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PA_JoeDistiller

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Everything posted by PA_JoeDistiller

  1. Many people and books talk about bottle shock, and how 3 months in the bottle greatly improve the spirit as it gets its initial oxidation, rest, and mingling of chemical components. The ADI book Distiller's Guide to Rum suggest the greater part of 3 months for storage after bottling before selling, and we have definitely noticed a marked improvement in our spirits from the day they went in the bottle till a few months later. With that being said, does anyone have experience in the time of vatting making a real improvement? Example. If we have to release a product in 3 months, will it be more beneficial to blend and vat the barrels for 3 months, then bottle and sell immediately; blend and vat for 1 month then bottle and allow rest; or allow equal vat and bottle times? Eg. Does the best mellowing happen from blending in the steel vat or resting in a bottle? Thanks for the help!
  2. Drinking lots of different rum! Great intro reads to rum are the arroyo patent, ADI Distillers Guide to Rum, the 1800's Jamaican sugar plantation experiment papers, and lots of google fu. There was a fantastic resource called Boston Apothecary, but sadly it looks like his entire site and vast amount of knowledge has disappeared. A single pot run will be very slow, but result in extremely rich and heavy flavors, and almost definitely need barrel ageing unless you have a light yeast and cool ferment. Double Pot Run will be cleaner but still rich and heavy. Column to Pot is a good middle ground, more on the light side then the heavy side. Column single/column double is going to be extremely light, almost like a rummy vodka then rum. Pot and Thumper is another very heavy distillation style, and a great one if you have the setup, though its very hard to get any real cuts and will need alot of ageing.
  3. Robert thanks. And Sam that's great to know, thanks for the good info
  4. Pete, EXACTLY the info I needed. Thank you for that. Feeling much more confident pushing forward
  5. Has anyone added juice or brewed coffee into their spirit as a natural flavoring? We are tossing some ideas to collaborate with local craft people, but my biggest concern is the oxidation of the additives. Does the alcohol basically suspend and preserve the juice/coffee/oil,sweet substance, or have you found there is quick degradation of quality?
  6. Has anyone added juice or brewed coffee into their spirit as a natural flavoring? We are tossing some ideas to collaborate with local craft people, but my biggest concern is the oxidation of the additives. Does the alcohol basically suspend and preserve the juice/coffee/oil,sweet substance, or have you found there is quick degradation of quality?
  7. Beyond that, what is the "Traditional Caribbean approach"? Are we talking British style pot and thumper style as depicted above? French pot still brandy style distillations? Spanish style column distillations? Guayanese wooden column still demerara style? The whole point of Rum is there is no traditional style or traditional ingredients. Cane juice, molasses, panela, raw sugar, white sugar, a mix of all of these? Still rum. One of the above mentioned stills, a mix of them? Still rum, still traditional. That being said it's all about the flavors and textures you want. Heavy high ester rums will do better with the least refined ingredients, and single or double pot still runs. Adding a column will make it softer and lighter, as will moving more towards the refined end of the sugar spectrum.
  8. Thanks again Sorghumrunner! Great details. We'll have to see what the cost/feasibility is of a shipping refrigerated up to PA, but its good to know it is possible to some degree.
  9. Thanks Sorghumrunner! Ill be ordering some ASAP to do a test batch. I'd love to taste that agricole when its comes out!
  10. Does anyone here have a specific yeast they use/suggest that stands out in creating the flavor profile of a classic grassy agricole or cachaca?
  11. Similar to my post on cane juice, I am seeking a sugar source for rum fermentation as un-refined as possible. The least heat treatment, least separation, etc etc. There's the obvious thread about panela in the forum, but what about other cultural un-refined sugars? Muscovado, Sucanat, Rapadura, Demerara, and Turbinado come to mind. Does anyone (either on the sugar side or distilling side) have experience with these and Panela? How do they differ? Extending from that, I know sugar daddy is big here for panela, does he or anyone else stock Sucanat and Muscovado?
