Second Molasses/sugar wash SG @1115

[Chips Molasses]

Hi,
I have been accused of been a little rough more than once. My first molasses/sugan wash was 50l with 12l feed grade molasses, 1kg brown sugar, 3kg white sugar, pkt 24 hour alcotec turbo, and 100g of this yeast I purchased from ebay - this one: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/460-GMS-VERY ... 7339191%26
After the fermentation had stopped I cleared the wash using bentonite whilst I degassed. This run was so successful (a delicious sweet clear rum @40%) after two carbon filtrations. Its currently sitting with wild turkey oak chips. Its slowly taking on a mellow flavour and colour.
So today I used the other 8kg feed grade molasses, 6 kg white sugar, pkt 24 hour turbo, 100g the same ebay yeast, 3l dunder from last distilation total about 50l of wash. The SG was 1115-1120 - the interwebs tell me this is high. But the last one worked so very well I have confidence!!!

Tell me, i sthe SG crazy high, or do I just sit back and enjoy the fruit?

[greenguy]

Sounds yummy :puke-huge:

[Chips Molasses]

Lol... I must have low standards, in addition to being rough.

[Lowndsey]

You can't get a correct reading with a hydrometer using molasses washes. It just doesn't work.

[Lowndsey]

Why do you filter your rum mate? I would have thought you would lose a hell of a lot of flavour that you work so hard putting in there.

[Chips Molasses]

OK, well thats my bad. I bought a beer and wine hydrometer to measure the wash SG etc... I guess it will be whatever it will be.

[Chips Molasses]

Its a still spirits z filter with activated carbon with two 10l pails. I have been thinking about double distilling - but I am still limited to air still. I cant do a stripping run faster, because I cant control the temps.

[Dominator]

Don't bother with SG for rum. Molasses contains too many unfermentables to get a decent reading. Don't waste your money on turbo yeasts or whatever that stuff your getting off ebay. :wtf: Try 6L of feed molasses, 6kg of sugar, 3 or 4 tablespoons of tomato paste (not sauce), half a teaspoon on epsom salts, water up to 50-55L and 150g of bakers yeast (I use lowans from the local IGA). You can get all the ingredients from the supermarket, besides the molasses, and it will only cost you less than $20 and you have plenty of tomato paste, epsom salts and yeast left to use next time. More info here Rum Your yeild wont be as high but I can garantee it will be better quality.
Strip runs dont have to be fast. If I were you I would run the lot through and keep everything besides foreshots, then water down to 40% and run it again. Double distilled, and no need to carbon filter.

[Chips Molasses]

Don't bother with SG for rum. Molasses contains too many unfermentables to get a decent reading. Don't waste your money on turbo yeasts or whatever that stuff your getting off ebay. :wtf: Try 6L of feed molasses, 6kg of sugar, 3 or 4 tablespoons of tomato paste (not sauce), half a teaspoon on epsom salts, water up to 50-55L and 150g of bakers yeast (I use lowans from the local IGA). You can get all the ingredients from the supermarket, besides the molasses, and it will only cost you less than $20 and you have plenty of tomato paste, epsom salts and yeast left to use next time. More info here Rum Your yeild wont be as high but I can garantee it will be better quality.
Strip runs dont have to be fast. If I were you I would run the lot through and keep everything besides foreshots, then water down to 40% and run it again. Double distilled, and no need to carbon filter.

Thanks for this - so the double distilling in the air still will be OK? I had read that stripping runs were fast to cust out most of the unwanted stuff. I will try your recipe on my next ferment.

[Lowndsey]

Mate I started out with an airstill. Made some pretty decent rum with it too. Double distilling is the only way to make decent booze with them. Stripping run is run fast to save time, gas/electricity and to get the alcohol % up for the spirit run with pot stills. And as a quicker way to run huge amounts of wash through before doing a slower spirit run with the low wines. Nothing at all to do with quality.

[Chips Molasses]

OK Lowndsey - double distilling it is!

[Dominator]

:text-+1: with what lowndsey said

[Sam.]

