by toadskin » Sun Dec 11, 2016 11:44 pm
I have a reflux still with a 1m x 2" column and a Liebig condenser. It makes a pretty good neutral from TPW if I run it nice and slow and I'm happy with that. I use stainelss steel pot scrubbers in the column as they are cheap and easy to source. I make a reasonable brandy using Prestige essence and a toasted French oak chip recipe that the wife prefers to most commercial brandys. Myself, I like rum and bourbon but have yet to hit on anything I like as much as some of the shop bought spirits.
Recently, disappointed with the various rum essences, I tried a molasses rum wash and ran my still minus the scrubbers, and with no water running through the condenser. Using the gas jet, I tried to keep the temp at around the 80C and collected about 300ml (after disposing of 150ml foreshots). This 300ml was very aromatic and had a great molasses type nose but it was obvious that I was losing a lot straight into the atmosphere. So I started running water through the condenser as slowly as I could and collected the rest of the spirit like that. It has a small molasses nose to it but nothing like the first 300ml. I guess even with a small amount of water flow i am getting too much reflux and losing the taste I want.
So, my idea, rather than lashing out and building a pot still (which I will do eventually no doubt) straight away is......to build a small condenser to attach to the output of my current setup. So running it as before with no cooling, but pushing the vapours through the new condenser (but of course no cooling going through the column) and collecting the resulting spirit from that......so I guess converting the reflux into an adhoc pot still.
I've just about got it done now with about 600mm of 12mm copper tubing going through about 500mm of a 4omm PVC jacket.
So can any of you more experienced distillers tell me if I am sort of on a track that will give me the rum taste that I'm looking for?