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Rum Configuration

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  • @Sam said: Bleeding edge of vodka is really good description, thanks for that.

    CothermanDistilling am I interpreting it correctly that for your white/silver rum you basically treat it like vodka and use a reflux column with 30 plates?

    yep, slow down the flow through the RC, and I can get down to 175 or a bit lower, even with 24-30 plates.. very clean, but still very distinguishable as rum... 189.9 proof is rum, 190 proof is vodka, technically... 180 product comes out 2x as fast as vodka at 190 does..

  • @grim I was just looking into the EC1118 option as a few people have suggested this. Reading the technical data sheet online the pitch rates vary from 25-50 g/hl, I was just curious what rate you find works for you.

    For nutrients I usually use 25g/hl of DAP & 25g/hl of go-ferm once 1/3 of the sugars have been consumed. Given EC1118 isn’t technically a rum yeast is it necessary to increase your nutrients?

  • Can market that as a Cuban styled Platino Michael. It's very good. I do have one of those cane vodkas. And yours is probably about the best one I've had. WD is ok. Flagler is a bit less ( but not at all bad)). But nobody else has your plate count I don't think? Does Joanne?

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • @grim said: You are correct - many brown sugars intended for baking and cooking are just white sugar with molasses added.

    Raw sugars are better, IMHO.

    Realize you can use blending - for example - refined cane sugar and clarified lower grade molasses. The more refined sugar you use, the more nutrient you will require.

    RM is my go-to for dark rum - but for unaged white rum - I like cleaner yeasts like EC1118, and distill it on the bleeding edge of vodka.

    Don’t your fermentation temps get too high for EC1118? Or are the off flavors suitable for rum production?

  • That was something I forgot to ask, what temp range do you find works between the recommend 50-84 fahrenheit

  • @grim said: I think sugar is by far the hardest to make neutral out of. It doesn’t give up its flavor profile as easy as grain does.

    True this!

    I’ve worked for years to get a decent neutral from sugar. I’ve finally done it but it took some doin! Now I have my choice of a boring but clean neutral (think 40 Below or Smirnoff premium) or one with more mouthfeel and body (think Tito’s with a wee bit less flavor and mouthfeel). Along the way I found a neutral that came over more “Russian” tasting as well. When sugar is what you can get I guess you have to make it work!!

    I’m actually kind of proud of the progress we’ve made with sugar. I don’t hear many real success stories in that area.

  • I would reckon more than anything you were in denial about how many plates (theoretical or actual) it takes to render a truly neutral spirit from sugar based wash.

    95% abv does not always scrub up to neutral. High RR does not always amount to actual neutral.

    More plates (theoretical or actual) always amount to more money. And that is usually the rub (sticking point).

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • For EC I use 50g/hl, DAP can go to 50g/hl if you aren't using backset.

    My fermenters are cooled.

  • @Smaug said: I would reckon more than anything you were in denial about how many plates (theoretical or actual) it takes to render a truly neutral spirit from sugar based wash.

    95% abv does not always scrub up to neutral. High RR does not always amount to actual neutral.

    More plates (theoretical or actual) always amount to more money. And that is usually the rub (sticking point).

    I wouldn’t say mine was full on neutral it does have some character still.

    We are doing two passes thru a 11 plate rig. You are correct that I need more tho. Most of the work cleaning it up is being done in ferments and less in distillation.

  • edited October 2019

    Stripped and through 4 plates at 185-189 is full flavored product for me.

  • @Fiji_Spirits I was stripping and then running the hearts through a further 3 times, making cuts with each pass. All through a 13 plate.

    I kept all the fores and feints and ran them through the same process. The F/F produced the best neutral.

    It's hard work to make a truly neutral spirit.

  • Jeez. You guys are making me think maybe I’m not there yet! You have to remember that our Fijian sugar is raw sugar with some molasses still in it. We get some benefits from that as it produces in a more smooth spirit than white refined sugar.

    Over the last 7 months weve run 4 major fermentation pathways, tried six different yeasts and over 50 different recipe combinations, four still configurations and multiple still operation changes. It takes a minimum of two weeks from idea until we can test a product. All that and we still met our demand for spirit for the liqueur, and moved the company to profitability while commissioning a new distillery operation.

    I’m not gonna say this was work, because I loved every minute of it, BUT we did put the time in to get here.

    I’m pretty fussy about what I’d call an actual vodka, and maybe this doesn’t hit the mark for some, lord knows I could use some professional tasters to check it out.

    This one I like now tastes better before filtration. Filtration actually makes it burn and pulls the good mouthfeel elements out. It’s aging well and it has enough distinction to be a brandable signature but doesn’t miss the plain vodka mark. The one thing it is NOT is NGS filtered and watered down.

  • @Fiji_Spirits if you need a taster (far from professional, more like drunken amateur) I have a holiday booked to Fiji at the end of Feb next year.

  • @Fiji_Spirits don't get too caught up in what I said about neutral. Neutral and vodka are 2 different products.

    Besides, one extremely relevant fact I failed to mention is I was distilling from chardonnay and pinot, decanted straight out of 20yo oxidised bottles.

    Your sugar wash is going to behave a heap better than that funky crap.

  • Going back to rum for a second...

    I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for your input and advice, it really helped give me confidence and point me in the right direction.

    So I fermented the 40kg of panela I had sitting in the corner and got about 180L @ 10% abv which I stripped down without the plates this time and got about 46L @ 44% of low wines.

    I "worked from home" today and did a spirit run with 4 plates and the reflux condenser (dropped the thumper as per the comments above).

