turns out.

[Winteran]

The PDF version of this INCREDIBLE rum recipe is undeniably the best version of rum a home distiller can make. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe, I followed it exactly as it is written, and after only a month in an old whiskey barrel, it became the best spirit I have ever created. Bourbon and whiskey are my number one choice to create, but this rum recipe rivals anything I have ever made. I'm not a cuts type of guy, I toss my foreshots, and always double distill for a spirit run, otherwise I believe that aging in good white oak will help me keep the small batches I make with a higher percentage. Right or wrong, this is my way. After only one month in the barrel, the light, sweet, full flavor of this recipe exploded! I kept it otherwise silver, and clean. If I wasn't such a southern Ohio guy, with bourbon in my veins, this would easily be the best recipe I have ever used. Again, Thank you. I do not know anyone here personally, but I have learned so much from all of you. This "review" is from the heart, and after a pint of the best rum a man can possibly make at home on his own.

[Garouda]

It's also the recipe I followed, thanks a lot Buccaneer Bob. It took me some time to understand what dunder was, but now I have plenty of it.
Beside being a good recipe, it's one of the more precise, the more detailed recipe on this forum. Congratulations on that.

[Buccaneer Bob]

Hi Winteran, Hi Garouda, thanks so much.

I'm really glad y'all are liking the recipe.

Now that I look back at it, I probably would have done a few things differently with the recipe. I definitely should have factored in the pH of the water. I think I fixed that later in one of my posts, but it's still not reflected in the original recipe.

And I'm sure I've made a few other missteps along the way.

But I do think that it's helped at least a few people make some nice rum, and I'm glad y'all are included.

Cheers!

[MooseMan]

Since you've just posted in your thread Bob, I would like to give thanks to you.

I would never have tried adding dunder back to a finished rum unless I'd read what you do for your black rum.

As part of my rum armoury, I now have a bottle of your dunder essence that I use to make up a couple of blends for drinking with coke, as I find the robust flavour of the essence really works well with it.
My sister is now completely in love with my black rum! Thanks Bob!

Moose

[Superdave71]

Bob,
I finished distilling my first batch over the weekend, I’d never done separate stripping/spirit runs before, but I’m a believer now, seeing how the spirit improved. I have the hearts on some lightly toasted oak and really like what day two has to offer. My question is this, I’m excited to be starting my second batch with live dunder and trib from my first batch. When I settle the wash for two hours to get rid of the sediment from the molasses, won’t I also loose a considerable part of the sediments from the yeast trub?

Dave

[Buccaneer Bob]

Hi MooseMan, I'm glad to hear the recipe suits you (and your sister). Cheers.

Hi Superdave71, about the only thing that settles out is "ash". If you research molasses, they often refer to it having an "ash content". I'm not sure if they are referring to wood ash from a fire that heated the cane syrup, or what exactly, but I do know that what settles out is bitter, and removing it is helpful.

[Yummyrum]

Not sure about elsewhere , but here in Australia , they still burn the cane fields before harvest . ( I love the smell)
Removes a pile of dry leaves . Probably also moved on a lot of snakes before the cane cutters came through .

Seems to be less cane fields getting burned these days . Maybe EPA has stepped in . Mechanical harvesters are pretty much immune to snake bites .

And the amount of sugar cane mulch for sale seems to be getting more .

[Garouda]

Ash As carbonates (a) 7–15%
Bases:
Potassium oxide (30–50%)
Calcium oxide (7–15%)
Magnesium oxide (2–14%)
Sodium oxide (0.3–9%)
Metal oxides (as ferric) (0.4–2.7%)
Acids:
Sulfur trioxide (7–27%)
Chloride (12–20%)
Phosphorus pentoxide (0.5–2.5%)
Silicates and insolubles (1–7%)
(a) Percentage of ash given in parentheses
Source: United Molasses Company, London, UK. By courtesy of the Technology Division of Crompton and Knowles Corporation, Mahwah, NJ, USA.

