Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hi Rush006 - I've been experimenting with different yeasts and different temperatures and similar to other advice I've found on this forum, I find warmer temps create substantially more flavour. My first ever rum (I live in the UK) fermented at 21C. Not enough rummyness. More recent batches I've been controlling to 34C, this creates great flavours but I feel the faster the ferment, the better. I've now moved from baker's yeast to Distilamax RM yeast. This will be fine up to 40C, so I'm keeping this to 38C and it ferments in 3 days.

Currently I can only make comparisons between 21 and 34C, because my 38C batch isn't ready yet. I can tell it's better though. I'm heating mine with a heating belt, a heating pad and a thick woolly jumper for insulation.

Thanks for the support and advice. I persevered and ran gen 2. Only change, apart from Backset and Lees, was two heat belts and a controller holding the temp at 30°C. Much improved product, even as white rum with no wood aging! I'm thrilled with the results I am getting now. MacStill, you have made an old man feel very happy, and, if I can't stop drinking this rum, probably will also make a happy man feel very old.

Hi Guys ,
I need some advice from the seasoned rum producers on here !!
I am on my 2nd RUM run , i used the crap from in the bottom of fermentor the 1st ferment plus about 3litres of dunder , 5kg of food grade molasses, 3kg raw sugar, i am using ec1118 yeast which was rehydrated (10 grams in total) , i also ajusted ph using calcium carbonate .
O/G was 1.100 # Gr 1.048 NOW
My issue is after 5days it has stopped from what i could tell .
it has an odor to it ( sulphur from what i have read), so i rehydrated another 5grams of yeast added some dap.
Next day its bubbling slowly , as this is the 1st time my washes have ever smelt i am wondering if its normal or is it an infection or something



Regards Baz

So rougly 6kg of fermentable sugar.
Some unfermentable junk left over from ferment 1 and 3L of very acidic dunder.
But pH was adjusted.
And a low temperature fruit wash yeast....

Not to rain on your parade but i dont think those are the best conditions for Rum.

Rum likes higher ferment temps than EC 1118 can handle.
And depending on wash size you might have too much sugar.
25L wash with 6kg of sugar is too much.
30L wash would be ok.

Food grade molassis should rule out sulfur being a main cause...

What is the temperature of the ferment?
28-35°C?
Or lower.

Rum never finishes that close to 1.000 because of the unfermentables in the molassis.

Taste it...

Maybe alright. To get esters happening is why rum is fermented hot with bakers yeast. With a ester producing yeast, one that produces them at lower temps might be alright fermented at lower temp .I would be interested to hear the results of this. I have been thinking bout trying Belgian ale yeast for this very reason but I have some speciality rum yeast to try first :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Hi Bluc ,

I ran 100 litres with ec 1118 last year same recipe double distilled tight cuts, ultrasonic aged , and aireated etc over a course of 1 week on 2 lots of oak combined it was absoultely a 100% great drop way better them commercial top shelf stuff my temps sit around 25 to 28degs it normally takes up to 2 weeks to ferment out , have never had an issue with the smell up till now , i truely think its a combination of using the left over yeast in bottom of bucket plus adding dunder to it and new yeast on top ? could be the stronger yeast cells started eating the not so good ones from wash 1 , mind ponders one can guess but never really know .
its been sitting in -2 deg freezer on controller now for 4 days smells gone and is as bitter as eating a friggin lemon 1st up in the morning ......

Regards Bazz

P.S trying rm edv -493 yeast on next wash

Made some rum back in feb this year. After doing my cuts i wasn't overly happy with my hearts cut, prob should of put back with feints and re run it.
:puke-huge:
I did try blending in a small amount of tails as I've read a lot of rum flavour comes from these, and i prob should of kept out a extra jar between heads and hearts too. I put it on american oak domino to age, i do like to longterm age so i thought the unwanted flavours might improve with time... but still not unreal.
Is it possible to run an oaked spirit back through with the original feints?
It probably just needs another 12-18 months of aging. :laughing-rolling:

I made some rum about 18 months ago, pretty standard 50/50 mix of molasses and raw sugar, fermented with bakers yeast. Distilled with 3 plates on the bubbler, cuts made, aged with a few charred oak dominoes in each 2L glass bottle. Was a bit rank for the first 6 months but became my favorite drink soon after that.

