Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

I'm gonna give rum a try but have a few questions

1. do you have a dedicated fermenter for rum? I'm worried about later putting a TPW for a neutral into a fermenter that had molasses in it

2. The sugar comes in 20kg bags and the molasses in 5 litre jugs. so 1/2 bag of golden sugar and 1 1/2 jugs molasses per batch.
Amount of fermentables looks ok?

In a 120 litre fermenter

10 kg golden sugar
7.5 litres blackstrap molasses
1/2 tsp epsom salts
220g bakers yeast

top up to 80 litres giving me 40 litres of head space in the fermenter for foam up. Should give me two 35-37 litre charges for the 50L boiler with the lees left for the other half of the bag of sugar and another 1 1/2 jugs of molasses!!!

My ferment room is cool, around 21' which is fine for my TPW's (takes a 2 1/2 week ferment time). Do you think this is a bit cool for rum and should I use an aquarium heater to up the wash temp? 26-28 degrees? I never use an airlock, just a loose fitting lid to let CO2 out

I have used my fermenter to make a TPW with no problems. If you are worried, just give it a soak with some nappysan before you do the TPW.

That recipe should work fine, will ferment toabout 11.5%. Personally I use more molasses to produce a stronger flavor but that is just my preference.

It will ferment at 21oC but rum seems to prefer warmer, faster ferments. I usualy keep mine at about 28oC and it finishes in about 3 days.

Like Dom said you will be much better off running it as hot as you can.My last few Rums I have run jist under 40 deg C and you get a lot of nicer Rum flavours come through.Also since you have an open fermenter (Ido too up to a point ) ,it is best to run Rum hard and fast.

Also agree mor mollases and less sugar especially as you have no dunder in there.Now days I just do all mollases wih no sugar for a better taste .The yeild is not that much lower than using a sugar bump and Mollasses is cheaper here than sugar

maybe I'll switch it up to 15 litres molasses and 5 kg golden sugar. or will this be to much fermentables?

Is anyone using an old waterbed heater for under their fermenter??

CH3CH2OH
That looks better .....perhaps just a bit on the high side but since you have no Dunder ,I recon yoy will get away with it.......personally ,I'd drop the sugar back to even 2-3kg...what wver you do , make sure you airate it well with a piant stirrer in a drill just before you add the yeast and it will be aw :handgestures-thumbupleft: ay

yup, I aerate well before I pitch

I just hope I can keep it warm enough

What are the waterbed heaters you are suggesting.

they are a heating pad that goes under the bladder of a waterbed with a thermostat to heat the water. Looking for one with a copper temperature probe to go right into the wash.

Like this

http://www.ebay.com/itm/WATERBED-HEATER ... 51b7c510eb