Blinky wrote:Thanks for the encouragement guys!
nuddy wrote:Blinky wrote:Little update on the wild culture.
Seems to be working at a good pace, not to fast not to slow. Had a taste of the wash (in the picture that is now finished) and is very aromatic! Lifting the foil the smell is super tropical and the taste is a little acidic almost like a white wine, quite clean but that may have to do with it being grown on a stir plate!
It has now been stepped up again and a when it’s done a tiny bit will go in the fridge and the rest will go into an all molasses wash, 40-50 litres!
Blinky very keen to see the results of your experiments. I had a play around with wild yeast/bacteria co-ferments off cane stalks a few years ago, results were varied, I found that majority of the wild ferments that had good organoleptic properties tended to result in a lower finished wash abv, your mileage may vary depending on what your local yeast/bacteria behaves like. The new make spirit from those experiments worked well blended into my standard rum new make spirit that was lacking in certain areas of taste or aroma. Keep us all posted with your results.
Hi nuddy. Yeah nice work mate, did u age it or drink it white?
It did take me 3 times to get something that started fermenting nicely without the white stuff growing on top. As for yield I’m not to fussy, I usually only run a 6-8% wash.
Without having to go dig out the old still book to see my notes this is what I remember.
They were all small batch trials, from the ones that took to fermenting. They were 4L ferment volumes in 5L erlenmeyer flask, in a cardboard box enclosure with a light plugged into an inkbird temp controller for heating. Finished ferments were somewhere between 4-8% abv, as they didn't yield a great amount of new make. I tried them white off the still, flavours were quite varied from green grassy hay, bubble gum grape, to rubbery iodine phenolic. Nothing I wanted to keep white as it was a little too rough for my liking. They all ended up being blended together and added to a 25L barrel f I've been solera aging for a few years with a whole host of various rum new makes.
Barrels coming up on 2.5 years age from the last addition to it. Started sampling it a few months ago, some deep fruit flavours with a touch of molasses lingering around. Can't tell you where those flavours have come from given its been in a solera barrel. If you find a ferment that you like, be worthwhile making a decent amount of it and aging it up to see where it goes.