Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

bluc wrote:After or before the barrel I like to let it sit with some French oak. It ups the sweetness and enhances the flavour imo. Just depends what I have going on if it goes in before or after the American oak barrel..

thanks alot for the info i only have a french oak barrel atm so it'll spend the full time in that thinking i might put the first lot of white sugar runs in and the rest raw

good to hear its salvagable for the barrel


just put down a 200L 5th gen :music-deathmetal:

Raw sugar is just white sugar with a bit of molasses added back in so you can use either and the differences won't be huge. If it tastes alright to you, chuck it in the barrel. If you're unsure or new to making rum, maybe get a few batches under your belt before filling the barrel.

DaveZ wrote:Raw sugar is just white sugar with a bit of molasses added back in so you can use either and the differences won't be huge. If it tastes alright to you, chuck it in the barrel. If you're unsure or new to making rum, maybe get a few batches under your belt before filling the barrel.

Your thinking of brown sugar. Raw sugar comes out before white sugar a little less refined and still has some cane characteristics :handgestures-thumbupleft:

bluc wrote:

DaveZ wrote:Raw sugar is just white sugar with a bit of molasses added back in so you can use either and the differences won't be huge. If it tastes alright to you, chuck it in the barrel. If you're unsure or new to making rum, maybe get a few batches under your belt before filling the barrel.

Your thinking of brown sugar. Raw sugar comes out before white sugar a little less refined and still has some cane characteristics :handgestures-thumbupleft:

:text-+1: :text-imwithstupid:

I'm into generation 4 now and it's bubbling away franticly. I have 5ltrs of molasses left and 9kg raw sugar. Rather than just running an all sugar gen6 I'm thinking I should double up on Gen 5 by using 2 1/2L molasses and 3.5Kg sugar over two ferments and split the yeast between them to get 2 gen 5s rather than a 5 and a 6. How does that sound?

I did a couple of washes as a first go at this. One wash used Bakers Yeast and the other EC1118.

The finished product came out tasting like shit, a bitter taste that lingers in your mouth after sipping it. No way could anyone drink it let alone enjoy it :angry-banghead:

I got a still like this:
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/10L-30L-Alc ... em0&_uhb=1

And have only put it through once.

I think that it is a distilling problem not a wash problem but am not sure :handgestures-thumbdown:

Anyway work has started on a Keg boiler and I will run it through that to see if I get a better result :?

yea a pot still but not a great one. check out "efque's" profile pic first on this page for a much better pot still..with keg boiler. :handgestures-thumbupleft: i also would recomend always double distill on a pot still and do cuts to hone your sense :-B

I would think it's a Distilling issue, have a thorough read of the post about cuts and the post about double Distilling and make sure you fully understand what it's saying before you next run anything. Also while the speed of take off for a 50L boiler and 2in pot is pencil stream with the pot you have you'll need to go slower.
The still you have can make acceptable rum but it'll be slow.
I've heard a few people using ec1118 for rum lately and I don't understand why... it's excellent at not adding any flavour to ferments which is why it's used predominantly for white wine champagne and in neutral washes. Am I missing something here?

bluc wrote:yea a pot still but not a great one. check out "efque's" profile pic first on this page for a much better pot still..with keg boiler. :handgestures-thumbupleft: i also would recomend always double distill on a pot still and do cuts to hone your sense :-B

My idea building one is that if I suck at making real rum I can make neutral instead :laughing-rolling:

coffe addict wrote:I would think it's a Distilling issue, have a thorough read of the post about cuts and the post about double Distilling and make sure you fully understand what it's saying before you next run anything. Also while the speed of take off for a 50L boiler and 2in pot is pencil stream with the pot you have you'll need to go slower.
The still you have can make acceptable rum but it'll be slow.
I've heard a few people using ec1118 for rum lately and I don't understand why... it's excellent at not adding any flavour to ferments which is why it's used predominantly for white wine champagne and in neutral washes. Am I missing something here?

