Clostridium Saccharobutyricum Bacteria

moscca

@ stillwagen and punkin : is this only with pot distilling or also with bubble plates ? With my Dash 1, once I smell the tails, the smell only gets worse the futher I get.

bentstick

@moscca said: @ stillwagen and punkin : is this only with pot distilling or also with bubble plates ? With my Dash 1, once I smell the tails, the smell only gets worse the futher I get.

I second that on my plated colum,once it smells of tails it goes to the recycle jug,because it only gets worse! But that is only 32oz/900ml out of a 12gal/45.42L charge at 11% ABV

punkin

I'm a dyed in the wool potstiller i'm afraid.

stillwagon

Yeah, I don't know either. Although, your flavored liquors aren't usually run in plated stills. The whole point is to get the flavors to carry over. Isn't the point of the plate still and high reflux stills to remove flavor? My still acts as a pot still with out the packing and a shorter column.

When I want to remove flavor and run the proof up I raise the column and pack the hell out of it. So I get the best of both worlds.

As far as the tails go, you need to run them out relatively slow so they separate. The first tails smell funky and taste bitter. But about midway through the tails the smell changes and the flavor sweetens up and gives you the characteristic rum that I am after. These are the "rhum oils" that are sought after and are produced through the use of dunder or the bacteria I am doing, but some can be had by the type of yeast you use.

There are some high ester producing yeasts available now. They die out at a low abv of about 3% then you pitch a higher alcohol resistant yeast to boost your abv.

stillwagon

500 gallons of rum wash happily fermenting!

punkin

Yippeee.

captainshooch

I found haven! Now, where are you:-) my aok barrell needs re-filling....

nick

Stillwagon, can you give some more information about that rum wash. It looks like there is something floating on the top of it? Is that from a. Panella wash or is it the krausen from the yeast? Any way I would be super excited if that was mine so congrats, Nick

stillwagon

That is from the yeast activity. Going to start running it today.

stillwagon

35 gallons of hearts @ 75% and a few gallons of tails that will get blended in.

Lloyd

Can I be your friend?

SDeurope

@stillwagon, really nice! Are those 5 gallons glass jars?

nvnovrts

Nice work. Please keep the posts coming. I'm interested to hear how the progression/aging changes the product.

stillwagon

Those are 5 gallon carboys. I don't like storing rum in plastic. Either stainless steel, glass, or oak.

applepie

Does anyone have a long straw? I need a sample of each one of those.

SDeurope

@stillwagon, beautiful, never heard of "carboy" before, I want some! ;)

stillwagon

Demijohn is another form of fermenter, usually associated with wine making. They have a more teardrop shape and you can get them up to 12-15 gallons. Very handy as well.

cooperville

@stillwagon have you got some images of your still?

@mossca the scotch i did few months back with only 2 plates had some very interesting flavours at about 48-45% and these went into the blend so I'm thinking if it you don't rectify the low wines to much you can get some pretty good flavour coming through

keep us posted @stillwagon

Smaug

@cooperville said: stillwagon have you got some images of your still? mossca the scotch i did few months back with only 2 plates had some very interesting flavours at about 48-45% and these went into the blend so im thinking if it you dont rectify the low wines to much you can get some pretty good flavour coming through

Pretty much what Usge says. "If ya want it to be complex ya gotta put it up dirty". And he is a blender as well.

stillwagon

This is my still. I collect tails to about 25%. From 35% to about 25-28% get blended back in.

moscca

@ Coop : never run my still with 2 plates, Will try this in the future. For now I stay with the 3 plates, so I don't have to much changes at a time. At what ABV are you pulling of with 2 plates ?

M-

cooperville

@mossca I'm sorry mate i used three plates not 2

That's one good reason to take video when doing a run you can always go back over what you did

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHyqmrGg2rQ

I had a 25% charge in the boiler it started @ 90 and just slowly went down predictably it made it very easy to select the bits I wanted

Smaug

High Ridge Spirits uses a two plate configuration. Not sure what he collects at. I'll see if we can get him to chime.

stillwagon

40 gallons put up to age...

moscca

Are those new barrels SW ? Did you get different flavor using that bacteria instead of aged dunder ?

M-

cooperville

you have been busy those barrels look awesome

stillwagon

They are new barrels. Jury is still out on the bacteria. Dunder is basically doing the same thing as the bacteria but you don't know what micro-organisms are involved with the dunder. Running another 500 gallons this weekend...

CothermanDistilling

@stillwagon - What would you recommend for a new commercial craft distillery (that has never done rum, and is in the warm climate of Florida) to do, the bacteria or the dunder?

stillwagon

Dunder is an unknown as far as the microbes go that would be involved. So if you want to incorporate the ester forming bacteria, using lab produced strains will allow for reproducible results.

CoryJay

@stillwagon - Would you mind providing your source for the bacteria?