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Rusty Ole Bucket wrote: ↑Sun Dec 01, 2024 9:21 am
I'm going with option #1, as much as I'd like to get creative, I am reminding myself I'm still a novice. That panela spirit run will be run 12 for me, 2nd spirit run, ever. I want to double distill it, then cut it with nothing in the way, just the final product.

Rusty

Hmm…, I don’t use a thumper so can’t directly comment on it, however Panela is a very light flavored rum so my concern would be that running it through distilled water would strip too much flavor. I like bolverk’s suggestion to put wash in boiler, low wines in thumper but depends on what final product you want to make…

Both great points of discussion guys. I've done 40 gallons of white sugar wash and while Shady's recipe came out perfectly and made a ton of finished product, I'm just not a fan of the white sugar "burn". The panela doesn't have that even in higher proof, so I'm kinda thinking this might be my neutral base going forward. So, my quest here is 2-fold;

1. I want to see what this is going to smell and taste like after a double distilling in order to see if it will even work for a neutral. There has been a ton of taste and smell coming through the first 3 batches, I've thumped them through distilled water and it's far from neutral. It tastes like sugar cane juice with a kick. Honestly, if I can get this to a point that I can use it like a neutral, I probably won't use white sugar again.

2. I wanted something clean and unadulterated as possible for my first real cuts on a spirit run challenge, I don't need other stuff getting in the way of developing my involved senses. Once I know what I'm looking for, then I'll start to embellish. I ran my very first spirit run over the weekend with the Shady's low wines, but I thumped it through Jumex Strawberry Nectar because I intend to use the whole batch for a couple of different flavors of panty dropper. So even though I'm going to "do cuts" it's going to be very masked by the strawberry aroma.

I'm going to rework/upgrade my set up and process after these last two runs, that will be 12 runs under my belt and there are some things I want to improve. I'm almost positive the first thing back through that new set up, that's not intended for cleaning, will be panela, and I will be thumping through low wines, backset or wash in order to make sure I hang on to some of that flavor, it's quite nice and my wife LOVES it.

This just the first step in my panela rum development and it's as much a learning tool as a finished run of panela rum, there's much more and many variations to come.

Rusty

I'm having all sorts of newbie fun this week y'all! Things were a little slow today around the old rock pile, so I put some basic bottle labels together for the panela rum. My wife came up with the name as a way to pay ohmage to my grandfather who was Cajun French, I'm running where his garden use to be and I can feel him there with me. I'm pretty sure he'd approve of my endeavors. Tell me what you think!

Sacred Sugar Silver
Sacred Sugar Gold
Sacred Sugar Black
I was going to use White Rhino, but I never ended up using any of it in the panela.

Rusty

I really like the fact that you've paid respect to your old grand daddy with this man, that's lovely.

And it really works too!

A friend of mine finally hit 95.5° using piloncillo. You could tell what it was made from, I don't know how that would work as a neutral spirit. Wheat might be a better option.

Tammuz wrote: ↑Sat Dec 07, 2024 7:25 am A friend of mine finally hit 95.5° using piloncillo. You could tell what it was made from, I don't know how that would work as a neutral spirit. Wheat might be a better option.

That kind of feels like a waste to me. Why go that high if the goal is to keep the flavor, and why spend the money on piloncillo if the goal is neutral?

I posted that because Rusty I believe was thinking along these lines. My friend made this batch for blending. Down south people do make neutral from cane. You use what you got.

I plan to eventually move into grains and fruit mashes but I'm really happy how easy the sugar has been as a learning tool. I'm still so new I'm just following instructions and taking notes, but this stuff is turning about pretty good. I'm right in the hearts of the spirit run as we speak.

This 36 gallons of panela wash and 40 gallons of Shady's Sugar Shine have taught me a lot though. It taught me I like very similar products from certain raw ingredients much better than others for one. I'll probably replace white sugar with panela or cane juice, it's just much smoother to me. I'm taking a break for a little bit to focus on a couple of other projects and do a few upgrades/ improvements to my set up. I think my first run after clean up I want to try panela without the molasses and see what I get. I want to compare it to the white sugar shine.

