There was a thread about aging rum and I made a comment that most use about ABV 80% to age.
By the sake of heaven I can't find it anymore (think it got out of topic and got deleted) but Kiwi said that 80% might be very high and would suffer a lot of angle share, I agreed.
I was reading since friday a whole bunch of sites about rum brand marks, rum receipts and rum aging and stumbled very often about the 80% level.
I wasn't that sure in that time but now everybody can make his own opinion, here are two examples:
http://www.trinidadrum.com/about_rum5.html
5. Why do we dilute Rums before aging?
After distillation, light-type rums are about 94.5% alcohol by volume. At this strength, evaporation would be too rapid, so the rum is diluted to about 80% before aging.
http://www.ministryofrum.com/article_age_matters.php
Most rum producers age their rum at 70% to 80% alcohol. A few dilute their spirits to nearly bottle-strength, 40 to 45% alcohol by volume, before putting the barrels away for aging
The truth is that there is no fixed rule, distilleries use what their receipt dictates, the results surely vary as much as the ABV.
Hope that helps a bit
Joe
Licensed Micro distillery "Bonanza"; fighting the local market
Thanks a lot for that Rednose. I have some rum in the white lying around at the moment, although it is a bit light in flavour. I might repeat my whisky aging experiments with rum, and make sure the samples go up to 80%.
Suggestions for the experiment are welcome. I'm thinking toasted oak would be best, anyone disagree? 55-80% in 5% steps? I can give it a few months then report findings and get a series of tasters. I guess I could try distress aging, but I think I should try and keep it as close to normal as possible.
Durhommer wrote: ↑Sun Jun 21, 2020 9:18 am
Thinking of adding raisins and clove with bourbon oak when I go to age this rum run anyone have any thoughts
Should pair well.
Sometimes less is more. But that's ultimately going to be your call.
IMHO entry proof seems to control how fast you extract oakyness from the barrel. Thus when aging in used barrels, entry proof can be higher to extract quicker. For new barrels, I aged at typical whiskey entry proofs.
Raisins in America are, I believe, from Thomson's Seedless grapes.
The natural ones, not the ones blown up for the table with Gibberelic Acid!
We call them Sultanas.
What we call Raisins are from the big grapes. Waltham Cross, maybe Gordo Blanco and others probably.
I filled a 5G Gibbs cask, third use, with 65% rum, 6 months ago. At the one year mark (its going to age 3 years), I’m going to start topping it off to replace the angel share.
I’ve been wondering if I should top off with water to lower the abv to 60%, or to top off with new make at 60%??? I’ll top it off a couple times during the second year, then leave it alone the last year.
From what I understand, the rum will be less spicy and will develop more vanilla at a lower abv.
Thoughts?
🎱 The struggle is real and this rabbit hole just got interesting. Per a conversation I had with Mr. Jay Gibbs regarding white oak barrel staves: “…you gotta get it burning good.”
I filled a used Balcones French oak barrel with 63% for a year, this year I re-filled it with 78% and will leave it for a year. My barrel is in my hot garage, a year is probably worth several years in other climates. South Texas, it's probably over 100F right now at night in there. It might even get up to 140 when I distill in there, like I did today.
Funny I never seen this topic before. It is the way I’ve been doing it . .
Was Saltbush that poked me that Commercial Rums must be Oaked at around 80% otherwise Bundy and Inner circle wouldn’t be selling stuff at 75-78% AVB .Infact Bundy have mentioned that on one of their Promos .
So I have always Oaked at 78-80% AVB . Admittedly some of my own freshly toasted Oak didn’t cut the mustard But certainly used oak staves and my used barrel are proving that Oaking at 80% is the go for Rum .
Yummyrum wrote: ↑Mon Jun 22, 2020 3:45 am
Was Saltbush that poked me that Commercial Rums must be Oaked at around 80% otherwise Bundy and Inner circle wouldn’t be selling stuff at 75-78% AVB
At that stage I only knew that Bundy did it Yummy, and you where at that stage trying to get near to it.
FWIW I still oak/ age at around 65ish.......never seen a need to change that.
Maybe one day I might experiment with aging at higher ABVs.
Saltbush Bill wrote: ↑Mon Jun 22, 2020 4:15 am
At that stage I only knew that Bundy did it Yummy, and you where at that stage trying to get near to it.
Interestingly , it did not seem to make my Rum anything close to Bundy .Just saying , for those reading that might think high AVB aged Rum = Bundy..... wrong assertion
Yummyrum wrote: ↑Mon Jun 22, 2020 3:45 am
Funny I never seen this topic before. It is the way I’ve been doing it . .
Was Saltbush that poked me that Commercial Rums must be Oaked at around 80% otherwise Bundy and Inner circle wouldn’t be selling stuff at 75-78% AVB .Infact Bundy have mentioned that on one of their Promos .
So I have always Oaked at 78-80% AVB . Admittedly some of my own freshly toasted Oak didn’t cut the mustard But certainly used oak staves and my used barrel are proving that Oaking at 80% is the go for Rum .
Since you are using staves...I have about 12# of bourbon barrel staves, and am planning on charting them, and aging in a corny keg. About how much did you use per liter of rum? And what was your opinion, and input on the results?
I was aging in 5litre demijohns . From memory I was using 2 sticks per Demijohn . I found less Oak for longer time resulted in better flavour but the colour was a bit lite .
Probably would use 3 sticks if I did it again and remove one after 6 months .
Jlanius wrote: ↑Wed Jan 13, 2021 10:35 am
and am planning on charting them,
Is this a typo?... Does Charting = Charring ?
Only asking cause I'd think twice about char in Rum.
A nice toast is better in Rum I think....keep the char for Bourbons.....just my opinion.
