Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi guys, I had a rum session over the last few days and ran two different washes.

One had been sitting for about 8 months (discussed elsewhere so I won't get into that here)
The other was made with molasses that was about a year or so old, from the group buy mac did a while back.

All the molasses was stored in food grade airtight containers (feta buckets with a rubber seal) and not touched until about two weeks ago when I got some more rum on.

Well... the batches I did with the old molasses fermented out fine, though they never had the initial action associated with rum, and once distilled had a rank off smell to them. I couldn't taste it, the cuts jars were all clean and it didn't smell coming off the still. Smelt like regular rum, nothing suspect here. But after putting the jar inline with the rest the smell would develop :puke-huge:

I ran four charges and the last two had this smell.. the only variables were;

The molasses was old (but the second run never had this odour, same wash from the same 200L drum)
I left about 5L in the boiler for the third run (drain is not right to the bottom) but I tilted and drained it fully for the 4th run?

The molasses had no sign of infection or previous activity, it was all normal. The smell has dissipated slightly this morning but is still quite strong, it was overpowering last night. I'm going to leave it for another day or two and see if it disappears, these batches will be kept separate from the rest.

Anyone had experience with aged molasses? Noticed any differences in batches made with it? I always thought it was pretty much non-perishable stored correctly. Or could it not be the molasses and is my focus on the wrong thing..

Have you ruled out your still as the source of your problem? ie sulphides etc

Urrazeb, I've had some Molasses that was way over a year old and had no issues with it.....but can't say that it might not .
I know one of the local farmers here has had the same IBC of Molasses for about 6 years now and his cows still love it :-|

im confused. are you saying you had a 200L wash from old molasses, ran it in 4 50L lots, and the last 2 runs smell bad?

Andy, there was 25L that was old wash and it distilled fine. Then there was 200L of fresh wash that was made ~2weeks ago. The old wash was ran first topped up with fresh stuff, then 3 batches from the fresh wash were ran. The last two runs are what had the smell.

I have some spare copper mesh lying around so might whack it above the RC and see how we go.