Would you use this "molasses"?

punkin

Well ok, that's a good reason. Those Somalian guys are pretty hard core.

FloridaCracker

@punkin said: Well ok, that's a good reason. Those Somalian guys are pretty hard core.

He's talking about the fake ones that invade Tampa Bay every year. They are about 45 minutes from me. Come to think of it, I have seen a few that were top heavy and looked pretty good. Probably 36-24-36 or there abouts.

FloridaCracker

Well, I'm about 2 1/2 hours into this run and so far I am not impressed. Took off 300ml of fores and everything since then has smelled like tails. Coming off at 85abv at about 2 liters per hour which is slow for this still. Also, I have a sight glass on the top of my boiler that has been foggy since the beginning of the run. That usually alerts me that tails are coming. I have also had to use more juice to get any decent amount to come out of the condenser. This stuff better air out and do a 180 degree turn or it will all be feints. The wash smelled awesome as it was heating up but the distillate smells like ass and not in a good way.

FloridaCracker

Conclusion:

This rum run has been declared a disaster for probably a lot of reasons. After over 12 hours of airing it is not getting any better. Trying to do cuts is like trying to find the best part of a rotten fish; some parts may smell better than others but it all smells bad.

I do all of my ferments in 25 gallon batches; enough for 2 runs in my boiler. I will not distill the second 12 gallons. I won't even use the backset for later dunder OR a dunder pit. I just don't want any of this moving on to the next ferment. It has to be stopped; right here, right now.

It was bound to happen eventually and I consider myself lucky that I have only had this one failure in the last 16 years of distilling. I believe that the wash was doomed from the start with bad molasses (too many additives, too little sugar). Then I tried throwing everything at it to save it. I don't think that the yeast stood a chance. I don't even think that I will keep the distillate for feints. Time to walk away.

Next wash I will use only food grade molasses, brown sugar, a little DAP and yeast.

Thanks for all of you guys who tried to help. I'm now walking to the garage to put it out of its misery....

Kapea

@FloridaCracker said: The wash smelled awesome as it was heating up but the distillate smells like ass and not in a good way.

Shuh!
What were you expecting? You made it from mole asses! :D

Sorry to hear it turned out to be a stinker there @FloridaCracker. Thanks for sharing your experiences so we all can learn from them too.

FloridaCracker

Thanks Kapea, I'm going to make myself feel better by running my Gen IV ujssm tonight. On the way now to buy some FOOD GRADE mole-asses and start my next rum wash.

As an aside, the backset had a slight burned smell to it as does the distillate. I racked and cold crashed the wash then filtered it before it went into the boiler. Does rum backset usually have this kind of smell? The wash was about the cloudiness of hot chocolate; definitely not clear.

Kapea

Can't really say. We don't have moles here. Been thinking about making rum from mongoose asses though. We got plenty of them little varmints around here. I'll let you know how it works out...

popcorn

Dap gives my rum ferments a terrible smell I strayed away from using it along time ago I use tomato paste instead gives the yeast what it wants without all the gassy smells

FloridaCracker

@popcorn said: Dap gives my rum ferments a terrible smell I strayed away from using it along time ago I use tomato paste instead gives the yeast what it wants without all the gassy smells

What about the final product? Can you tell a difference?

FloridaCracker

Just went out to check on the wash and this is what I found.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JHSZVsA30M

FloridaCracker

That picture is of the molasses that I used in this latest wash. It's boiling so violently that it is almost scary....

punkin

Sure is an active ferment, probably finish tomorrow.

FloridaCracker

I've never seen anything like it but this is only my second rum wash and the first one was........

The temperature actually increased by 7 degrees overnight and it was 55 degrees in the garage

popcorn

Never could tell In the finished product anything off flavored, just smelled nasty during ferments

popcorn

That dude is rocking and rolling @FloridaCracker

FloridaCracker

When something goes wrong, I usually beat my head against the nearest wall until I figure out why. With my first rum wash, I think I figured out part of it. At least why the distillate had a slight burned smell.

I did go to college and usually can figure things out so why this one baffled me is not like me but here it is; The burned smell came because SOMETHING WAS BURNING in the wash. The wash was still sweet and like a dumbass I ran it thinking it would be OK.

Lesson # 1, for those who don't know, if you run a wash that still has sugar in it, IT CAN BURN!! I'm sure that this is no secret to most but hopefully I can help the next guy on his first rum run.

Lesson # 2, like Dad pointed out, DON'T EVER THROW A WASH AWAY. Just for kicks and giggles, I brought the wash up to temp, added some calcium carbonate like he suggested (the real stuff not the crap that I got from Walmart) pitched some more yeast and guess what happened? Yep, it started fermenting.

Lesson # 3, always listen to Dad.

I still have 10 gallons of this wash that may still pan out. Stay tuned......

