Home Distiller

Hey all. Total, absolute newbie here. I am in this whole thing for the rum! I love it. So I have decided to focus only on rum for the time being. Here is what I did for my first mash. 10lbs of brown sugar, 5+/- gallons of tap water (I know:salt might ruin the whole thing), 30 oz. of raisins and 2 crushed multivitamins. The raisins are for the wild yeast in their crevices. My grandmother is from the Caribbean and she and I make ginger wines and other fruit wines using raisins for their yeast content. I plan on reusing the yeast for further batches if the first batch seems promising. Now, tell me what I have done wrong or right! Also feel free to comment in general. I can use all the advice I can get. A couple of questions. I want to distill at home using the pot distillation method. What is the cheapest,easiest way to pot distill? Also, I have my fermenter in my garage. The temperature averages around 81 F. Is that too hot or should I rethink where it is standing?

Thanks!

DGiovanni

It doesn't seem like there is enough nutrients to sustain the yeast through the course of the ferment.
Lots of folks would also add a can of tomatoe paste to further suppliment.

How have your other wines turned out?

I'm thinking you should try and get your ambient room temp down about 4 or 5 degrees for the ferment.

There are lots of pictures on the site of some handy little pot stills.
This is my first stove top unit.

And I just finished (drinking) this batch of rum.
And now I'm sad.

8lbs- panella sugar blocks
16- oz container of molassas
4- oz dry active yeast (Flieschman's)
4-cups gerber
1-can tomatoe paste
4-table spoons of metamucil

Topped to 25 liters. I prolly could have left out or changed any one of the last three ingredients

Aged with:
Chared oak sticks
chared dried dates
pineapple wedge/stick
Strawberries (to insure a nice red undertone).

I have done this a couple of times with varying degrees of change (i have not taken notes). So each batch is slightly different.

I recon this should have bee the second picture.

As you can see, this ferment is really rumbling. It is definitely generating some heat.

I think you should try and get your ferment under A/C (IMO).

While the raisins in the recipe may contain enough nutrients, with the benefit of the added multivitamins, I'd question whether there is enough good yeast on the raisins to promote a successful ferment... I, personally, wouldn't rely on the natural yeast if I wanted consistent results...

Well, my wines always came out just great with very few raisins (2-3oz) and I wanted to try to get it going for the rum also. Do you think I should add yeast now or is it too late? I just checked the mash and it is giving off a bit of gas.

If it's fermenting you can try to let it go and if it doesn't kick into a decent ferment just pitch some yeast... As long as the ferment hasn't completed you can always add more yeast to help convert the sugars to alcohol... Worst case scenario is that one yeast will eat the other as nutrient if they don't want to play well together...

Thanks for all the info. This is great! By the way, I love the panella idea. I am going to have to price it. I'll give the wild yeast until Tuesday night to see if it is moving along, otherwise I will toss in some yeast. Thanks again. I'll keep you all posted.

DGiovanni wrote:I love the panella idea. I am going to have to price it.

I had to slow down on that ingrediant.

$1.50 (U.S.) was the cheapest I could find it in my market.

Internet prices came back as high as $3.50 per lb.

I think the problem with the wild yest is it will be very slow and that is great for wine but I dont want to sit around for a month waiting to distill somthing.

I was thinking about it pumpman and I pretty much agree. I think I will go ahead and add some yeast. Another question: if I want a deep,dark, complex rum, what kind of toasted oak chips are the best? I was going to use a heavy toasted oak chip. Also, does vacuum sealing help the aging process?

dark toasted chips should be OK.(cubes better) vacuum wont help age ,air/o2 will.

DGiovanni wrote:I was thinking about it pumpman and I pretty much agree. I think I will go ahead and add some yeast. Another question: if I want a deep,dark, complex rum, what kind of toasted oak chips are the best? I was going to use a heavy toasted oak chip. Also, does vacuum sealing help the aging process?

Just chiming in here... if you want a deep dark complex rum, you'll be wanting to have a fair amount of molasses in the ferment. replacing something like 50% of the sugar with it would be a good start. there are a good few recipes in tried and true that are good to read over with regard to rum.

brown sugar is simply white sugar that's been laced with molasses. I don't know about the prices around your parts, but for me it works out MUCH cheaper to use white sugar and molasses in equal parts rather than say 4 parts brown sugar to 2 parts molasses...

Good luck! love the rums... I age on (once or twice used) dark toasted oak sticks, raisins, cloves, a vanilla bean, bit of cinnamon quill, pepper corns, mango and pineapple, but yeah, I like mine spicy-fruity Sometimes I add a bit of caramel as well.

pumpman wrote:I think the problem with the wild yest is it will be very slow and that is great for wine but I dont want to sit around for a month waiting to distill somthing.

I made apricot brandy (which is not as good as I had hoped, I think because of the cuts, but it seems to be improving as it ages...) using the wild yeast on the fruit.
Went like the clappers.

pumpman wrote:I think the problem with the wild yest is it will be very slow and that is great for wine but I dont want to sit around for a month waiting to distill somthing.

It depends on what sort of rum you are after. If you are making the lighter demarerra sugar based golden style rums you can push your fermentation temperatures a bit higher and ferment it fast. If you are using molasses/treacle bases for darker 'heavy' rum then you want to cool it down and ferment slowly. The longer fermentation leads to a higher percentage of esters which is where the wanted flavours are.

As for nutrients one of the easiest ways is to go to the supermarket (if it has a bakery) and ask for some fresh yeast. Most will give you a few ounces free of charge. put this in a pan of water and boil it to kill the yeast and burst the cells and chuck it in - instant yeast nutrients.

As for choice of still. Well lots of folks make rum with both pot and short reflux stills. Some start with a reflux column for heads removal and then take it off and replace it with a pot column. Some writers recommend running at 100% reflux for 1-2 hours to further increase esterification for heavy rums. Lots of choices and I am sure you could make decent rum with any still at all.

I am still working on a valved still that has a pot section and a 2" VM column so I can try the 'start with full reflux' idea - will have to wait to see if it is any improvement over a basic pot.

Thats a pretty nice setup there myles.

pumpman wrote:Thats a pretty nice setup there myles.

Just experimenting. Had some of the 2" bends already made up from earlier projects, so wanted to use them up instead of wasting them. The expansion chambers in the pot still neck are to try and introduce turbulence and natural reflux. Trying to simulate a taller neck but have no idea if it will make any practical difference. Having the pot still section and a 2" column on the same boiler gives more options. Once I know which I prefer it will get switched over to a bigger boiler. Probably a bigger stock pot conversion.