    After bleeding off the fores (thats so much easier with the electronic parrot) I slowly collected about 3L at around 95% before opening it up a bit and did the rest of the run at 92% collecting around 3.5-4.0 litres and hour.

    Its fresh off the still so the samples are still airing out but it tasted infinitely better than all my other attempts when I tasted as I went. Really looking forward to making the cuts in a few days.

    For now I'm going to stick with the panela, next one with EC-1118 though instead of the RM. I have also found a supplier in Sydney that sells treacle in 25kg pails but just wont ship to the hunter so will get some when I am next down there and might try a straight treacle rum and then a treacle & panela combo.

    I was also wondering if anyone carbon filters their white/silver rum, or would that strip out to much flavour? I read something about filtering it but can't find where I read it.

  • Nice job.

    EC is going to give a lighter flavor profile than RM.

    Carbon is going to give a lighter flavor profile, lots of carbon will strip lots of flavor.

    So as you taste your samples and make your cut, imagine a lighter distillate.

    Also keep in mind that making a narrow cut by selecting whole jars is not the equivalent of a lighter distillate, but a different distillate, as you may entirely miss congeners that exist in early fractions. So, spend some time considering some late heads. Not saying to make a heady rum, but without some heads components, sometimes rums are "flat", this is especially the case in a cocktail - too clean a rum is sometimes not the ideal.

  • @grim I will be sure to spend some time looking at late heads as there was definitely some nice smelling stuff up there, possibly in small quantities it might add something.

    With the carbon filtering would that remove some of the higher alcohols/ fusel oils? With the RM I had the temp up at 32-34 to get the esters but its also produced a lot of higher alcohols giving things a bit of a hot feel in the mouth, I’m curious if carbon would remove some of that or is ageing the only real option?

  • edited October 2019

    IMO that's good advice from grim @Sam.

    There will definitely be a transition there that will taste better than it smells. Based on your explained technique of throwing a bit more collection speed at your rig, You'll find some apricot notes and perhaps some chocolate notes. Running too slow for the sake of maximizing abv (and squeezing heads down too tight) makes the distillate too sharp in an acrid kinda way with a very dry mouth feel imo. It can seem contradicting to the "bleeding edge" advise mentioned. But it is that in between spot.

    What is the saying? "Music is not the musical notes. It is the space between the notes" or some such thing.

    It sounds like you're finding the right lane.

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • edited October 2019

    @grim is spot on. My silver rum was called H&T rum on the label. Only my mates knew it stood for Heads and Tails. Mostly some very late heads, one jar or maybe a half jar before the cut and maybe a half jar after the cut i would have made for vodka.

    You need it for the complexity.

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • @Smaug am I interpreting it might in that you are saying with rum run a bit faster than you might with vodka otherwise the distillate will be sharp? I think that could explain why towards the end when I tasted it, it was like a sours...

  • @Sam said: Smaug am I interpreting it might in that you are saying with rum run a bit faster than you might with vodka otherwise the distillate will be sharp? I think that could explain why towards the end when I tasted it, it was like a sours...

    Right. Rather than shooting for 93 or 94 for example, back off a bit and let run at 90,,,as an example.

    Also by finding that sweet spot your still will be more stable and behave so nicely.

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • SamSam
    edited October 2019

    Thanks @Smaug, that makes sense as I noticed it didn't want to settle down at a higher ABV (unless running painfully slow)

  • One of the thoughts I have is experimenting with using both the RM and EC-1118 yeasts in the same fermentation, a brewing friend of mine suggested it as its quite common in beer production.

    From what I have read EC-1118 is a very competitive and efficient yeast that will out compete all other yeasts, which to me suggests it might be possible to initially pitch with the RM and then add the EC-1118 about half way through.

    My thoughts are to pitch the RM at half a dose (50% of what would be required if only using RM, so 50g for a 200L wash) and then adding the EC-1118 (again at 50% of the total dose) when half the sugars have been converted by the RM.

    I was wondering if anyone here has done or does anything similar?

  • Sam, it depends on if you are after something drinkable in the near or distant future. Like others here have said, the nearer, the more refined it will have to be (hearts). The shit you put away is what will include some heads and tails.

    Also, I can't stress enough that if your rum isn't in barrels then open up whatever it is in pretty regularly and let air for an hour or so. PIA but it will age a lot better.

    I have a 10 gallon barrel with about 5 gallons of "Spiced" rum that I put up almost 4 years ago because it was nowhere near what I wanted. Just a few days ago I was turning all of my barrels and came across it and wondered if it had gotten any better. Haven't opened it yet but the outside of it smells great.

    FC

  • SamSam
    edited October 2019

    Thanks @FloridaCracker for now I am not using barrels so have been opening the lids overnight once a week, I was thinking about using an aquarium pump and oxygen diffuser once a week but just havent dug the pump out yet.

    I do have a 20L barrel which was a port barrel that got re-coopered and was used by a whisky distillery in Tasmania before I got it. I'm trying to make a rum that will do the barrel justice, I don't want to put a shit one in there as I'm worried it will ruin the barrel.

  • HI, Who sells the treacle? I'm interested in trying it too. Re the carbon, the majors use carbon to remove the colour from their rum. They use specially selected grades to do that. Norit does specialty carbons

  • @crozdog Frutex in Kingsgrove sell it in 25kg pails (www.frutex.com.au) otherwise its a pallet or drum...

  • EC is a killer factor yeast from memory.

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • Both EC and RM are killer factor yeast.

  • So would have to be separate ferments?

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