Anyway, I've been slack/busy and haven't made any for ages, so consequently my stores are all gone :scared-eek: I mixed up a 50L batch using just molasses, (about 12L), fermented and stripped it, mainly to get some dunder to try some generations, which I didn't have much luck with last time. I've got the second gen bubbling away at the moment, using the yeast cake from the original ferment, another 12L of molasses and about 8L of dunder. Seems to be fermenting OK at the moment. The 3rd gen always seems to be where I strike trouble in getting the ferment going, even if I adjust pH I just couldn't get it to start last time. I'm thinking this time around I will use the same amount of dunder and molasses again, but ditch the old yeast and pitch fresh Lowans and see if it gives me any more success.

I've put away 10 or so litres of dunder in a bucket as a dunder pit, with the hopes of using some live dunder in the process somewhere. No idea where that road is going to lead me but keen to experiment and see what happens. Been reading as much as I can on the subject and will soon jump in head first I think. I was going to wait for warmer weather but I think I'll just get an aquarium heater and get a head start that way.

I was having trouble with gens for a while as well. I found that if I add less dunder to every gen then I didn't have any trouble. I now use 20 litres of molasses, 20kg sugar and 20 litres or dunder in a 180-200 litre wash. I was using 50 litres of dunder every gen but after gen 3 it would slow down and nearly stall. In summer it ferments out in 4-5 days max and last summer I even had the 220 litre olive barrel rocking a bit during the first 2 days of fermentation.

Thanks Plumby. I might drop the dunder back a little more to 5or 6 litres then on the next gen and see how it goes.

Cheers,
Dave.

Thanks Dave... prob just getting impatient. Still curious if it's possible to re run spirit after its been aged for a bit though.
When i first started making rum i had a gen or 2 stall, but then i too backed off the dunder a tad and haven't had any probs since touch wood.
I make my rum when its real hot in feb, so i dont have heating issues... plus its real quick to do a few gens when it ferments in 4/5 days.

I think if you rerun oaked spirit the oak will carry over into the final cut. Unless you intend to make neutral then the packed section should take care of the oak flavour.
Not sure just thinking out loud really :-B

Plumby wrote:I think if you rerun oaked spirit the oak will carry over into the final cut. Unless you intend to make neutral then the packed section should take care of the oak flavour.
Not sure just thinking out loud really :-B

The oaked flavour doesnt worry me... just thought i could make tighter cuts. If i was to add back my rum feints from the original run it would water down the oak flavour i would think.
I didnt have my bubbler originally either, only my pot so i reckon it would clean up a lot just running it through 4 plates.

Just wondering.... I'm not a rum drinker, I'm a bourbon and a good Irish whiskey drinker. However, I have had the pleasure of drinking Ron Zacapa XO, a $180 bottle of rum that was pretty good. Has anybody had it before and is making something something that good on a hobby level, possible?

Haven't tried that sort of rum before so couldn't really say. My suggestion would be to try making a bit of this stuff and leave it to age for a bit, you might be surprised how nice it comes up. Ive got a couple bottles that are coming up 2 years and the flavour is far superior to the cheap commercial stuff. Trial and error is the best way to find what meets your taste... everyones are different. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Joycy, I got a bottle of Ron Zacapa XO for fathers day. Good rum. I'm not sure that I can replicate it, but my 2 year old rum is pretty good using feed molly, bakers yeast through 4 plates.

I might give a rum and a bourbon a go, set and forget for a year and just see how they turn out. In the meantime making vodka and gin to keep me going :-D

I'm wondering what a good molasses to water ratio is for an all molasses ferment? I'm not really interested in using sugar, I just found a pretty cheap source for feed molasses. Right now I have a ferment that is 4 gallons molasses to 10 gallons water and I think it might be too much molasses.

Molasses is approx 40-50% fermentable. So double the amount you would use for sugar.
As a rule of thumb max 1kg sugar per 5l volume i would start with 6- 8l.

Also molasses is 1.4kg per litre. I have read elsewhere that 8l per 30 makes a very good rum. The sugar content wil vary a bit and you may have to adjust the amount to suit your local molasses suply..

Thanks! :handgestures-thumbupleft: