Stepping up my rum game.

[Blinky]

No need for early harvest. Got another patch up my sleeve :))

[Blinky]

Onto my next phase of stepping up my game.

Some sterile low gravity molasses wash, 1g per litre DAP, half a gram of fermoGLU and some fresh cut cane split into short lengths.

I will repeat these steps until I find a native yeast that has the properties I like and step it up on a stir plate.

[Nathan02]

You excite me blinky, keep up the great work mate love where you are headed with your rum.

[Blinky]

Cheers mate!

[Blinky]

We have life! This 1 is going strong :happy-partydance:
Sending off a lovely smells and generating heat, just have to see how it tastes.

[Garfield]

You could nuke the culture with antibiotic to remove native bacteria if you want a true yeast culture. Not that I have an issue with lacto and other bugs but depending on your goals this is currently a mixed culture of native flora

[Blinky]

You could nuke the culture with antibiotic to remove native bacteria if you want a true yeast culture. Not that I have an issue with lacto and other bugs but depending on your goals this is currently a mixed culture of native flora

Hey mate.
The idea is to have a mixed culture with something in there that will ferment out fairly dry, then the other flora to continue working and creating other compounds.

I have just put the last lot into 5l of 6% sterile wash on a stir plate. What I decanted off was very aromatic and had a slight sour taste, exactly what I want.

[bluc]

:text-+1: send the bacteria to work on the unfermentable sugars to make acids to make esters(another reason for muck infected dunder) make sure it ferments strong so the bulk gets turned to ethanol.

[Blinky]

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!

[bluc]

:dance: :clap:

[LikkerSheWillLoveIt]

Have you tried any of the Australian agricole rum?

It’s a good drop

[bluc]

Who makes it?

[BigRig]

Husk distillery make it. Having 1 now. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[bluc]

:handgestures-thumbupleft:

[nuddy]

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.

[nuddy]

Husk distillery make it. Having 1 now. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

While not an agricole rum Sunshine and Sons on Sunny Coast make an all molasses wild co-ferment cane spirit that is bloody hard to put down, Dans sells it as well.

[Garfield]

You could nuke the culture with antibiotic to remove native bacteria if you want a true yeast culture. Not that I have an issue with lacto and other bugs but depending on your goals this is currently a mixed culture of native flora

Hey mate.
The idea is to have a mixed culture with something in there that will ferment out fairly dry, then the other flora to continue working and creating other compounds.

I have just put the last lot into 5l of 6% sterile wash on a stir plate. What I decanted off was very aromatic and had a slight sour taste, exactly what I want.

That's cool I wasn't certain if this was your goal or if you were just trying to hack a native yeast. Should get a decent result if you keep up your observations and sampling as you are. Conferment isn't for the faint hearted. You could lose a batch in the blink of an eye. Be ready to shut it down the minute it fowls up and throws stink or putrid flavours. You'll still save the yeast and can remove the bacteria but you'll lose that wash or could distill it anyway. Salvaged yeast cultures make great starter batches if you then start over with a new piece of cane and more wild flora. So no reason to settle for less if you miss the mark on your flavour profile coz it's easy to repeat your process and you'll add the native yeast each time to your benefit.

This is getting very interesting

[Blinky]

Thanks for the encouragement guys!

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.

[Blinky]

That's cool I wasn't certain if this was your goal or if you were just trying to hack a native yeast. Should get a decent result if you keep up your observations and sampling as you are. Conferment isn't for the faint hearted. You could lose a batch in the blink of an eye. Be ready to shut it down the minute it fowls up and throws stink or putrid flavours. You'll still save the yeast and can remove the bacteria but you'll lose that wash or could distill it anyway. Salvaged yeast cultures make great starter batches if you then start over with a new piece of cane and more wild flora. So no reason to settle for less if you miss the mark on your flavour profile coz it's easy to repeat your process and you'll add the native yeast each time to your benefit.

This is getting very interesting[/quote]

Yeah mate I’m ready for something to go wrong and I’m keeping som culture as back up.
I tried reverse souring a 200l wash a few weeks ago. Big fail! Haha

[nuddy]

Thanks for the encouragement guys!

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.