Rum Wash through a Dash 2 - Advice sought

edited July 2013 in General

Does anyone have some hints & tips to run a Rum wash through a Dash 2? I have a few questions on this, and trying to get a feel of how others run theirs.

1) How many plates would you recommend I use. 2 or 3? 2) Do you strip first, then run a spirit run or just a spirit run only? 3) My first run was with 3x plates and a slow water rate through the dephlegm, but my ABV remained high for most of the run. Should I just use my Dash 2 as a pot still and run it through twice? 4) Anything extra I should be doing apart from sampling throughout the run <:-P ?

I use an electric boiler, and take off at a rate as per Hookline's rum document (I can upload it if requested).

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Best Answers

  • @Philter, yes, please provide the referred document if it can be distributed freely (better to have everything relevant here than on outside sources).

  • It depends on the style of the rum you are after mate. One of my favourite spirits i make is my white rum. It's run through the vm at 95+ with a touch of heads left in. Beautiful mixed drink with juice and lemonade, great for mojita's.

    Dark rum i've only ever double run potstilled although i have a mate who is working his way through my three year old stocks and i amy have to start up a ferment again when the weather turns. So i'll be following this thread to see the favoured combinations of plates.

  • I use three plates for a dark rum, 6 for a white.

  • I age in a barrel for a year or more and then leave it in bulk in a keg. Then i take 4l at a time in a cookie jar on old dominoes and age till the colour is right. It takes at least 6 months or more on oak to loose that bourbon taste and smell from the oak and for the mollasses to shine back through. Otherwise you'll find it tastes 'bourbony'.

  • tails, deep cuts, some nice flavors down there, but i would run in numbered jars, and after airing make your decision

  • edited August 2013 Answer ✓

    IIRC @minime used to recommend for the white rum to come off at 94%. Don't know myself as I pot still it.

  • @Philter, for a rum I tend to keep more than for any other liquor. Maybe its for flavor, maybe its greed or maybe because molasses and rum are precious here, just don't know.
    I do know that mixing the entire cut is wontanly dangerous. When in doubt, mix a few ml from each cut jar into a snifter and cut with water to about 30% ABV to open up the flavor. That gives the good idea what to mix together, what to recycle and what to toss.
    Like I said, I keep much, much more than I toss with rum but there are tails cuts to avoid and tails cuts that are just right nice. I've never been good at finding them without some trial and error. I'm sure this doesn't help much but I keep the very heart of hearts separate from almost every distillation as VSR (very special and rare) that only a select few will ever get to enjoy. Its never ever more than a liter so I'm kinda tightfisted with it. The rest is freely shared with anyone thirsty.

    Thinking about my method I guess it applies to almost everything I cut in. Capture the pure heart and save it special, blend the rest as best as I can.

Answers

  • edited July 2013

    Thanks for your responses so far.

    Seems like you both run at a high output rate and still retain some flavour. Do you also blend in a percentage of heads & tails as well? TassieStiller sent me this link: Rum from a Reflux Still

    I might try mixing some as per the above link and see how it goes.

    The link to Hook Rum doc is here. I just copy & pasted his thread into a word doc, but can't seem to find it atm.

    @punkin said: Dark rum i've only ever double run potstilled although i have a mate who is working his way through my three year old stocks and i amy have to start up a ferment again when the weather turns. So i'll be following this thread to see the favoured combinations of plates.

    It must be good if your mate is still working through your stocks :D

    I know the longer it's left the better, but how long after airing do you allow before drinking, and do you age in casks or on wood in glass containers?

    This will be a tough lesson as Bundy rum was my first blinder. I was not good the next day and I really hate the smell of Bundy now.

  • @punkin said: I age in a barrel for a year or more and then leave it in bulk in a keg. Then i take 4l at a time in a cookie jar on old dominoes and age till the colour is right. It takes at least 6 months or more on oak to loose that bourbon taste and smell from the oak and for the mollasses to shine back through. Otherwise you'll find it tastes 'bourbony'.

    That makes sense Punkin. The key then is to age your stock on oak for a dark rum, and for white rum, drink any time after airing?

    Does everyone blend a percentage of heads & tails into their hearts for flavour, or just heads?

