RumBumm

Thank you. I was wondering on when to add the Dunder. I used to add it to the mash after a day's ferment and the yeast had established already. Subsequently my dunder pit turn bad to the smell and I wouldn't want to taste it straight up. Doing a little research on the old Jamaican dunder pits its said that they were that bad but I didn't want to ruin a whole batch. Adding the dunder in the ferment drops the PH quickly which is a whole different problem. I was wanting the add the addition of the dunder post fermentation but predistillation which would lower the ph. significantly. So was wondering what effect this would have. The basis of thinking was that the longer the two components were in contact the better the esterification would be.

I was wondering if anyone had any experience with changing the pH of a wash before distillation. Either lower of higher and did this have an effect on the final product?

With the 12% ABV did you measure the before and after fermentation SG? when I started on this journey i would try to push a high ABV in the wash with lots of sugar. the problem happens that you are then susceptible to a PH crash which stops the fermentation process and leaves the sugar in the wash. The result is that you don't get the yield you were thinking of when you distill. check you Ph during you fermentation to prevent it from crashing.

If you want to know more about the dunder/muck pits you will have to dig deep into the innerweb vaults and read between the lines. i started my journey by reading "the great dunder thread" on the still dragon forum. there ia a lot on information there on why we use the dunder. a quick understanding on the is it makes more flavour. how it does that is a bio-chemists dreams/nightmare. being the rum junky i am, I'm chasing an old style Jamaican with lots of funk. the funk is created with dunder. basically how this works is there are lots of unfermentables in the rum wash. that is because the yeast can't break them down. this is where the yeasts dodgy cousin comes in A.K.A Bacteria! (i say cousin but that only because they are both little organisms, please don't shoot me). these guys now go about their dirty business of breaking down the unfermatables and creating the lovely esters we want in our funky rum. that's what the funk is, a high ester rum. what are esters? these are the chemical compounds that our tongues interpret as flavour. there are whole ester charts and what compound make them. all i know is that if your wash smells like vomit you have probably got lots of butanic acid. when this ages with the alcohols you gonna get that lovely pineapple note coming through. i have attached a file of some of the ester charts i have found.

So a little feedback. The back with the limestone in it had a ph of 3.78 whereas the other batch had a ph of 3.2. I'm thinking if I start the next batch with the limestone in it, then the ph shouldn't crash as bad.

This goes out to all the guys making rum with dunder. Has anyone used raw limestone to balance the ph? I've used oyster shells but was also wondering if you could use any shells picked up off the beach?

I was just wondering what is the process to turn it into fertilizer., as straight up it kills the plants. Do you need to water it down or bring up the PH? how does everyone do this?

Ok so I took photos of the two pits. The dark one is the citrus smelling pit (was a greyish colour but topped up with backset) and the white fluffy one .... yes you guessed it. These two pits are sealed all the time. Should I be leaving the lids off to let them breath or carry on keeping them sealed? Should I scrape off the cap on the earthy one and see what she does or keep the protection? on a side note. do you use dunder and backset or either dunder or backset? currently i use 10L backset and 3L dunder on a 70L wash

So i started two dunder pits at the same time. my thinking was to have a back up for if a pit when "bad". i now have two very different dinder pits. even though they both have the same ingredients the one pit smells like fermented oranges/citus. the other pits is earthy/mouldy. neither smells bad or rotten. there is no sewage smell which is what i read is when its too far gone. my question is do i try a batch with each? what sort of flavours should i expect from the earthy/mouldy one.

they would combine in the condenser. I'm wondering what the flavour difference would be as each low/high wines will impart different flavours and then be smashed together in the condenser.

IM still very new to this but in the process of taking the passion past the hobbyist aspect. i want to produce a full flavored rum in a pretty traditional way. i was looking to build a still where there are two thumpers coming off the pot still in parallel. has anyone ever tried this and what were your results?

Has anyone ever done a typical chemical composition of rum stillage?

yup i currently have a gen 4 dunder pit and when i mashed my last ferment the ph drop to 3.8. after all the panic to find ways to raise it the best solution i got was some oyster and egg shells in the beginning. lucky for me as it gives an excuse to get oysters

Hi i did a backset run where i added 20 liter of a wash the had fermented out. my thinking was to use this as a "mother" with the bacteria and the yeasts already in solution. my starting ph was 4.2. normally this is 4.7-4.8. would the alcohol in the wash have caused the ph drop? would the yeasts have been stressed already. how can i see if they are happy. not getting the foam head on the wash as with beer.

get yourself an old beer keg and weld a steam column and condenser together and lighting a gas torch under it, is probably a better setup. you will learn so much more from it as the smells that come off the cuts are more distinct. after that refine the process with skill and technology.