Anyway, most of these ashes and other unsolved minerals settle at the first stage of Bob's great recipe:
Stage 1: Wash Preparation and Clarification.

What is questioned here by Superdave71, IMHO, is mainly yeast trub after fermentation if the steps in stage 1 were accurately followed.

[Superdave71]

I guess my question was this, yeast trub is what settled out of the previous fermentation. So obviously this stuff settles, if we start a successive batch, settling to remove ash, won’t we loose some of the trub we added?

I asked while I was in that stage of the recipe, but what I learned at the end of the two hour settle is that I only seemed to settle ash, the trub must be light enough not to settle in two hours.

This is a great recipe. I’m going to do a stripping run today on my first ‘full batch’ with trub and dunder.

So, while I’m taking up your time, does anyone ever do back to back stripping/ spirit runs? Like same day, while everything is set up, dump the used wash ( top the dunder pit off and dispose of the rest) and add the low wines and H2O and do the spirit run?

[MooseMan]

I used to do back to back strips regularly when I had a smaller boiler.
I'd run the hot waste water from the Liebig, through a copper wort chiller coil in the bucket to be next stripped so it was pre heated, the second strip was much quicker. (Can also pump out the hot Dunder through the coil for more pre heat)

A strip and spirit run back to back would take too long for me.

[Yummyrum]

A strip and spirit run back to back would take too long for me.

Me too Moose .
I’m busted getting a spirit run done in a day . .

OK , if I was Single and retired ….. yeah … maybe .

[Yummyrum]

Ash As carbonates (a) 7–15%
Bases:
Potassium oxide (30–50%)
Calcium oxide (7–15%)
Magnesium oxide (2–14%)
Sodium oxide (0.3–9%)
Metal oxides (as ferric) (0.4–2.7%)
Acids:
Sulfur trioxide (7–27%)
Chloride (12–20%)
Phosphorus pentoxide (0.5–2.5%)
Silicates and insolubles (1–7%)
(a) Percentage of ash given in parentheses
Source: United Molasses Company, London, UK. By courtesy of the Technology Division of Crompton and Knowles Corporation, Mahwah, NJ, USA.

Anyway, most of these ashes and other unsolved minerals settle at the first stage of Bob's great recipe:
Stage 1: Wash Preparation and Clarification.

What is questioned here by Superdave71, IMHO, is mainly yeast trub after fermentation if the steps in stage 1 were accurately followed.

All those numbers make it seem like there is a lot of ash but seriously , I also have been using Blackstap Molasses ,like BB , and not the fancy stuff for years and Clarifying does absolutely nothing .Sure , it’s a feel good process , but the heating and settling method achieves bugger all .
I fully believed in it and wasted many hours trying it as written and other methods to aid flocculation , but at the wnd of the day , there was …IMHO …. no worthwhile gain in either the way it fermented or the way it tasted .

Sure ,some of the commercial guys clarify the Molasses , but they do it in a Centrifuge . The ones that run it through a continuous strippers ….. . Saves them a bit of time in shut down and cleaning the column .

Not really an issue when you are using a Pot still .

Waiting a week or two after the fermentation finishes will settle stuff out heaps better .

[Garouda]

Ash As carbonates (a) 7–15%

All those numbers make it seem like there is a lot of ash

I think we have to understand that the total of ashes is 7-15%, the other percentages are the weigh of those components within the 7-15% range...

[NZChris]

So, while I’m taking up your time, does anyone ever do back to back stripping/ spirit runs? Like same day,

Running a pot still, three or four stripping runs worth of Low Wines are ideal for a spirit run.

When I first started I would do two stripping runs on Saturday, then a stripping run and a spirit run on Sunday. I already knew about Charentaise style preheaters, so soon added one. Now I could do three or four stripping runs on Saturday and a leisurely spirit run on Sunday, very little heat-up time and power used in between strips, plus a long slow heat up in the preheater to allow for some extra esterification.