    I think it's time for me to start blending, adding caramel and aging a bit more to see what it turns out like. One more question. At what percentage ABV do you start & stop collecting?

  • @Law_Of_Ohms said: tails, deep cuts, some nice flavors down there, but i would run in numbered jars, and after airing make your decision

    Thanks Mr. Ohms, will give it a try.

    TassieStiller & I had no luck in chasing up the rum thief either X(

  • edited August 2013

    I've posted my last rum run below, which was stripped first, then a final spirit run with 3 plates. Any ideas on what to keep for a white rum, and what to do with the left-overs? Maybe numbers 8-13 as White, and a percentage of what's left for a light rum?

    1. 250 mls @ 93% - Discarded as Heads
    2. 250 mls @ 93% - Discarded as Heads
    3. 435 mls @ 92%
    4. 435 mls @ 91.5%
    5. 450 mls @ 91.5%
    6. 440 mls @ 91%
    7. 975 mls @ 91%
    8. 930 mls @ 90.5%
    9. 970 mls @ 88%
    10. 960 mls @ 77%
    11. 850 mls @ 73%
    12. 870 mls @ 73%
    13. 450 mls @ 67%
    14. 5490 mls @ 72% - Re-equalibriated
    15. 195 mls @ 56%
    16. 250 mls @ 10% Oils

    I'm open to suggestions on how you'd make your cuts...... :D

    Whatever's left over will go to a good (local) home to be re-distilled :)>-

  • Thanks Guys, your info gets me in the ballpark, but apart from jars 14 - 16, it all smells & tastes good ~X(

    @Myles do you have a rough percentage where you cut from the potstill, or do you go by sensory evaluation. Do you mix & match jars ie incorporate a small amount of heads/tails.

    @Lloyd I've had a sample of each jar, but the oils are plain foul! From memory, (as I can't find my notes) the boiler was filled with ~40% low wines and I achieved a large amount of product.

    Any hint of the hearts cut without sampling ;)

  • I tend to follow the cognac process, so I blend the boiler charges for both the wash run and the subsequent spirit run. Each run is slightly different so I do blend from the jars based on what I can smell.

    I am not at home long enough to experiment with aging, so most of it is left white. In the future though I really want to get a golden Trinidadian style rum. Raw cane sugar and probably with some fermented wash added back into the spirit.

  • @Myles said: I tend to follow the cognac process, so I blend the boiler charges for both the wash >run and the subsequent spirit run.

    I don't exactly follow you @Myles. You blend in the what? How?
    The cognac process?

    You add the backset from a previous stripping run (or from somewhere?) to the wash in the boiler for the stripping run?
    Then add the backset from the stripping run to the spirit run? Or is it more wash in the spirit run as some folks do?

    I can understand that when going for maximum flavor that can mean a long smeared distillation. This is no slight because maximum flavor demands some smear!

    Those making neutral avoid smear like the plague but those folks trying to eek out all the flavor from a fruity ferment NEED the smear to get the best results.

  • OK Lloyd, I do this MOST of the time. Fruit brandies are different, those I generally strip 1/2 the wash - add the low wines to the other 1/2 wash, and do a spirit run. Everything else uses blended charges.

    Wash run: Charge with 90% wash + 10% feints from previous runs. Heads and tails cuts are collected from both wash and spirit runs and collected in bulk from multiple runs.

    Spirit run: Charge with 75% low wines + 25% late hearts from previous spirit runs. I arbitrarily use the 65% ABV cut point for the late hearts - equivalent to the 1/5th whisky cut.
    I store the late hearts separately - some is blended into product but most gets re-cycled. It is being picky but I can always ferment more.

    For me the heads and tails (some are used for blending into the product) get combined with the other feints from the wash runs. I used to separate out the rum oils but now that I recycle my feints into the wash run I don't bother.

    When I want neutral from the column, I just charge from my stock of feints.

  • Excellent procedures @Myles. Thanks for the clarification and a real shame that good information will get buried here. Perhaps re-post it somewhere in the recipe section?
    If you would, please title it, "Charging the still for maximum flavor" or something?
    Its these finer points that can make worlds of difference in the flavor profile and consistency from batch to batch.

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