Use the sludge from a finished rum ferment?

by **twobottles** » Sun Jul 14, 2013 10:31 am

Whilst getting my still together I had two 30l rum ferments finish working. Ive got one on the go right now doing a stripping run and will put down the next gen using the dunder. The most recent one finished about 10 days ago.

This will be the first time I try to use hot dunder for the next gen. If im pretty sure that the yeast wont start again, is there any benefit to the taste of the rum by adding the yeast/sludge at the bottom of the fermenter to the next gen or should I just use the dunder and add new yeast?

What kind of temp liquid do you think a standard plastic fermenter is able to handle?

Cheers

by **twobottles** » Sun Jul 14, 2013 11:14 am

ok ignore that. found out by actually looking for the info sorry.

by **Cane Toad** » Sun Jul 14, 2013 11:19 am

Ok,the yeast cake in the bottom of the fermenter is still very viable :handgestures-thumbupleft: Get yourself a 20l plastic bucket and put your molasses and or sugar into this.Pour the required amount of dunder into the bucket to disolve the sugar and molasses,then let cool.
Once cooled to 30 odd degrees,pour back into your fermenter and away it'll go :handgestures-thumbupleft: I always add a vitamin B tablet to the next generation,just for good measure,and adjust the ph :handgestures-thumbupleft: :handgestures-thumbupleft:

by **twobottles** » Sun Jul 14, 2013 10:09 pm

Yes, nice one Pint,

The one that finished first had been in the cold garage for a while and was like 10 degrees c. Totally finished nothing doing. It was really well settled and had "cleared" to an extent. This I stripped today and got an incredible 6l+ from 30l.

I then racked off the most recent one that had been kept in the house and had fermented out at a fairly consistent 18 degrees c without a heat pad in the living room. (living dangerously there, the morning after I got it going, I came downstairs to find the fermenter lid full of wash that had bubbled out the airlock, just about to go all over the cream carpet!)

Lots of nice sludge and I noticed that the odd bubble was coming up as I was racking it and got towards the bottom. I got the biggest cooking pot and put the sugar in, tipped the keg on its side and filled it, dissolved the raw sugar, poured the molasses into the nice clean fermenter and added the dunder and sugar mix. Topped up with water and added the sludge/yeast a couple of hours later. Its going off like a rocket as we speak.

Ive still got plenty of dunder left in the keg and want to put another 30l down tomorrow. So my choices are.......

Dunder, sugar, molasses and pitch new yeast

or

rack it again into another fermenter and split the sludge between the two, there was quite a lot of sludgey goo!

Cheers

by **Dominator** » Mon Jul 15, 2013 6:17 am

Just pitch new yeast. Bakers yeast is cheap and it is not a great idea to be racking and mucking around with a wash while it is fermenting.

by **twobottles** » Mon Jul 15, 2013 9:03 am

Just pitch new yeast.

Ok will do, getting into the swing of the rum thing now, looking forward to my first big spirit run! Im going to try to keep the temp above 30 degrees c for these next ferments and see if I can get one to finish in a week, so far they all have taken 3-4 weeks.

Cheers