Excess sugar in wash

[toadskin]

I've have a 25l molasses wash which was 4 litres of blackstrap, 4kg of brown sugar, 5 litres of dunder, tomato paste etc. etc. I used Lowans baker yeast and it bubbled away quite vigorously for three days and was finished after about a week. The wash was kept at about 26C during fermentation.

It tastes quite alcoholic but still has a sweetness about it so I gather there was too much sugar to start with.

My question is, I will now do a stripping run on it but will be left with a dunder, still with a bit of sugar in it. Once cooled, can I add fresh yeast and run it until all the sugars are used up and then strip that too?

Also, what sort of starting SG should I be looking at for a molasses wash?

[bluc]

If you always use same molasses sg and fg can be an indicator of when it's finished but won't be accurate. Mollasses naturally has a good wack of in fermentable sugar so it will retain some sweetness. Completely normal :handgestures-thumbupleft: personally the molasses I use 50/50 with sugar finishs at 1.015-1.020 :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Andrew]

There be much unfermentable stuffs in molasses’s

[woodduck]

Not sure I'd be putting tomato paste in my rum though :think:

I wouldn't bother trying to reuse that dundar as a full ferment, there wouldn't be enough sugar I wouldn't have thought and the ph would be way out. Use some for your backset for the next generation though :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[bluc]

There has been people run all dunder rum though by using all the dunder and adding sugar. But you may run into ph issues..

[Doubleuj]

There be much unfermentable stuffs in molasses’s

Arrrgh me hearties, I didn’t know you were a pirate Andy :laughing-rolling: :teasing-tease:

[shortcut]

There be much unfermentable stuffs in molasses’s

Arrrgh me hearties, I didn’t know you were a pirate Andy :laughing-rolling: :teasing-tease:

:text-lol: :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[toadskin]

I'm wondering if the wash had run out of fermentables, or the alcohol content had got too high for the Lowans yeast. Maybe 500ml of the wash, dilute with 250ml of distilled water to bring the ABV down, and then add a few grams of yeast to see if the ferment restarts in that. I guess that would answer my question. Thoughts?

[bluc]

No harm trying and it would work if that was the issue but I reakon it's done :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[toadskin]

So an hour after diluting the 500ml of "stalled" wash and adding a bit of yeast, the fermentation is running quite strongly again in that sample. So it seems to me that the alcohol content is what was holding back the fermentation so i guess the original wash had too many fermentables in it. I might cut the next mix down to 3 litres of molasses and 3kg brown sugar and see how that goes. I'll strip the spirit from this "stalled" wash and then feed it back into the subsequent washes 5 litres at a time.