Home Distiller

Hi all. Sorry for the wall of text but I got interesting results and I wanted to put as much details as I could so others can try it or comment.

Since it was my first shot at rum, my goal was that if someone doing a blind taste could identify it as rum, I would be happy.
I based my distillation on Arroyo's work but in a way I haven't seen on this site. (Skip to "SPIRIT RUN" if you're too curious)

But first, let's get the recipe out of the way:
I made 2 separate 20L batches of this:
* 2.7 Kg Fancy Molasses (Couldn't find Blackstrap)
* 400g Brown sugar (I had 800g of old brown sugar that was hard as stone. I splitted it between the 2 batches but it probably didn't do much for taste)
* 2 Kg White sugar
* Juice of 1 lemon
* 50g Baker's yeast
* 5g DAP
* 5g Fermaid-K

I did not clarify the molasses. I just mixed all sugars with lemon and maybe 10L of water. Boiled, topped to 20L then chilled to around 35C.
I then pitched the rehydrated yeast along with the DAP. It showed first signs of fermentation maybe 30 minutes later.
The next day, I added the Fermaid-K and mixed.

How I rehydrated the yeast (If you're not rehydrating, you should give it a try, it makes a big difference):
1. Boiled 5 times yeast's weight of tap water (it *must* be tap water, not distilled water) (250ml)
2. Added a big pinch of yeast
3. Boiled for 5 mins then chilled to 35C
4. Added the 50g of yeast, stirred a bit and let rehydrate for 20 mins.

After the fermentation has finished, I've let it sit a few days so that yeast re-absorb some of the bad stuff. Then I transferred to another carboy to help clarify a bit for a few days more.

Finally, I stripped both washes with my reflux column in "pot mode".

SPIRIT RUN:
Now, this is where I did things differently. I found a PDF that talk about how Arroyo produced Light and Heavy Rum simultaneously.
This paper is called "Feedstocks, fermentation and distillation for production of heavy and light rums". I attached it to this post.
And the fractions it talks about is based on: "Arroyo, R. 1948c. Simultaneous production of light and heavy rum. International Sugar Journal 50:289-291". But I couldn't find Arroyo's paper anywhere.

In summary, Arroyo says that you should collect 5 fractions:
1) From 69C to 72C
2) From 72C to 77C
3) 78C
4) From 78.5C to 85C
5) From 85C to 90C

With these fractions, you can make both light and heavy rums by mixing different proportion of the fractions:
Fraction 1 are the fores/heads and should be discarded.
To make light rum, mix together:
25% of fraction 2,
50% of fraction 3,
40% of fraction 4 and
15% of fraction 5
Mix together what's left to make the heavy rum.

Fraction 3 is a bit weird. There is no temperature gap between fractions except for #3. I don't know if it's a typo or if it means you should cut fraction 3 according to smell, taste and experience.

HOW IT WENT:
You're supposed to run this as a "reflux run" but my instincts told me to run it as a "pot run". I decided to do a compromise and run it as a de-tuned reflux.
So I equilibrated for only 30 minutes and never hit the 69C-72C of the first fraction. My run started at 78.4C
I forgot to note how much heads I removed but I collected as heads as long as a few drops mixed with really warm water smelled like heads.
I have since read somewhere that Arroyo calls for 1-2 hours of equilibration. D'oh!

I don't know how fast you're supposed to collect. I collected at "fast drip": It's never a stream but too fast to see the individual drops.

Finally, I did something Arroyo did not say: I collected from 35% abv to 27% in a separate fraction because it's supposed to be where the rum oils are. After aeration, this fraction smelled a bit feinty but otherwise a pleasant smell associated with rum. After a bit of search, I see that Pugidogs is talking about the 40%-20% range as where the rum oils are.

My fractions were messy. Shame on me.
These are my temps (corrected for atmospheric pressure (100.7 kPa) and for my shitty thermometer (which add 0.7C)):
2) 78.4C to 79.8C
3) 79.4C to 80C (The temp dropped at the beginning I suppose due to the column trying to equilibrate)
4) 80C to 84.5C
5) 84.5C to 90.5C
Rum Oils: 35% abv to 27% abv

AGING
I aged both light and heavy rums in Medium Toast Hungarian Oak cubes.
33g for 1 week for the light rum (1.5L of cask strength)
and 66g for 3 weeks for the heavy rum (2.5L of cask strength)

After 1 month, the smell is fantastic. The light rum smell a bit too much for a white rum but will be great as amber/spiced rum.
The heavy rum is still feinty but it has come a long way already. I think it will be really nice this summer.
Having these results with the bad cuts I did, I can only imagine how good the rums can be when you do spot-on cuts.

If someone else tried this method, or has any comment, I'm very interested in hearing it.

I can see blending different sections of cuts for different flavor profiles, but the method of separating by temp goes against everything I've learned as a pot stiller. Just seems like a very futzy thing to attempt.

Also, I don't understand how you accomplish any kind of equilibrium if you're running the boka detuned. I don't run a reflux still, but my understanding is that you need to run it as a reflux still to reach equilibrium and separate fractions. It would seem that using the reflux method might accomplish what you have described above, but in pot still mode it would just be a shot in the dark.

