Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

We're away in the campervan in 6 weeks for 3 months so that will be 4 months of ageing by the time we get back, by that time it will be gin and tonic weather so that's another 3 months of pain free waiting which takes us right up to Christmas again and rum time. So waiting for the ageing isn't going to be a problem for us. So on that, I could leave it without caramel and see what it's like at bottling time, could we add just a touch of caramel then if we want more or does it need time to age too?

I plan on doing about half as dark rum some will get made into Tia Maria for our morning coffee the rest will be left as white rum for PinaColadas and such. Do we need to do anything to the white rum or do we just bottle it and drink it as is?

Every time i have carried on generations with my rum washes, i have never had a next gen start up without adding more yeast.. i have used different amounts of dunder, pretty sure its never been too hot.. i have started new washes hotter. Last one, to start a second gen, i used warm dunder from boiler the next day ( around 8ltrs to a 25ltr wash) and it still wouldnt get going until i got new yeast into it. Had dumped a few litres of water onto the lees to keep it happy overnight. Im using lowans yeast. As soon as i add new yeast it fires up pretty quickly. If the ph is out, wouldnt that upset the new yeast also?
Im using town water straight from the tap also.. is anyone using unfiltered tank water in there rum? Ive got a stainless water tank full of rainwater. Im sure if people are using infected dunder in washes, unfiltered rainwater off the roof cant be that bad? :think:
Ash

rash wrote:Im using town water straight from the tap also.. is anyone using unfiltered tank water in there rum? Ive got a stainless water tank full of rainwater. Im sure if people are using infected dunder in washes, unfiltered rainwater off the roof cant be that bad? :think:
Ash

Yep. All my ferments and dilutions use unfiltered water courtesy of the rain gods.

rash wrote:Every time i have carried on generations with my rum washes, i have never had a next gen start up without adding more yeast.. i have used different amounts of dunder, pretty sure its never been too hot.. i have started new washes hotter. Last one, to start a second gen, i used warm dunder from boiler the next day ( around 8ltrs to a 25ltr wash) and it still wouldnt get going until i got new yeast into it. Had dumped a few litres of water onto the lees to keep it happy overnight. Im using lowans yeast. As soon as i add new yeast it fires up pretty quickly. If the ph is out, wouldnt that upset the new yeast also?
Im using town water straight from the tap also.. is anyone using unfiltered tank water in there rum? Ive got a stainless water tank full of rainwater. Im sure if people are using infected dunder in washes, unfiltered rainwater off the roof cant be that bad? :think:
Ash

All my generations started off again fine but rather than using just water over the lees we used 5L warm water with 500g raw sugar so the yeast gets a good start before adding the fresh molasses, sugar and dunder. The bubbler was going mental within half an hour every time, apart from gen 5 all the ferments were over in 60 hours, silly fast!

Thanks southern45, will switch to rainwater for my next ferment.

Good idea TBird61, will try that next time :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Ash

Who makes EDV-496, and where can I get it? Is it available to homebrewers? I've never heard of it.

danwbrews , i brew (info@ibrew.com.au) , (07) 5594 0388 , at Parkwood gold coast sell it plus a lot of other commercial yeasts etc

Hey team quick simple question I've forgotten the answer t, it's been a while :)) had to shut down a rum spirit run half way through yesty..just warming back up now..do I just take another 50ml off to be safe the back collecting? Will I be back into hearts? And will it effect flavour? Guessing it will...cheers

Treat it like a seperate run collect in small jars and yes I would prob take 100ml. What still you using.
I see you have a bubbler 50 would prob be enough but personally would ditch 100.. then do seperate lot cuts jars..

So i just finished doing the cuts with the first rum I've put through the bubbler... not bad straight off the still either, but the really good rum flavours develop on oak and with time.
I ended up with a total of 6.25ltrs (3.6ltrs of keepable @ 91.5%) from 17ltrs ish of 39%
I know ive said this before, but im still amazed how defined the cuts were compared to my trusty pot.

No need to do a stripping run if you're running it through your bubbler mate. Just taking up more time.

Lowie wrote:No need to do a stripping run if you're running it through your bubbler mate. Just taking up more time.

Cheers mate... was wondering if anyone was going to pick up on that... I am aware i don't need to double distill.
For me i still find it easier to rip my washes through of an evening and when i have a good amount of low wines then take the time one sunday arvo to run it through for a spirit run without trying to rush it.
In my mind i would of thought seperating cuts on 1 larger run would yield less waste than loosing a bit between fractions on 5 or 6 seperate smaller runs. Just my thinking though... I'm certainly no expert.

There isn't anything wrong with what you're doing Dan just make sure you're using wash to water the low wines back to 40% rather than water.

coffe addict wrote:There isn't anything wrong with what you're doing Dan just make sure you're using wash to water the low wines back to 40% rather than water.

Cheers coffe addict... good to know. :handgestures-thumbupleft: Because i strip down to 20% its not very often i have to water it down anyway... adding a few ltrs of feints helps too.

Not a consideration for those who are using plated columns but I'm pot stilling so I tend to keep the low wines to about 30% which makes what I keep from the spirit run pretty close to 65% and requires very little water to get it to barrel aging strength and packs heaps of the heavier rum flavours.

Lowie wrote:No need to do a stripping run if you're running it through your bubbler mate. Just taking up more time.

I find stripping is efficient as it takes a bit to load and you leave the coloum with rum on the plates when finished, its probably tails anyway :)) .
I'm using a keg boiler and only putting 35 l in each run.
I've done plenty of spirit runs on the wash only and now just strip and spirit. But when I spirit run i make sure I've got 5 to 20 ltrs of wash in the low wines, trying for more flavour.

New question about generations
Yeast , is this what brings the favour through or does the fact that it has been raised on previous wash, its likely to have a better profile to chomp into the new generation?

The reason for asking, is it just as good to kill off the yeast with hot backset and convert them to nutrition for a new pitch of baking yeast (it's so cheap ) .
Is there a good reason not to do so ?

Hey folks, I’ve got a problem with my rum.

My first Gen was made to Mac’s recipe using Queensland stockfeed molassas.

I put it through my 5* neutraliser using 4 plates and no packed section.
I had no problems and it ran through at about 80% abv.

The problem is it tastes awful.
It has an oily bitter taste to it that I cant see dissipating with age(think old oxidised vermouth).
I made the mistake of including the feints from this in an “all feints run” today and I think it has carried through on that as well. (AFR with 5 plates and the packed section, everything had been very well cleaned between those runs).

I’m at a bit of a loss about what to do.
I have Gen2 ready to go but maybe the molassas is not up to the task.
The wash smells/smelled fantastic and fermented well even in our very low temps with a brew heat pad under the drum.
Any ideas.

AA

Put it on oak and wait mate, it might be shit, it might be awesome.

If brown spirits tasted great off the still they wouldn't bother oaking them for years and years.....

:text-+1: rums pretty funky off the still. Time is your friend :handgestures-thumbupleft: