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Hey, Ive been stilling for a couple of months now, just using plain sugar and adding the flavoring.

I want to make a rum from scratch with molasses etc.

I see there are a few recipes around, what is the best one to do for a 25 Liter mix?

I have a few packets of 24 hr turbo yeast and a still spirits fractionating still.

Is molasses from the agricultural shop ok?

Thanks.

Lose the turbo and build a pot still

Righto mate, so its not possible to make rum with a fractionating still? I guess I could make a pot condenser and wack it on my current boiler.

I heard you can get special rum yeast?

Is there anything/website that will tell me the basics of making rum from scratch, Ive looked but cant really find anything?

Thanks

By the way im after a Dark rum like a Bundaberg (Australian) or a Jamaican.

Cheers.

Most Rum recipes are going to have a fairly aggressive ferment even with bakers yeast, so be careful... If you try a Turbo yeast with a Rum wash you may end up spending a lot of time cleaning your entire fermenting area...

As far as running a Rum wash through a column, it could probably be done as long as you can remove any packing and run with zero reflux... Packing and reflux will tend to strip out the coloring and flavoring, leaving you with close to neutral spirits...

There are several brown sugar and molasses rum recipes here on the site... Try them all or pick the one that best suits you needs...

Thanks for the help fellas,

Just got 15 L of molasses from my mate at the ag shop for free.

Any idea on what percentage the spirit would come out at with no packing in the coloum?

De pends on column but I can git 60-70% ,which is good for flavor,from column.

did a couple runs of Pugirum over the holidays, if you want a nice dark rum this is the ticket.
pull all the packing and disconnect the reflux and do it in a single run. you get a nice deep flavorfull rum.

Ok so we fermented out the mix yesterday.

25 L total.

6L molasses
3kg brown sugar
1kg white sugar
24hr turbo yeast

It stopped with an SG of 1.3 i think from memory.

At the start of the distill we got like runny chocolate looking stuff but then it went a darkish clear color.

It then went pure clear (about 70%) then it started spewing out runny chocolate looking stuff again.

We collected different lots in small jars and it all SMELLS disgusting.

We stilled it in a reflux still with the packing removed. The temp in the thermometer was about 80 degrees.

We arnt game to drink it.

Any idea what we have done wrong?

lliw wrote:Ok so we fermented out the mix yesterday.
At the start of the distill we got like runny chocolate looking stuff but then it went a darkish clear color.
It then went pure clear (about 70%) then it started spewing out runny chocolate looking stuff again.
We collected different lots in small jars and it all SMELLS disgusting.
We stilled it in a reflux still with the packing removed. The temp in the thermometer was about 80 degrees.
We arnt game to drink it.

Any idea what we have done wrong?

Weather you pot still or column still, your output should be crystal clear. Molasses washes make plenty of foam and it sounds like you foamed right up the column and puked. I use Pugi's recipe for my rum and have been running on a column with limited packing. I try to keep the ABV @ 93 to 94% and I'm getting a wonderful crisp rum that can be consumed right off the still and ages beautifully. I also remove heads very slowly as my wife will not drink anything with even a hint of heads present. If my parrot gets down under 92%ABV there is a distinct presence of tails in the rum.........molasses tails have a disgusting smell.

lliw wrote:Ok so we fermented out the mix yesterday.

25 L total.

6L molasses
3kg brown sugar
1kg white sugar
24hr turbo yeast

It stopped with an SG of 1.3 i think from memory.

At the start of the distill we got like runny chocolate looking stuff but then it went a darkish clear color.

It then went pure clear (about 70%) then it started spewing out runny chocolate looking stuff again.

We collected different lots in small jars and it all SMELLS disgusting.

We stilled it in a reflux still with the packing removed. The temp in the thermometer was about 80 degrees.

We arnt game to drink it.

Any idea what we have done wrong?

You were running it to hot and it puked.
I've never made anything with turbo yeast that tasted good.

loose the turbo, follow the Pugirum recipe in tried and true, and run it slower.

Did you rack it off or just dump the whole lot in the still?
Good news is: you can just dump what you collected back in with a little bit of water or clear backset and re-run it. (now that you got rid of most of the protiens, it shouldn't puke again)