Good point about running by temps, S-Cackalacky. I'm not sure why Arroyo makes his cuts by temperature, but I suppose it's not a mistake. Maybe that's how they did things back then?

In "Feedstocks, fermentation and distillation for production of heavy and light rums", the author write:

The distillate from the batch column should be collected as five separate fractions based on monitored odor variations and rising distillation temperature.

And the "batch column" is shown in figure 4; it's a 10-20 bubble cap trays column. Could it be that you have to cut by temp. in these kind of stills?

As for running detuned, I did it that way because at the time I tought that refluxing 1 hour and running it slow would give me vodka instead of rum. Running it faster gave decent results but I'm sure an experienced distiller would have facepalmed the whole time.

Glancing through the article, I would suspect it (cutting by temperatures) may be easier when the scale of the batch is large. The article suggests a 2000 liter batch size (significantly larger than hobby scale) such that the process is more defined (potentially linearly predictable) in the " economy of scale".

Still, the interesting note is that the blends using products separated by the vapor temperatures parrots (ahoy, matey!) the product stream from our hobby scale pot stills. It just uses a controlled method for such large (commercial) wash size.
ss

The temp thing might make more sense with a reflux still, but with my limited knowledge of such stills, I don't know if it's actually possible. I know that many of the reflux stillers here use a thermometer to determine when tails are coming. So, if there are variances in the temp between other fractions, it may be plausible. But, with a pot still, fractions are somewhat smeared during transitions and it might be much more difficult to make the determinations the OP outlined.

That was a very good read. Thanks for posting it.

Thanks for posting the PDF file great read to add to the library .

I have another book on pdf titled
"A practical handbook on the distillation of alcohol from farm products"
that goes into good details about distillation that was authored in 1907.
I think it is too big to post

Rastus wrote:Thanks for posting the PDF file great read to add to the library .

I have another book on pdf titled
"A practical handbook on the distillation of alcohol from farm products"
that goes into good details about distillation that was authored in 1907.
I think it is too big to post

You willing to "loan" a copy out over email? Would love to read it

Yak.

better yet let me put a link to it here:

https://ia902205.us.archive.org/7/items ... iggoog.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

that link goes to a PDF file directly ... there are other choices of downloadable formats here:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q ... RfY-_heG-g" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

I first found the book at the Gutenberg project, a great site with massive amounts of old books that are totally free for the reading and downloading. worth a check here is a result of a search for "distill" in the search a few books...

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=distill" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

although the graphics were missing on the first mentioned book i found it with some graphics in another site.

enjoy!

Rastus

The "cuts by temperature" method by Arroyo almost requires refluxing the wash for at least an hour. I have done this and with my rig fores and heads get VERY stacked at the top of the column. I made my cuts by the usual method and not by temps and came up with very complex distillate. I don't go after the late tails or rum oils because I am using both fresh backset in each run AND live dunder in the wash. The long reflex time creates esterfication of the spirit and will get you flavors that you can't easily get otherwise.

Arroyo's method would be tough without the refluxing. Not saying it can't be done, but it would be difficult. I didn't follow it to the letter but used some of it blended to what I was already doing.

Zombie post... I know.

This is very interesting, I'm curious if anyone else has tired this and what their results were?

Bolverk wrote: ↑Sat Jul 01, 2023 11:35 am Zombie post... I know.

This is very interesting, I'm curious if anyone else has tired this and what their results were?

Going to try it within a couple of weeks. Will post results.

I have a 4 plate bubble column and can keep it in full reflux for as long as I want so hopefully I will be able to nail it. Oh, and I just got a digital parrot that should help with nailing the temps.

JT

Cool, I'm very interested in your results.

I dont know that temps as important as taking the 5 cuts (fores, heads, hearts, high tails, and low tails) determining them via your own organleptic analysis, and mixing them as prescribed

Jim Tom wrote: ↑Sun Oct 15, 2023 5:59 am I have a 4 plate bubble column and can keep it in full reflux for as long as I want so hopefully I will be able to nail it. Oh, and I just got a digital parrot that should help with nailing the temps.

JT, the temperatures will be what they will be during the run.
Not to sure I understand how the output temp will be relevant for a plated column, the only thing that a elevated temp would tell me is that my PC flow was insufficient.
All the work is done by the deflagameter and plates in terms of fraction separation
Let us know how it goes

Sporacle wrote: ↑Sun Oct 15, 2023 12:00 pm JT, the temperatures will be what they will be during the run.
Not to sure I understand how the output temp will be relevant for a plated column, the only thing that a elevated temp would tell me is that my PC flow was insufficient.

I think the only relevance the temp has is that's where Arroyo decided to make the cut based on his particular wash, reflux rate, take off speed, and analysis. He most likely determined the temps where the fractions made sense to cut organlepticly for repeatability.

The thing that really interests me is the blending of the 5 fractions Arroyo calls for and how they compare. I typically run whole batch out in 8oz jars and just blend what tastes good back together, but the fractions approach is very different.

I also think this concept could be used on not just rums but brandy and whiskey too, one just needs to find the fractions that make sense most sense for the type of product they are making. I imagine brandy would be similar to rum as brandy tends to be more heads heavy where as whiskey is more tails.