My Mc rum's gone cloudy!

by **emptyglass** » Sat Nov 10, 2012 8:05 pm

Since this is my 3rd gen of rum I thought I'd ask the question here.

My rum's going cloudy after dilution. Is ok out of the still and I didn't notice it when I was diluting test samples, but after adding water to a couple of bottles, I noticed some cloudyness. I dug up my old coffee filtre jig and ran some through, to no avail.

I did dump the measured amount of water into the bottle pretty fast, don't know why that would make any difference though. This has never happened with my UJ.

Anyone know whats going on?

by **MacStill** » Sat Nov 10, 2012 8:12 pm

The only reason I've seen any spirit go cloudy, and stay cloudy, is too much tails.

When I dilute my gear it goes cloudy for a few minutes then clears again, there's a scientific term for this but it eludes my cloudy memory :-B

by **emptyglass** » Sat Nov 10, 2012 8:51 pm

Maybe I went a bit greedy on the tails.

I have heard lots of guys say good flavor in rum tails, and they did smell different to my UJ. Didn't smell at all dirty, quite rummy, so maybe I went too deep.

I'll cut it a bit closer next run. :text-thankyoublue:

by **crow** » Sat Nov 10, 2012 9:26 pm

yeah but i think from memory they tend to use only deep tails (rum oils)

by **MacStill** » Sat Nov 10, 2012 9:33 pm

My tails cut is when the bubbler's reflux gets turned off, anything after that goes in the next run ;-)

by **wynnum1** » Sun Nov 11, 2012 7:20 am

Could it be from the water added.

by **googe** » Sun Nov 11, 2012 1:13 pm

Mine did that a while back to empty, i posted here about it and someone suggested tails plus also some contaminateI can't remember the name now!. I did a low wines run with it again and it came out good. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

by **emptyglass** » Sun Nov 11, 2012 9:33 pm

Thanks chaps.
Obviously, I better take more care with my cuts next time.

by **invisigoth** » Mon Nov 12, 2012 10:16 pm

tails sounds like what i noticed with my spirit run of 2nd gen. the last two jars that came off between 96 and 98c went cloudy, and the next day you could see stuff on the bottom that had crashed out. :scared-eek:

if it stays cloudy you may be colloidal, but if you are lucky it may flock and fall to the bottom in time. :pray:

by **emptyglass** » Tue Nov 13, 2012 10:19 pm

no flocking so far, flock it all....

by **Sam.** » Wed Nov 14, 2012 6:33 am

Maybe another cause, how clean was your collection vessel?

May have had some oily tails in it previously?

by **emptyglass** » Wed Nov 14, 2012 8:49 pm

Nah Sam, they were pretty clean.

I had been messing around collecting the rum oils, then adding them back to the boiler for the next run. I believe they come in at 40% down to 20%, but my last bubbler run was pretty hard. I could have collected some oils towards the end of the run, and blended them in without realising.

Oh yeah, the couple of bottles i diluted are still cloudy. This stuff aint seperating any time soon I think.

by **MacStill** » Wed Nov 14, 2012 10:06 pm

Stick it in the freezer and see if you get jelly fish in it ;-)

by **emptyglass** » Sat Nov 17, 2012 10:57 pm

Will do.

I'm guessing if it gets jellyfish, these can then be filtered?

It dosn't bother me that a small quantity has been spoiled, I just don't want to make the same mistake with the rest of this rum.

by **Urrazeb** » Sat Dec 01, 2012 3:41 pm

I stumbled upon a solution to this today. I had some cloudy spirit and was goin to use it for a kahlua, I needed some higher % alc to make up for the dilution, so I took some 40% cloudy spirit and added approximately one third 85% spirit, it cleared like magic, as the 85% went thru the 40% the cloudiness disappeared, it didn't dilute it completely cleared up.

I was thinking that I ran too deep in the tails, got some oils and that affected the dilution, I am also thinking the addition of high percentage alc has 'cut' through the oils.

Thoughts anyone?

by **crow** » Sat Dec 01, 2012 3:43 pm

very likely