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Differences between Distilamax RM & SR


Backset

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Just wondering if anyone has any experience with Distilamax RM or SR and what their results were with a mollases based rum?  Or just experiences with any style rum. Thanks

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We also use RM for our rum. 100% molasses at 71% TSAI.  Gotta keep an eye out on pH bottoming out.  We started with an agressive nutrient regimen but now only dose with DAP spread out over the first three days.

 

 

 

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Awesome thanks guys. Would you say it’s got more character than say EC1118? I am wanting to make a heavier bodied rum with more of a ester profile than what EC1118 contributes. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

EC1118 should produce very little character but has a higher alcohol tolerance. I personally prefer plain old bread yeast for character but it has low alcohol tolerance, so finishing with ec1118 as the bread yeast is petering out can give the best of both worlds.

 

Red Star Champagne yeast is a close kin to ec1118, however is much cheaper when bought in bulk, and has the benefit of being quicker to reproduce after initial pitch, and can survive colder temps that would kill ec1118.

I know lots of people like the Danstill EDV 493 for rum, but I am not particularly keen on it, it does ferment well but produced too many off flavors for me at low temps. it could just be my palate, and those "off flavors" where character.

I know this was intended as a discussion on nutrients, but has taken a turn into yeast strains, so take my advice as what it is.

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SR/46edv was isolated in France from beet molasses fermentation.  It’s goal is high ethanol yield fermentation, with low congener production.  In addition to beverage production, it’s also sold for fuel ethanol.

RM/edv493 was isolated in the Carribean from Molasses fermentation.  It’s goal is a congener profile characteristic of rum.

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17 hours ago, Silk City Distillers said:

beet molasses fermentation

What exactly is beet molasses? I assume the "waste" from producing beet sugar but don't want to, well, assume.  I agree with you re: SR / RM. We too use RM in our unaged white rum.  SR is, well, uninteresting. Early on we did produce a sugar based neutral which initially suffered from that "sugar twang". Switching from EC1118 to SR cleaned that up a bit. We've since switched to corn.

 

 

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On 1/4/2019 at 7:58 AM, indyspirits said:

What exactly is beet molasses? I assume the "waste" from producing beet sugar but don't want to, well, assume.  I agree with you re: SR / RM. We too use RM in our unaged white rum.  SR is, well, uninteresting. Early on we did produce a sugar based neutral which initially suffered from that "sugar twang". Switching from EC1118 to SR cleaned that up a bit. We've since switched to corn.

 

 

Correct, it is the waste from beet sugar refining. It's disgusting. It can not be consumed by humans, inedible. I think it can be consumed by livestock. The only way you might want to use it for spirit is if you distill the ferment to completely neutral spirit.

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23 minutes ago, Silk City Distillers said:

Cointreau is known to be made using beet ethanol.  Stroh from Austria was widely reputed to be "rum" distilled from beet sugar.  I hear that many French Liqueurs use beet ethanol as the base.

Yes, beet ethanol (as neutral spirit) was used in France for many spirits and liqueurs, especially once grape became scarce during phylloxera epidemics. Most notably, it was used for many absinthes. Beet sugar "rums" like Stroh's were never made from molasses, but from beet syrup, second to last step product in refining beet sugar. Still a challenge to make a good spirit from that. I did my own tests making beet syrup "rum".

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3 hours ago, Silk City Distillers said:

I hear that many French Liqueurs use beet ethanol as the base.

Do you know of any commercial vodkas that are from beet ethanol? Curious if I can tell the difference between those and corn / cane. I'm certain many of our first forays into distilling started with a bag of Domino sugar, bakers yeast,  garden fertilizer and a few multi-vitamins. To say the resulting spirit was anything but rough and twangy is a compliment. 

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  • 1 month later...

I have used SR for very clean rums and high proof spirits. Works great for a very clean spirit.

RM temp has to be watched, mine one time came to a stand still when the temp dropped to 72f I raised the temp to 85f and it took off like a rocket. Because it is from the Carribean it operates at a higher temp I find.

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  • 1 month later...

So a little update with RM. I’ve done two fermentation’s with this yeast. Both are 100% blackstrap mollases. First time I fermented at 86 degrees, added DAP and Fermaid K at the start of fermentation and then another charge at 36 hours. It took off like a rocket for 20 hours and went down from 1.075 to 1.033 and then completely stopped. After 48 hours of letting it sit and hoping it would go down more, it got a very nasty phenolic (band aid) smell to it. I ended up dumping it. 