My wife and I like this panela/molasses recipe a lot, rum was one of my main interests when I joined and bam, here it is already. I'm positive this will be a regular staple around the house.

Thanks y'all!
Rusty

Rusty Ole Bucket wrote: ↑Sat Dec 07, 2024 4:41 pm
My wife and I like this panela/molasses recipe a lot, rum was one of my main interests when I joined and bam, here it is already. I'm positive this will be a regular staple around the house.

Thanks y'all!
Rusty

Glad you are enjoying this recipe Rusty. It’s super simple and by varying the molasses/ dunder amounts you can tweak it to what you like!

D

Dougmatt wrote: ↑Sun Dec 08, 2024 7:54 am Glad you are enjoying this recipe Rusty. It’s super simple and by varying the molasses/ dunder amounts you can tweak it to what you like!

D

We are enjoying it very much Doug, it's a doozy and really simple! I'm already gathering supplies for the next batch. Once I finish my rebuild, I'm going to pick up right where I left off after a sacrificial run or two with white sugar. I'm definitely going to be playing with the dunder and molasses content this time.

I pulled 4 1/2 gallons off the spirit run to work with, or 12.5% of my total wash. It worked out to 2 1/2 gallons at 144 proof after cuts or about 6%. I've got most of it just squirreled away full strength, but I pulled off a bit and proofed it down to 70. I've got that split up into 4 pints and 1 quart. The 4 pints are getting toasted wood dropped in them this weekend. Cherry, oak, apple and pecan and then sit next to the rest of their brothers in the shed to think about what they've done (or will do). I've also got plans to bottle up some silver and black this weekend, maybe a quart of each to sip on or use for mixed drinks over vacation.

The quart is what I'm most excited about at the moment, I wanted something besides just silver and black to sip on for next week, you know, something I could sip neat or maybe with an ice cube, so I did my version of a spiced rum. I added a pinch of organic dried orange peel, an organic vanilla bean and about 1/2 a teaspoon of baking molasses to the proofed down panela rum, it came out to a beautiful golden color. I'm calling it Panela Dreamsicle. It was good the first day, but now after a week being in the jar it's getting really good. At first it was just the vanilla and molasses, but the orange has had time to rehydrate and macerate into the mix and it's working great. Up front is the panela and molasses, with the nice rum warmth, followed closely by a subtle orange creamsicle flavor. No bite, no burn just good. My porch faces west, I'm pretty sure vacation week sunsets will be accompanied by some Dreamsicle.

Rusty

What a great thread, Dougmatt! And so inspiring.

My plan is to start with Panela as my first try on Rum. I already have the Panela but I am waiting for my distillery room to become vacant. Need to make some neutral batches first to get the swing of my new gear.

Where I live molasses are expensive and hard to come by. You seemed to lose interest in Molasses after a while. Do you recommend me to use a small portion of another flavoring sugar, like Muscovado, instead of Molasses or should I go 100% Panela? What do you recommend?

You also talked in the beginning about the white rum on Panela. How did it turn out? My plan is to pull 2L of the first spirit run make white rum.

PalCabral wrote: ↑Mon Feb 03, 2025 11:09 am What a great thread, Dougmatt! And so inspiring.

My plan is to start with Panela as my first try on Rum. I already have the Panela but I am waiting for my distillery room to become vacant. Need to make some neutral batches first to get the swing of my new gear.

Where I live molasses are expensive and hard to come by. You seemed to lose interest in Molasses after a while. Do you recommend me to use a small portion of another flavoring sugar, like Muscovado, instead of Molasses or should I go 100% Panela? What do you recommend?

You also talked in the beginning about the white rum on Panela. How did it turn out? My plan is to pull 2L of the first spirit run make white rum.

Hey there. I still use moly when starting up new batches, but as you can see, I scaled back the amount to get a lighter spirit that is easy and early to drink. That said, I have some on oak for aneveral years now in solera and it keeps getting nicer so it’s age worthy as well. I suggest starting with the ratio’s in the thread above, and adjusting a little each generation until you find your sweet spot. I just find once I’ve got some dunder going, I can scale back the moly and maintain flavor in the blend.