[Flavorstil]

Hello I'm new to this and want to try this recipe out just got 1gal unsulfered molasses, yeast nutrient, and DADY yeast. but i got a couple questions I have a 1.5 gal copper stil I'm not very good with metric and was wondering how much wash does this make in all is it around 5 gallons? How long does it take to ferment some posts say 2weeks or 2months? And can you make it without dunder? I originally wanted to try to make around 2-2.5 gallons of wash and want to save the dunder and trub from that batch and then make a 2nd 2-2.5 gal batch with that also since not having dunder or trub do I need to do make a yeast ferment and boil it or can i use yeast nutrient and if so how much? And I don't have a way to check PH levels should I buy somthing to check it before trying? I do have a hydrometer is there anything I need before I get started? I know it's wishful thinking but i want to try to get the best results possible. Thank you for your help. (Im happy I was finally able to comment on here the site kept kicking me off when trying to load a new page)(I've read about 3/4 of comments on this topic) also I did the math with help of Google and came up with around 6 gallons of wash is this right? So if I did the recipe in half I should have about 3 gallons of wash?

[Garouda]

As new to this hobby, you may like to start with an easier sugar wash first, like Ted's Fast Fermenting Vodka to get used to the different stages of the process, also read as many threads as possible.
To cope with the measures' conversion, download FermCalc. It's a free program that has lots of useful features for our hobby.
Here is the link:https://fermcalc.com/fermcalc_download.html
1.5 gal stil is good for a 1 gal batch at most. I guess we are talking about US gal?
1 US Gal. = 3.785 litres. An Imperial gallon is 4.5461 Litres.
The fermentation should take between 4 and 10 days. Read the various comments,
The first time you don’t have any dunder, it’s not a problem.
The dunder does not come from your wash, but it’s what remains in your boiler after the beer-stripping run. You leave it in a bucket with a lid, and a natural kind of fermentation will take place.
Yeast nutrients: 1 vitamin B crushed (B1, B6,B12), ½ teaspoon DAP Diammonium Phosphate, 1/4
teaspoon Epsom salts (Magnesium Sulphate) should do the job.
I mention B vitamins to be on the safe side, but in fact, cane molasses already contain B1,B2,B6, Riboflavin, Biotin, etc…
Next batch, you can replace the nutrients with yeast trub.
Due to impurities in your molasses, it’s difficult to use a hydrometer to measure the S.G., read the posts related to this recipe.
Good luck!

[Flavorstil]

Thanks Garouda. And yes US gallon. I did try a Nectarine brandy about 2 weeks ago but it was just me trying it out. Worked pretty good. And I have fermax yeast nutrient I'm sure you probably know if youve used it but it does have DAP, magnesium sulphate and yeast extract will that be OK or should I buy some vitamin B to put in it? and I did want to have at least 2 runs worth of wash that's why I wanted to make about 2-2.5 gallons. And what would you use for PH measuring and SG? I've seen alot of comments with SG measurements what r they using if you cant use a hydrometer? I've read that the strips don't work very good in rum wash but I've also read that you don't really need to know the PH idk I might just get a cheep meter for now. But I've been trying to read alot on this site these past two days the site finally stopped kicking me off so I've been trying to read as much as I can I'm like 3 pages away from being done with reading the comments on this post. I'm excited to jump in to the recipe but want to learn a bit more before doing it so I've been holding off. Also I read that the reason BB adds sugar is because he uses feedgrade molasses which has less sugar content (i think he said about 45 percent) since I have the unsulfered blackstrap molasses It says 11g per 15 ml I used Google again and it said about 73 percent so do I need to add sugar still?

[NZChris]

SG. Always record SG. The drop in SG tells you how the ferment is progressing and how much alcohol is in the wash.

PH. I buy a new, cheap, pH meter before I do a rum. I treat them as a consumable, the old one is usually buggered and gets thrown away next time I need one. I use strips for everything else.

How much sugar you add is entirely up to you. The more you add, the more you dilute the molasses flavor and nutrients. Start somewhere and adjust your recipe every time you start your next batch or generation.

