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Hello.. Bought 2 five gallon buckets last weekend from the feed store..
4.5 gallon of molasses with 10 gallons of boiling water and 25#'s
of inverted sugar. 24 gallon wash in total.

Is the oily/sludge floating on top normal?
It sticks to glass dawn dish just does get it off and leaves an oily feel on your hands.

I'm afraid of messing up my transfer pump and my boiler..

Thank you

I've never seen that, what does it taste like?

Should be no oil in Molasses .The blackstrap we buy here that is sold as feed stock is as good as the food grade Blackstrap I can pay $6 a jar for from the Supermarket .

But sadly some of the feed stock stock stuff apparently has vege oil and other crap added to it .... value added .
I had an experience once where the blackstrap I bought was stored in used transmission oil drums . After it settled , there was about a 1/2” of the crap floating on top .

NZChris wrote: ↑Fri Mar 12, 2021 12:06 pm I've never seen that, what does it taste like?

Actually haven't tasted it yet. It smells like molasses. I'll post some pictures of it this evening

Yummyrum wrote: ↑Fri Mar 12, 2021 12:10 pm Should be no oil in Molasses .The blackstrap we buy here that is sold as feed stock is as good as the food grade Blackstrap I can pay $6 a jar for from the Supermarket .

But sadly some of the feed stock stock stuff apparently has vege oil and other crap added to it .... value added .
I had an experience once where the blackstrap I bought was stored in used transmission oil drums . After it settled , there was about a 1/2” of the crap floating on top .

This was 32 cents a pound 2 five gallon buckets was 100 pounds.
The local gallon deer feed molasses is anywhere from $8 to $13 a gallon

Here are some pictures. Can't really tell anything.
The middle picture. That's my tilt hydrometer floating.
Thanks You can see it pretty well floating. Is this normal?

Is all this sludge there before pitching? I have seen it look like that during fermentation with a top-cropping yeast like Lida Kveik, but never before pitching.

Hard to tell from the photos, but that oily / slimy looking stuff on the sides of the bucket and the jug doesn't look normal compered to my rum washes.

NZChris wrote: ↑Fri Mar 12, 2021 12:06 pm I've never seen that, what does it taste like?

??

Blackstrap here in the states tastes very metallic.
If it's from a feed store I'd be asking for an analysis.
If it's 30% sucrose there is something else in there.
Should be 50%. Modern equipment only takes it down to 50%. Beyond that and the cost of extraction becomes more expensive than the value of extracting further.

MartinCash wrote: ↑Sat Mar 13, 2021 1:16 pm Is all this sludge there before pitching? I have seen it look like that during fermentation with a top-cropping yeast like Lida Kveik, but never before pitching.

Yes. It was. The quart jar was taken out right after I got the Ph correct

NZChris wrote: ↑Sat Mar 13, 2021 11:17 pm

NZChris wrote: ↑Fri Mar 12, 2021 12:06 pm I've never seen that, what does it taste like?

??

It tastes fine. Smells ok also

Use it.

I bought and fermented 10 gal of 'feed grade molasses'. The sludge involved was scary, but I went with it. Cost me $27 per 5. Cheap. I'm back to $18 per 1 and much happier, although it did make good rum. I just didn't like the solids involved.

pao

If you manage to get hold of Arroyo's articles on manufacture of rum, they contain pretty detailed and involved protocols to purify the molasses before use. I suspect a lot of the molasses that large-scale distilleries use are pretty cheap and need it.

This is a good read about Rum production

Don’t freak out if it doesn’t load immediately. It can take a minute or two but worth the wait.
https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi/910 ... 01QZ6H.PDF

Page 22 describes Clarification of Blackstrap . Get yourself some Sulfuric acid folks

Basically its about settling out the crap so that the continuous strippers require less maintenance .

If you are be running a pot still in your shed a couple of times a year, you won't have the same calcium buildup problems as an industrial 7 day 24hr continuous plated column still that churns out product that I'm not particularly fond of, so clarifying molasses might not be something that you really need to worry about.

That is the reason Chris .
Shame you don’t like Commercial Rum made in a continuous stripper .... all the more for me ... especially Bundy

I do have a rum that is shaping up very nicely that is made from Bundaberg molasses

Just got off the phone with the lady at the feed store. That molasses has a bunch of extra stuff in it. That slimy stuff is vegetable oil. Is that something they normally add?

I'll get a complete list of ingredients this weekend and post it.

Thanks for the the replies

All of the molasses I’ve ever used has had nothing added.

Went back to the feed store this morning. They gave me a list of ingredients.. I bought another bucket. Gonna try putting both buckets in a 20 gallon kettle with some water heat it up real good.
Let it sit overnight rack it off the bottom in the morning.

I'm running the one pictured above at the moment.. it's really good

Three of those ingredients are preservatives.

NZChris wrote: ↑Sat Mar 20, 2021 4:35 pm Three of those ingredients are preservatives.

Is that bad?

You're about to find out.

Potassium sorbate is used to stop dead the yeast fermentation in fruit wines when the desired alcohol and sugar levels are reached. Hopefully the concentration is not a problem for you but I'd stay away from that stuff and try to source straight molasses.

The fact that its only 37% sugar is an indicator that its diluted / contaminated with other rubbish.
Molasses direct from the bulk storage tanks at the mills here is around 48% and that is stock feed grade. There is no lower grade with less sugar.

Thank you guys for all the help and information.

Stoutone, I've been following this thread because the molasses available around here is very similar to yours. Mine is "Double S" brand. Ingredients are: cane molasses, vegetable oil, corn condensed distillers solubles, and propionic acid. Sugar content is only 30% (minimum) according to label. It's what I can get, so we'll see how it goes.

River Rat wrote: ↑Sun Mar 21, 2021 1:04 pm Stoutone, I've been following this thread because the molasses available around here is very similar to yours. Mine is "Double S" brand. Ingredients are: cane molasses, vegetable oil, corn condensed distillers solubles, and propionic acid. Sugar content is only 30% (minimum) according to label. It's what I can get, so we'll see how it goes.

Hello River Rat.
We've got feed stores all over here. This is the only one I could find that sells it in bulk. I'll probably try the 1 gallon stuff next. At $8 to $13 a gallon. I was going to order some of the good stuff. Not going to spend $30 on shipping for for 5 gallon

I ran one the one pictured above Saturday it turned out really well.
I had 2 5 gallon buckets of this left. Started 2 more.. I actually scooped a bunch of that floating slime off this time while still in the buckets. I heated it up really well in a kettle let it cool and racked it off from the bottom.

These 2 are taking off really slow for some reason.. The first one took off like crazy.