The white is good and light. I don’t usually drink the white neat, but it Makes a nice mojito, R&C and other tropical cocktails.

Post your results and thoughts when you get around to doing it.

Dougmatt wrote: ↑Mon Feb 03, 2025 7:45 pm The white is good and light. I don’t usually drink the white neat, but it Makes a nice mojito, R&C and other tropical cocktails.

Post your results and thoughts when you get around to doing it.

Thanks for the tips! My thoughts are to make something in the ball park of Haitian Clairen. It's made with sugar cane juice which is impossible to find but research tells me that Panela is what comes the closest. Will report back!

PalCabral wrote: ↑Tue Feb 04, 2025 9:20 am

Dougmatt wrote: ↑Mon Feb 03, 2025 7:45 pm The white is good and light. I don’t usually drink the white neat, but it Makes a nice mojito, R&C and other tropical cocktails.

Post your results and thoughts when you get around to doing it.

Thanks for the tips! My thoughts are to make something in the ball park of Haitian Clairen. It's made with sugar cane juice which is impossible to find but research tells me that Panela is what comes the closest. Will report back!

Panela is just dehydrated cane juice, should definitely be close to what you're looking for. Make sure you look at the label, some brands have potassium sorbate in them as a preservative. From my research that will not kill yeast but will inhibit the growth.

I'm about to make two more batches of Dougmatt's recipe. The last of the ingredients arrived today.

We've been gathering panela all over town, we now have 90 pounds.

10 gallons of Golden Barrel blackstrap molasses showed up today from Webstaurant Store.
I'm working on getting everything ready. I'm gonna play with backset and dunder more this time. I also have enough stuff to do a small ferment to thump my spirit runs through. Time to play!

Rusty

Rusty Ole Bucket wrote: ↑Wed Feb 05, 2025 10:23 am Panela is just dehydrated cane juice, should definitely be close to what you're looking for. Make sure you look at the label, some brands have potassium sorbate in them as a preservative. From my research that will not kill yeast but will inhibit the growth.

I'm about to make two more batches of Dougmatt's recipe. The last of the ingredients arrived today.

We've been gathering panela all over town, we now have 90 pounds.

Thanks for the input and tips, Rusty! I haven't checked the panela I've got if it contains the potassium sorbate, I bought it in a health shop so I figured it would be pure as gold. I will check now.

Here molasses is just silly expensive. 10L of the stuff is 68 bucks, and that's the cheapest I can find. There are cheaper stuff on Amazon/Ebay but with shipping we go way beyond $68 for 10L. I'll run with Panela only or adding 1lb of dark muscovado for some flavor change.

/Pal

The molasses is definitely hard to come by cheap and I live in cane country. There are three sugar refineries within 50 miles of me, I called them all to see if I can buy in 10-to-20-gallon quantities. Two wouldn't entertain the idea, wholesale only and the third said they'd sell to me, but they only sell molasses by the railcar. I'm pretty sure I DON'T need 30,000 gallons of molasses, but I don't know; you guys wanna do a splittsies?

Webstaurant Store had food grade delivered for slightly cheaper than I could get feed grade from TSC, so I decided to go that way. I bought 4 gallons locally for my original runs, but that guy asked to many questions about what I was making. I said, "My wife is making molasses cookies for the WHOLE church." Webstaurant only asked what my credit card number was.

I've been thinking about trying a panela only ferment since it's readily available here but just haven't done it. I don't care for white sugar shine and will probably be using panela in place of it. Make sure to take good notes and let us know how it turns out.

Edit: I've read you can get around the potassium sorbate by pitching extra yeast if you already have some with it in there.

Rusty

Rusty Ole Bucket wrote: ↑Wed Feb 05, 2025 11:30 am ... but they only sell molasses by the railcar. I'm pretty sure I DON'T need 30,000 gallons of molasses, but I don't know; you guys wanna do a splittsies?

Uh, nah, I'm good!

Rusty Ole Bucket wrote: ↑Wed Feb 05, 2025 11:30 am Edit: I've read you can get around the potassium sorbate by pitching extra yeast if you already have some with it in there.

Rusty

Thanks for the tip. Will report when I get there!