Mate I started out with an airstill. Made some pretty decent rum with it too. Double distilling is the only way to make decent booze with them. Stripping run is run fast to save time, gas/electricity and to get the alcohol % up for the spirit run with pot stills. And as a quicker way to run huge amounts of wash through before doing a slower spirit run with the low wines. Nothing at all to do with quality.

I agree apart for the fact they you are inherently going to get better quality from doing strip runs then spirit runs as you have already seperated the not bad from the shit once before. If you could get the same quality from one run of pot that's what everyone would do :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[syncro]

You can't get a correct reading with a hydrometer using molasses washes. It just doesn't work.

Um, the sg will be correct, its trying to use it for determination of alcohol potential is the problem.

Ive been reading everything I can about fermenting molasses, trying to find possible reasons why Macs molasses washes blow the tops of fermenters and mine just mildly bubble away for a week or so. The only mention of sg I found was in a 30's us paper about rum production(http://distillers.tastylime.net/newSite/articles/foreign_and_domestic_rum/index.htm), saying that in Demarerra the molasses is diluted to 1.065, sulpuric acid added and ammonium nitrate and the ferment is complete in less than 48hours.

[Dominator]

Suphuric acid is to lower the ph, I generally use citric acid as it is easy to get, handle an is safe to keep in the house. :shock: DAP is essentialy ammonium nitirate. That is why Mac's are so violent. He adds DAP and some vitamin B and the yeast has a big orgy, because of the abundance of nutrients.

[syncro]

Well Ive switched to stockfeed, put an aquarium heater in, put a desert spoon of dap & a couple of handfuls of sugar into the yeasty dregs of the fermenter along with some water while I ran the previous wash. The yeast seemed to like it, forming a sparse layer on top and starting to bubble by the time I added it to about 15lt of stockfeed, about the same from the boiler and 20lt or so of water to get the temp down. ph was still arount 5.5, so I gave it some tartaric, which did fa, dropped it to 5.4.
That was yesterday, today its got a nice head on it :handgestures-thumbupleft: sg was around 1.07, tomorrow I want to add the remains of the cube of molasses, hopefully without creating an imititation volcano :scared-eek:

I'm not interested in the sg as far as working out how much alcohol Ive got in the wash, the still will tell me that, but I think it has something to do with yeast vitality/efficiency irt osmotic pressure

[MacStill]

Suphuric acid is to lower the ph, I generally use citric acid as it is easy to get, handle an is safe to keep in the house. :shock: DAP is essentialy ammonium nitirate. That is why Mac's are so violent. He adds DAP and some vitamin B and the yeast has a big orgy, because of the abundance of nutrients.

... and it ferments out in about 3 days bringing all those yummy esters with it :dance:

[syncro]

Suphuric acid is to lower the ph, I generally use citric acid as it is easy to get, handle an is safe to keep in the house. :shock: DAP is essentialy ammonium nitirate. That is why Mac's are so violent. He adds DAP and some vitamin B and the yeast has a big orgy, because of the abundance of nutrients.

... and it ferments out in about 3 days bringing all those yummy esters with it :dance:

Yep, thats the goal

Trying to avoid Vesusivus recreations tho Mac. I shoulda been more scientific and done one step at a time. I added the heater and did the switch from refinery molasses at the same time, anf given the molasses was already fermenting in the cube who knows what will come out. Think I should try and isolate the wild yeast in the molasses, maybe I could produce Bundy :puke-huge:

[MacStill]

molasses wont really ferment out on it's own, it's just not the right environment for a healthy yeast colony until you thin it down.

the sugar content in it is far above any level any yeast could turn into alcohol before becoming terminal, and it's too thick to be aerated enough for healthy yeast production.

bakers yeast like lowans is bred on a molasses substrate anyway, so it's basically a natural strain to use for rum production, is cheap and readily available, so really is the sensible option.

[syncro]

Theres some Carib producers using wild yeast, takes weeks for the ferment and results in a light rum, not worth the wait

And on top of that not everything that grows and ferments produces alcohol, who know what nasties might have been breeding