Jump to content

Rhum Agricole


whiskeytango

Recommended Posts

If you are doing a evaporated cane wash just dilute in 120ish degree water to 1.09 SG adjust the ph and add yeast at the appropriate pitch temp and volume. It should fly, You may need to adjust temp as well though as rum likes it hotter than whiskey.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Dsking416 said:

If you are doing a evaporated cane wash just dilute in 120ish degree water to 1.09 SG adjust the ph and add yeast at the appropriate pitch temp and volume. It should fly, You may need to adjust temp as well though as rum likes it hotter than whiskey.

yeah thats what people keep telling me but its taking weeks to ferment out. 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, whiskeytango said:

Syrup.  Not all of us live in Hawaii where cane grows on every corner.  lol  

 

Haha touche.  There's actually not a lot of it since HC&S closed down.  I think we're now one of the biggest sugarcane farms in Hawaii at 20~ acres!

 

Syrup and molasses (IMHO) should be treated more-or-less the same in this regards.  Both have been extensively heat treated and stored in exceptionally high osmotic conditions.  Few organisms *should* pose much of a threat as long as your ferm requirements are met.  It may or may not be handy to test for FAN content (probably less of an issue for y'all since the syrup will contain more consistent field and harvest conditions)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To recap,

you start a ferment at 14 brix from sugarcane syrup (steens? I buy their canned stuff for home lol)

pitch yeast at 80F after rehydrating in ______ water, add ____ amount of Fermaid (O or K) to the wash after the yeast has blended in

7 days later... 0.998 SG at 3.6-3.8pH?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 5/23/2017 at 8:57 PM, nabtastic said:

To recap,

you start a ferment at 14 brix from sugarcane syrup (steens? I buy their canned stuff for home lol)

pitch yeast at 80F after rehydrating in ______ water, add ____ amount of Fermaid (O or K) to the wash after the yeast has blended in

7 days later... 0.998 SG at 3.6-3.8pH?

 

 Ok we started at 160 gallons of wash at 17 brix.  I added 240 grams each of ec 1118 and fermaid O   Its been fermenting at and average of 70 degrees Ph was 6.6 at the start.  Now 14 days later we are down to 3.5 brix and ph is staying constant at 3.6.   

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What's your SG at 14 days?  

Try buffering your pH w calcium carbonate.  H+ exchange is required to pull the sugars into the yeast cell, low pH will hinder that exchange in addition to stressing the yeast.  

In an untreated ferment we will have completely (or nearly) ferment after 3-5 days (at ~83F) depending on strain and pitch rate. The steady pH means you probably dont have an infection to worry about rn so thats good. 

 

How are you rehydrating the EC?  What temp, water source and treatment, water source n treatment for the juice?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 5 months later...

Sugar washes crash. closer to 4 is better. Up the nutrients. There is hardly any in  sugar. Something for the yeast to cling to helps like yeast hulls. agitate. Defiantly up the temp 85-90 range. Sugar washes will go slower then molasses they just poke along. More then twice as long as molasses in my experience. Im not spending a ton of money on nutrients though just enough to keep it healthly  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On December 27, 2016 at 3:13 PM, whiskeytango said:

Brix is around 14 

PH starts around 5.4 and then drops quickly to about 3.6

Temp I'm just going off the directions on the yeast to to re hydrate as specified then fermenting out at bout 78-82 degrees 

 

With the quick drop in your pH like that, you might have some bacteria that is taking over so the yeast can't continue the fermentation. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since we are reviving an old thread... get a pH stabilizer or be prepared to continually adjust your pH up with a strong base. There's not enough chalk or baking soda in the world to balance out a sugar wash 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've not tried pH 5.2 by Five Star but that *should* work.  I've had good luck adding a food grade caustic (potassium hydroxide) - just a dab'll do ya (try adding 1 cup per 500 gallons and then test pH again).  In general, a cane wash (fresh juice or crystalized sugar) will be deficient in lots of nutrients but most importantly nitrogen (Rafael Arroyo has written a good bit about this) but you'll also want to take care to not add too much N as it will cause a negative flavor profile during distillation.  

You can also use "turbo yeast" which will have enough of everything to finish dry in about a week but it's a bit better for rocket fuel than drinking, IMHO. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Find your local chemical supply house and make friends.  Citric, Lactic, Sodium Hydroxide all at very reasonable prices, only catch is you are buying 50lb bags or 4x1g liquid.  Just tell them you need USP grade or higher for food use and they’ll know exactly.  

For really small quantities, you can get USP grade chemicals from Amazon sellers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A bit late to the game here, so please pardon me if I didn't read the entire thread.

Recap:

So, you are using EC1118 on molasses/syrup wash (not crystallized sugar)

Using nutrients

Fermenting at 70degF

My suggestions based on our experience:

Background - we ferment blackstrap and use an EDV strain.  We ferment 300 gallons at about 18 Brix.  Due to the molasses, we generally ferment down to approx.  7 Brix in under 7 days

1.  EC1118 is a pretty broad range yeast.  "Killer" strain with a wide temp range and ferments to fairly high proof.

2.  Temp is slightly low for the EDV strains (we like to keep it 80-85 as per recommended), but below are recs for EC1118.  If continuing with EC1118, you may want to try lowering the temp.

                LALVIN EC 1118 yeast should be stirred into 10:1 must/water mixture at 86 – 95 °F (30 – 35 °C), stirred again after approximately 20 minutes and then added to the must or wine (THIS IS FOR A STARTER). The optimum fermentation temperature is between 57.2 and 64.4 °F (14 – 18 °C). The minimum starting temperature is 53.6 °F (12 °C). The fermentation temperature should not exceed 86 °F (30 °C). Lower temperatures generally require higher dosage.

3.  We use blackstrap.  We initially used nutrients from Lallemand, but found no noticeable difference in ferment, so we do not use anymore.  We add city water.  We've found that for our yeast, city water and blackstrap seemed to have enough nutrients.  Our source for blackstrap concurs and they have worked with Lallemand in the past with other producers.  Not sure what type of syrup and values you use.

4.  I would suggest, also, some form of oxygenation for the first 24-48 hours.  We used to have long fermentation periods and have decreased them just using oxygenation.  We oxygenate prior to pitching yeast, and then the following two mornings.

Good luck,

Todd Weiss

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...