First Rum on the Way!

[chili_no_beans]

Well fellers. I got my first rum wash going now. This is easier than sugar wash if you ask me. Here's my recipe and procedure:

Yeast bomb, inspired by Pugi:
5 tablespoons of yeast nutrient with food grade urea
1/4 cup bakers yeast
1/4 teaspoon epsom salt

Starting OG: 1.076 with just molasses and water
10 gallons split into 2 stainless buckets
2 gallons fancy Sweet Select molasses (buddy is a chef, get it for wholesale)
Fill with hot water to 3 gallons, getting all the molasses from the comtainer
Fill remainder of fermenter up to 5 gallons with hose water allowing some air to get in the wash
Add yeast bomb and stir
When wash comes down to 90º pitch Fliechmann's baker's yeast. 2 TBLS/5 gallons


At the first sign of fermentation (about 30 minutes) take the lid off and stir it up to get some more air in there, and really get it going. This sat out in my garage in the 80s last night and it was flying this morning. It's in the mid 90's right now and it's gotten down from 1.076 to 1.022 in 24 hours. Party on! I'm going out of town in 2 days and I'm planning on adding some boiled cane sugar to it before I leave. Maybe get the ABV up to 12% if I get lucky.

I'll update here as I go.

[Saltbush Bill]

You might like to read the below quoted from an article I just found for you on the internet.

" In a nutshell, Urea is a chemical compound that can occur naturally or synthetically. ... However, in fermentation, Urea is known to contribute to the production of ethyl carbamate, which is a carcinogen and has therefore been banned in beverage alcohol production in some countries.since 10 Mar 2015.

[Rum Agol]

+1 The danger of urea and ethanol combining to form ethyl carbamate increases with the rise in temperature as in distilling. Better to stay safe and use plain DAP for nitrogen,

[chili_no_beans]

Thanks guys. I’ll keep that in mind for the future!

[Saltbush Bill]

Personally I think you should throw it out and start again.......pays to do some research before formulating recipes.
There are many other nutrients you can choose from without using urea.

[chili_no_beans]

There’s “tried and true” recipes on this site advocating the use of industrial fertilizer. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[HDNB]

There’s “tried and true” recipes on this site advocating the use of industrial fertilizer. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

save me some reading brother, link them up here or pm me so we can fix them or add a urea caution. not everything known now was as common knowledge then ...and some updates may be in order.

[Saltbush Bill]

I'm no expert on fertilizer types, but as far as i know not all "industrial fertilizers" use urea to get their N content.
Its used mostly because its cheap and high in Nitrogen, 46.2%. from what Ive read.

[NZChris]

AFAIK, none of the T&Ts on this forum say to use urea. At least one says not to.

[chili_no_beans]

Here’s the one that I was basing my recipe on:

https://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtop ... =14&t=5994

[Bushman]

Here’s the one that I was basing my recipe on:

https://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtop ... =14&t=5994

Pugi’s recipe does mention agricultural fertilizer but doesn’t mention urea, maybe the recipe should be modified to say “make sure the fertilizer is without urea.

[HDNB]

Here’s the one that I was basing my recipe on:

https://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtop ... =14&t=5994

Pugi’s recipe does mention agricultural fertilizer but doesn’t mention urea, maybe the recipe should be modified to say “make sure the fertilizer is without urea.

added to the recipe as admin edit.

[Setsumi]

the agricultural fertilisers in the old threads is the 3 element fertilisers. N nitrogen P phospherous and K potassium. NO urea. Rad use to write about it. i just looked today at a thread on here called Urea that explains the rol of urea in ethyl carbamate or urethane.

fixed K

[chili_no_beans]

I'm moderately familiar with fertilizer composition if not the effects of individual ingrediends on humans at distilling temp. For nitrogen you got a couple sources. Most popular by a long shot is urea. Next is ammonium nitrate. Third is blood meal (not recommended for use in fermentables ).

Point being, agricultural fertilizer or urea of any kind ain't worth it. DAP, dead yeast, or fermaid.

[chili_no_beans]

Stripped, this had a great coconut flavor. Added 2lb cane sugar to each 6 gallon fermenter to get the alcohol to 12.3%. Collected 4.5 gallons of strip off the pot still. Used an electric element for the first time. 5500 watts in a 13 gallon pot ain't no joke. The heads were FLOWING until I figured out what I was doing.

Remade the recipe tonight but this time boiled the spent yeast with DAP and yeast energizer, as I didn't really have nutrient other than the urea one. Also added one gallon dunder to the wash, and topped up with water. Will pitch the yeast in the morning when the fermenters have cooled down a bit. Muck from the first wash is starting to smell pretty rotten, and is getting some nice mold floating in the top after dropping a black banana peel in there. Excited to run this and do my first rum spirit run!