FloridaCracker

So the question remains; can the burned smelling distillate be saved if added back into a run? I'm hesitant because it is not a good smell and I wouldn't want to ruin some good wash.

punkin

No. You will never get that taste out of it no matter what you do.

I was going to comment on residual sugars yesterday when you posted except that you said it was a SLIGHT burned smell.
When i did it there was nothing slight about it, was like licking a burnt circuit board.

Even refluxing at 95+% won't get that clean, it's destined for the drain.
There was one guy on Artisan who aged it for a couple years and now say's it's not as noticeable and he can drink it, but still taste it.
If that's what you're after then that's a solution.

brewsmith

I work at a local craft brewery and our 20bbl batches can rise to over 90 degrees F even if ambient is in the 40-50's. We use that to our advantage with our Belgian styles but use glycol to maintain temps on everything else. Point being, never underestimate the heat that can be generated by highly active yeast

FloridaCracker

I have multiple fire ant beds that won't mind the burned smell. They will be the recipients of my F-up.

dad

Ah, ah, ah...I've burnt a mash before and again...don't give it to the ants.

I kept it and refluxed the shit out of some of it...and as punkin says, it still has a burnt flavor.

But a teaspoon of it adds some very interesting depth to a bourbon. It is now a nice adjunct.

Try a drop or two in your best bourbon or rum and see what you think.

BourbonJunkie

@dad said: Ah, ah, ah...I've burnt a mash before and again... I kept it and refluxed the shit out of some of it...and as punkin says, it still has a burnt flavor.

But a teaspoon of it adds some very interesting depth to a bourbon. It is now a nice adjunct. Try a drop or two in your best bourbon or rum and see what you think.

I was doing my first AG using corn-malted barley yesterday and bought a new 2 ring burner to use under a keg while stirring to get the temp from 60C back up to 72C... using only the centre ring of the burner. After reaching 72C I received a call and in my haste instead of turning off the centre ring of the burner I turned on the outer ring, and became aware of doing so when the burning smell wafted from the back verandah into the house. I poured the contents from the keg into a fermenter and pitched yeast and it is fermenting. I have been wondering if the burnt smell would distill out.

After I distill it I will play around with the alcohol and see if I can make use of it as you suggest.

FloridaCracker

@dad said: Ah, ah, ah...I've burnt a mash before and again...don't give it to the ants.

I kept it and refluxed the shit out of some of it...and as punkin says, it still has a burnt flavor.

But a teaspoon of it adds some very interesting depth to a bourbon. It is now a nice adjunct.

Try a drop or two in your best bourbon or rum and see what you think.

Dad, I gave most of it to the ants. I think I still have a liter or 2 left but not sure..

I will say this, after pouring on the ants they don't move anymore. Was going to be sadistic and put a flame to them but decided to just let them die happy (but quickly). We get some HUGE fire ant bed mounds here. Some about the size of a 5 gallon bucket.

grim

If you burn your corn mash on accident, shit happens, just don't scrape the bottom of your pot. A little bit is OK and will come through as a little smoky/bitter/acrid (this is not all bad). If you scrape it all into suspension it's going to come through stronger.

But yes, once it's there, it don't come out. I've never tried heavy carbon than redistilling though.

Probably more work than it's worth. Corn is cheap.

FloridaCracker

Bubbling has come to almost a complete end. The SG is .95 and there is no sweetness in the wash. It hasn't completely cleared but I've heard that with rum it isn't as important. The last thing I want is more scorched flavor.

Time to run it? I have a reflux column that I can get 90ABV from and want to do a single run. My condenser is way undersized and limits what I can do. The good/bad about this still is that it strips a lot of flavor on the first run. Good for neutral, bad for everything else. I feel like I have to at least have some copper scrubbies in the path even though the molasses is sulfur free. I tried doing strip/spirit runs on my UJSSM and lost a LOT of flavor.

The fancy molasses that I used had very little in the way of solids if any.

punkin

It.ll.still taste like rum

dellae

4 x thru my column and it still tastes like rum. The only way I found to actually get rid of the rum flavor is to add baking soda to the still.

FloridaCracker

In the middle of the run right now. Collecting what I think are hearts now.

FloridaCracker

Well, after running the wash and letting the distillate air out for 3 days my conclusion is that this isn't what I was expecting. Very little smell from the hearts. The heads smelled way better than the tails (any of them). I searched high and low for the mythical "magical" jar in the tails. Nothing magical in the tails. Kept the hearts and everything else will go in the next run. I did add about 25% dunder back into the next wash. I also kept dunder to age outside. Maybe this will help get me more of a rum smell and less of a neutral smell.

Does your rum smell/taste great right off of the still?

Kapea

Over on a couple of the other forums there is a rum writeup by a guy named pugidog about his recipe for pugi rum. It is very detailed and explains a lot about rum oils and dunder. Well worth a read!