1st rum wash

Just starting out and need some advise? then post it in here.

1st rum wash

Postby sloth » Mon Mar 30, 2020 11:16 am

burnt taste and smell in stripped rum (havent done spirit run yet)

equipment:
200L barrel (possible contaminate, it wasnt used for food originally. original material was Styrene Phosphonic Acid i added a photo of the MSDS bellow)
pot still made by Damian Howarth keg kettle with 2000w element and 2 inch copper pipes as still

used 50Kg of blackstrap mollases (stock feed) couldnt find un sulphured the stuff i bought has 0.40% sulphur
and town water
yeast is Red Star DADY yeast from the US

i havent stripped the whole 180L yet, the burnt taste made me concearned....

so i cleaned the barrel before use with tri cleanium (a chlorine based cleaner) then again with bleach, then rinsed it out with water till i couldnt smell anything

thoughts?
is this batch ruined?
is it saveable?
are the barrels no good?
is the taste/smell from the sulphur?
im in tassy does anyone know where i could get better 200L fermenters as all those olive drums in melbourne wont post here
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Re: 1st rum wash

Postby sloth » Mon Mar 30, 2020 12:47 pm

also could it be that i have literaly just burnt the wash somehow?
like too much left over sugars etc in the wash?
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Re: 1st rum wash

Postby Maxxx » Mon Mar 30, 2020 8:44 pm

Hey sloth
I’m not a chemist but think the styro phosphoric was probably in powder form in a bag inside the barrel so the barrel may not be HDPE, could be anything.
I do remember reading somewhere once that Bundy doesn’t use ONLY food grade molasses... either.
My experiences with burnt wash have only ever been a result of running a wash that was not finished, stalled because of ph crash and I thought it finished. Cleaning the element is a bitch !
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Re: 1st rum wash

Postby sloth » Tue Mar 31, 2020 2:19 pm

yes... my cheep little hobby to save me money on booze is working out well :))
so on another post bluc figured it out as the element... its fine for sugar washes but i need a ultra low watt density element if im going to keep going with proper rum etc..

and as for the barrels well :angry-banghead: im in tassy and there apparently arent any good ones to use here unless i want to spend thousands on milk vats
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Re: 1st rum wash

Postby andybear » Wed Apr 01, 2020 8:57 am

Hey Sloth, you may need to wait until this corona thing is over then get the spirit of tassie over to Melbourne. There is always heaps of those 220lt olive barrels around, I got mine from a local trash and treasure market for $20. And there is always some advertised on gumtree too. You can also get some better molasses while you are here in Melbourne.
Cheers. :handgestures-thumbupleft:
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Re: 1st rum wash

Postby wynnum1 » Wed Apr 01, 2020 9:35 am

They sell some big containers to store honey in that are made of low quality stainless and can buy stainless olive drums.
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Re: 1st rum wash

Postby tubbsy » Wed Apr 01, 2020 10:49 am

I know where the drum came from and the chemical use, and if cleaned out as you say it is fine for use as a fermentation vessel. The drums are made from safe HDPE.

I've been considering getting a couple (I can get them free), but I have no use for ferments that big.
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Re: 1st rum wash

Postby The Stig » Wed Apr 01, 2020 10:57 am

You two need to catch up together :handgestures-thumbupleft:
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Re: 1st rum wash

Postby sloth » Fri Apr 03, 2020 3:44 pm

heya tubsy cheers mate, very good to know.

im finding the bigger barrels help the wash hold temp overnight. ive been using 30L fermenters and heat belts and keeping them in my spare room, but theyre still getting too cold overnight and my yeasties are going to sleep... to put it into perspective, it took my last cornflakes wash a month to ferment and it still wasnt done. was dropping about 0.010 gravity every 3-4 days, way too slow
but with the 200L barrels looks like thats bumped my speed back up to normal and theyre outside in the shed so a lot less mess
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Re: 1st rum wash

Postby sloth » Wed May 13, 2020 5:01 pm

tubbsy wrote:I know where the drum came from and the chemical use, and if cleaned out as you say it is fine for use as a fermentation vessel. The drums are made from safe HDPE.

I've been considering getting a couple (I can get them free), but I have no use for ferments that big.


mate do you know where i could get unsulfured molasses from in tassy?

i think the bad taste is sulfur in the wash. if i clean the copper in vinegar and then run a wash i can get it to taste pretty good for a while but it will turn bad before i finish.
ive tested this 3 times. 2 stip runs i got reasonably clean. then ran a spirit run on them... rum wast tasting ok until about 2L into hearts then it turned foul.

im thinking the sulfur is being taken out by the copper until all the copper is no longer able to "clean" the vapor then im getting sulfur coming through
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