[Garouda]

The value I use is also 45%. 70% seems to be very high, remember that molasses is a by-product of cane sugar production. In other words, they normally try to achieve the highest possible yield of sugar, they are not interested in leaving 73% of sugar behind…
The amount of sugar you are going to add has to take the kind of yeast you are using into consideration. With bakers' yeasts, 10%ABV should be the limit. You can use Red Label Angel Yeast

The fermentation can be realized at 28-42℃, Ethanol tolerance: ≤17%(v/v), Acid tolerance: PH 2. 5, High sugar tolerance 60% glucose max

or New Aule Brand Alcohol yeast, both with a T° tolerance up to 42 °C and an alcohol tolerance of respectively 17% and 13% ABV.

The main fermentation temperature ranges from 32 to 42 °C, acid tolerance (PH2.5), alcohol tolerance (13%), sugar tolerance (60% glucose)

Expected % ABV = sugar kg ÷ 0.01683 ÷ volume (Litre).
Indeed, you can use a hydrometer to track the evolution of the SG, but the value it gives is wrong.
Note the value each day, as soon as this value stops decreasing, either fermentation has stalled or is over.
Anyway, I'm not in favour of this because each manipulation increases the risk of a contamination. Usually a molasses wash fizzles like a glass of coke, when it stops fizzling, it should be over, I then use my hydrometer to verify.
I use natural, unrefined cane sugar and it tastes fantastic. It has an orange colour, but dissolved, the water gets a dark brown hue.
Your Fermax nutrients won't harm, you'll be on the safe side.

[Flavorstil]

Thanks NZchris I'll do that. And thanks Garouda. I will be getting ready to start once I get the PH meter. And will be making notes of how I do everything and I'll keep you guys updated if you'd like.

[NZChris]

10% ABV is my upper target limit for rum ferments, usually aiming for 8%, but not correcting if I overshoot to under 10%.

Temperature is what I try to control the most, aiming for the middle of the range for the chosen yeast.

[PalCabral]

10% ABV is my upper target limit for rum ferments, usually aiming for 8%, but not correcting if I overshoot to under 10%.

Temperature is what I try to control the most, aiming for the middle of the range for the chosen yeast.

What yeasts are you using for your rums, Chris?

[NZChris]

Whatever bread yeast I have at the time.

[Flavorstil]

Question I'm finally going to start on my first batch of BB's rum recipe but since I'm starting without dunder or trub do I still need to follow steps 7 through 9 in stage 1?

[Superdave71]

Yes, those steps are to settle out the ash that is present in the Molasses. I usually leave about a quart, and see about a half inch or so of grayish material that settles in the jar. After 2-3 days, when I add the sugar and a bit more water I add the molasses in that jar, minus the settled ash.

[Flavorstil]

Thanks so I did let it sit for 2 hour's then siphoned it out from the top and worked my way down and left about 1.5 inches in the bucket and I slowly tipped the bucket to the side to see if anything was on the bottom and there was nothing there I separated it in a jar and rinsed out the bucket and put the wash back and then I added my yeast and nutrients it's starting on the 3rd day now I opened the lid to see what it was doing and it has a ring above it like if it foamed up and foam went down and now it kinda looks like a carbinated drink kinda fizzy and then I looked at the jar and there still isnt anything on bottom of the jar did i do somthing wrong? Temp when added yeast was good and i followed recipe/instructions exact other than doing half a batch and not having dunder or trub.I'm using golden barrel unsulfured blackstrap molasses. I'm hoping it's working like it's supposed to and will be adding sugar at 9pm.
Edit* update
So I added sugar yesterday "28th" I checked the PH and it was 4.15 I read online I could use baking soda to bring it up a bit so I added some to it and it foamed up kinda like when you add baking soda to vinegar it smells like it has alcohol but now "29th" it doesn't have much anything on top just slightly sizzling I added a bit more baking soda. I don't know if my PH meter is accurate it was supposed to come with powder to calibrate but it was missing one packet so I can't calibrate it yet I hope everything is going as it should.