Second fermentation was the same except I reduced DAP and Fermaid K charge in half, adding it at the beginning and at 20 hours. Once again, around 22-24 hours after pitching yeast it came down from 1.077 to 1.034 and then completely dropped out again. At around 25 hours it started getting a phenolic aroma again so I crashed the Ferm temp to 60 degrees and will be Distilling tomorrow. Also pH was at 5.32 before pitching yeast and actually went up to 5.59 after 24 hours. 

Does anyone have any idea what is going on here? I’m going to try this yeast with our cane sugar recipe and see what it does. I have a feeling it has to do with the blackstrap. 

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With a 100% molasses fermentation I would not add much for nutrients.  There should be plenty there from the molasses.  In my experience you could start a lot higher on your sg.  I was routinely starting around 1.10 and finishing about 1.02.  With all molasses I would guess you could be 1.11-1.12 easily.  I always did a step addition of nutrients, pitch and 24 hours in.  Usually took about 7-10 days to finish even at 90 deg.  

I never had ph go up, always a drop.   Usually with rm I would start at 5.2-5.3 and be down to 4.5 in 24 hours.  Then it would drop more over time and I would adjust with calcium when I got under 4.  Note that some molasses has a decent amount of calcium and won’t need as much adjustment.  I added a small amount of citric acid and calcium carbonate in equal parts by volume to adjust ph at the beginning.  The amount was determined by how much calcium was in the molasses.  Ie more adjustment as I ran a higher % of sugar. 

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Not all molasses is the same. I've had some 100% molasses runs end at around 1.015 and I've had some utterly garbage stuff (double s is the company) that wouldn't go below 1.040 (adding a few pounds of sugar restarted the ferment so I know it wasn't a nutrient or yeast issue).

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Thanks for the help. I’ll cut my DAP and Fermaid K back even more and maybe give it a second charge at 12-15 hours in as this yeast seems to ferment fast. I did run this wash and I was pleasantly surprised by the flavors it produced. Heads were very fruity, a lot of pear aromas, hearts got more mollases funk, leathery with hints of that fruitiness, and tails stayed similar. I just need to figure out how I can get this yeast to attenuate further down. I will be making the same wash except with the SR yeast to see what happens and go from there. 

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I would not worry about the ending gravity all that much.  Try a higher starting gravity instead.  I easily had rm ferment at 1.10 with molasses based washes.   I found rm with molasses or sugar to be one of the easiest fermentations to run and had great yields. 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/31/2019 at 1:36 AM, Skaalvenn said:

Not all molasses is the same. I've had some 100% molasses runs end at around 1.015 and I've had some utterly garbage stuff (double s is the company) that wouldn't go below 1.040 (adding a few pounds of sugar restarted the ferment so I know it wasn't a nutrient or yeast issue).

Which SS molasses did you use for that, #10, #100, or #150?

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9 hours ago, Skaalvenn said:

Their "distillers grade".

Huh, I don't know what that is, and when I queried them, neither did they. I could see having difficulties using #150, and I could also see someone calling that "distillers grade" if by that they meant something that wasn't good enough for food consumption or baking. #150 is cheap (less than $0.40/lb), but more expensive per lb of usable sugars, IMO. I was going to use their #100, or maybe #10.

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I spoke to someone there who answered the phone as doctor so and so and asked them about their products. Said I was looking for the most amount of fermentable sugars, the least ash and other non-fermentables, and that's the product that doctor so and so recommended.

I took their advice, and regret it.  Thankfully it was only a single tote.

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On 4/12/2019 at 6:39 PM, Skaalvenn said:

I spoke to someone there who answered the phone as doctor so and so and asked them about their products. Said I was looking for the most amount of fermentable sugars, the least ash and other non-fermentables, and that's the product that doctor so and so recommended.

I took their advice, and regret it.  Thankfully it was only a single tote.

That sounds like very valuable information, but it is unfortunate we can't connect it to a catalog product for them. I am surprised your invoice didn't list one of their standard product names.

Anyway, I will be doing a very small test with #100, and can let people know the result. I agree, I would be hesitant to try a full tote of molasses without prior indication of how well it might ferment.

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On 12/20/2018 at 3:25 PM, Backset said:

Just wondering if anyone has any experience with Distilamax RM or SR and what their results were with a mollases based rum?  Or just experiences with any style rum. Thanks

Anyway, to answer your original question, if you want lots of aromatics and flavors in your molasses rum, we really liked RM. SR is intended for clean whites.

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