  12. So I would love to make an agricole style rhum, but know that cane juice is basically only stable for a few hours, with all the agricole producers essentially situated on cane plantations. That being said I feel like I have heard of frozen cane juice, and was wondering if anyone knew if it was viable to get a shipment of cane juice essentially flash frozen at the source, which could then be quickly melted down and pitched for a fermentation? On a similar vein, is it possible to get a shipment of cane itself and press it in house for the juice? (Though that sounds like more trouble then it's worth)
  13. Actually havn't done a repeat rum yet, but I will be sure to post here with any knowledge I find.
  14. I would be wary of using the exact same bottling as another distillery with a bottle that isn't generic. Obviously Kings County is not Diageo, but I would run by them your proposed labeling on the bottle to make sure they approve. You dont want to face legal issues after you have a couple thousand bottles
  15. I think a hybrid pot column still would be great for you. It seems like you're looking at distilling as a side gig. The hybrid will allow for doing both single and double distillations, and the ability to add or remove plates can help you make a variety of spirit. Single pot is "in" for bourbons and a pot is a necessity I think.
  16. Yea for us right now more then half of our tours are Living Social deals, and there are a lot of them. We are also a zero foot traffic area so the tour deals bring people in from far away and local, and help people find a new "place". The other benefit of living social is we have a LARGE amount of people who were gifted their tour on LS by someone else, which is a big deal I think.
  17. Very interesting. I'm going to try this and see how it goes, also ill post any findings here. I have a 6 mo aged rum I want to use as a black rum to complement the other rums in the lineup. I'm doing an experiment putting molasses into a bottle to see what settles and what stays. If the color remains it may just be a matter of racking out the sediment. Your post looks good, why blend the molasses into the full volume when you can just make a concentrate and have way more control over the final product. Lets see how this goes and meet up back here.
  18. As the title says, I am trying to create a black rum style a la Goslings or Cruzan Blackstrap. From what I can tell these are not spiced, and are merely aged rums with blackstrap/food grade molasses added back in to create a black color and that rich flavor so necessary in Tiki cocktails. Other posters have stated that when they attempt to add molasses back in, whether in a caramelized form or straight, it doesn't mix and just settles in the bottle. Does anyone have any tricks on how to keep the molasses fully mixed in the rum and suspended?
  19. Great points. This would lead to my ignorance when it comes to how say a whiskey is colored with e150? From what I've read, a cane spirit caramel (especially one made from molasses) when added in the right amounts will not add excessive sweetness, but instead accentuate and uplift the "rummy" characteristics of the rum. What I've seen says adding slowly and mixing heavily will dissolve and suspend the caramel, but from what you're saying Roger this is not the case and it will all sink to the bottom. My question is how is a Black Rum made? It is essentially just an aged rum with high amounts of molasses added in to give it its black color and sweet rich flavor. What keeps the molasses in suspension?
  20. I was thinking more of making a spirit caramel out of the blackstrap and adding that in. Rather then just untouched ashy blackstrap
  21. Just about efficiency, from 80% Blackstrap 20% Bakers molasses (total of 110 gal of molasses) I made a wash of that I diluted down to 19.5 Brix and fermented down to 3.7 Brix (apprx 13%abv). It took two weeks (way too low with DAP, but I was going for yeast stress) but I wouldn't call that not worth it. If you are really looking for BS just make and age your rum as normal, and add the allowed amount [to not have to say you added anything] of blackstrap back into the spirit pre-bottling to bring out the more rummy notes and add some BS flavor
  22. Interesting experiment. I would say you would lose almost all those flavors as a lot of the thick heavy richness I feel comes from the fermentation itself of the blackstrap and its sugars. If you end up getting a heavier rum just by adding blackstrap to your low wines that would be very cool! I don't see at all why it would be a problem reporting wise. It's a mix of single and double distillation happening simultaneously. The last rum I made I mixed the stripping run of 1 1/2 fermenting tanks of rum beer with 1/2 a tank of the unstripped rum beer. Both were fermented from blackstrap and it was a nice mix of not too funky not too clean rum.
  23. TTB guidelines state that Gin's predominant flavor must come from juniper. This seems extremely open-ended. If I were to make basically an herbal liquor with juniper only making up a minuscule component of the mash/basket could it still be legally called a gin?
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