My output on my still wasn't consistent, it would run and then stop for a few seconds and then run again.
One problem is the worm goes down and then back up again so has to fill half a coil before it lets go.
It takes me about 4 hours to run a 15 liter wash.

I only went with EC because I didn't know any better :))

You need to fix the down up thing before you run the still again
You are pressuring the system
How it runs now is unsafe and most likely your speed issue
The pc must flow down hill for it's entirely

RC Al wrote:You need to fix the down up thing before you run the still again
You are pressuring the system
How it runs now is unsafe and most likely your speed issue
The pc must flow down hill for it's entirely

It's a POS so I think making a new one is better than fixing it :handgestures-thumbupleft:

bluc wrote:

DaveZ wrote:Your thinking of brown sugar. Raw sugar comes out before white sugar a little less refined and still has some cane characteristics :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Yeah you're right. Although I read somewhere not long ago that raw was the same. Goes to show you shouldn't just believe stuff you find on the internet :teasing-tease:

i did my first full boiler charge 45L of low wines
60L gen 2
80L gen 3
40L gen 4
pulled a 18ish hour day yesterday running close to 900ml-1.1L an hour mostly on the lower side for most of the day pulled off 1L fores and 15L after that until i could smell a litre or 2 into tails and it was 2AM so i decided i couldnt be fucked anymore and switched off the boiler last jar was roughly around 75% most of what i think was hearts was 80 or above

does this sound like a decent yield to get
should i be running the still down to 20% on spirit runs i dont have room to store fores my 2 kegs are full of low wines always and this is my 2nd time doing cuts with a pot run so i dont really want to try learning blending yet

there was also a really light watery taste towards the end of what im pretty sure was hearts can anyone tell me if thats a common tails indicator ?

Off manky tastes indicate tails wet cardboard wet dog hair murky horrible.. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

bluc wrote:Off manky tastes indicate tails wet cardboard wet dog hair murky horrible.. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

cheers i know the gen 1 and half gen 2 that i ran the cuts where way to wide so going to try real hard not to screw that up

i bought a glencairn today in hopes that it'll make it easier for me to smell my cuts when i sort them tomorrow

does anyone have any glass recommendations for rum at all ?

So I get the idea of the glass, but how useful for cuts?

The heads I do by nose, pretty easy for me these days, tails is by taste and a bit harder for me, lately I've just been knocking the whole section of tails cut down to 40% for ease, my cuts are usually 75-100mls, 4-5% of output ea so not a major dilution of the total amount of product

The pasta sauce and softdrink bottles I use slant in at the top, so they already do what the glass dose, give it a swirl and it's concentrated smell out the top, though I have noticed that using a wide opening lets more evaporate when airing

I think the glass will be better for the drinking part at the end, having to rinse and fill multiple times will wear thin quickly

RC Al wrote:So I get the idea of the glass, but how useful for cuts?

The heads I do by nose, pretty easy for me these days, tails is by taste and a bit harder for me, lately I've just been knocking the whole section of tails cut down to 40% for ease, my cuts are usually 75-100mls, 4-5% of output ea so not a major dilution of the total amount of product

The pasta sauce and softdrink bottles I use slant in at the top, so they already do what the glass dose, give it a swirl and it's concentrated smell out the top, though I have noticed that using a wide opening lets more evaporate when airing

I think the glass will be better for the drinking part at the end, having to rinse and fill multiple times will wear thin quickly

i've collected everything in 500ml jars (tomato paste and similiar) the glen cairn i thought would be good for smelling after its been watered down

and i agree with the having to rinse and fill multiple times will probz get old fast but i'll keep a 10L bucket of water next to me and just dunk it in and tip it out and i have a syringe i can pull rum and water out with so that should be easy enough

im hoping i can get an idea of where im roughly getting cuts changes with these runs and i'll throw 1-2L of 200/300ml jars in around those times so i can tightly find my cuts changes in the future

Whats wrong with just using a table spoon?
2mL spirit and 2-3mL water should be enough yeah (for 90%ish)?

Or a shot glass if you want to use 10mL of spirit.

I use a shot glass and fill it with water between every sample and it also works as a palate cleanser.