I'm sorry this has taken me so long so send out, it's been a really busy few weeks. Anyway it was a real pleasure talking to you all at a Real Rum Do at the Docklands and I hope I was able to share some light on the pleasures of not only enjoying Rum but making your own. Theres a lot of information here, but i wanted to be thorough, so you can probably skim through to find what you want. If you just fancy the fermentation bit, you can buy a Still if you follow the links at the bottoms of this email for around £150. Anyway, if you have any questions at all feel free to contact me.
Happy Brewing,
George
So to get started here is the fermentation video:
http://www.youtube.com/embed/zYaocavnJlo
It is surprisingly easy to make your own rum, with just one stop to the local grocery store and a little light Googling one day, anybody can create their own alcoholic masterpiece. Many articles on the subject will tell you that you need fancy yeast, fancy equipment and fancy setup to yield the best tasting alcohol. They’re Right. But this one will come quite close to the real thing, drinkable but not sell-able.
Ok what is Rum? Rum is a distilled alcoholic beverage made from sugarcane by-products such as molasses and sugarcane juice by a process of fermentation and distillation. The distillate, a clear liquid, is then usually aged in oak and other barrels (Wikipedia). The last part is what imparts the traditional color and flavor to the rum, the longer its aged the deeper the color and the more pronounced is the flavor. Our rum will not be aged cause it takes to long to get to the best part of the whole thing…drinking it. But if you made a lot you can put down a few in a wooden bottle or wine cask for a couple months till the flavor is to your liking, you should also experiment with adding spices at this stage.
So our Rum consists of the following ingredients:
There are two parts to this method, the fermentation and the distillation.
Fermentation
The yeast is the workhorse of the whole operation, its purpose is to convert the sugar into ethanol (alcohol). The molasses, although it also supplies sugar is there to provide the nutrients the yeast requires to flourish. It is is not needed but the yeast works better in a nutrient rich environment. The molasses also provides the flavor of the rum, without molasses it would not be rum.
Distillation (The trickier bit - you can buy a Still through the links at the bottom.)
View close up photos of Distill here: http://criticisetheflow.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Rum
Here is a link to the distillation part of the video: http://www.youtube.com/embed/PIIjUEcTDv0
A bit of legal garbage… Distillation is illegal in some countries and states without a license. You also need to do research into Methanol and distillation, as Methanol is a not very nice chemical. Nevertheless I've explained what to do in this tutorial:
What you need:
1 Pressure Cooker
1 old bucket
Compression Coupler
2cm of 8mm Piping
3 metres of 10 mm Piping**
1 Bag of ice
A thermometer
A container to Catch your rum.
Directions:
Take your pressure cooker and remove the Whistle, now take your 8mm piping and it should push into where the whistle was. It should be half way on. (1cm in)
Bore a hole in the side of your bucket, it must be large enough for the 10mm pipe to fit through.
Take one end of the 10mm pipe and fit the 10mm pipe through the whole in the bucket.
Coil the 10mm pipe from the bottom up to the top of the bucket, leaving around a metre out the top of the bucket.
Bend the rest of the pipe so it can attach the other end of the pipe to the compression coupler.
Attach the compression coupler to the 8mm pipe.
it is advisable to try it out with water to check for any leaks, and to sterilise the pipes.
__
Now you have tested your still, add your fermented mixture to the pressure cooker.
Now you can add the ice to the bucket, keep it in a bag so it doesn't leak through the whole where the pipe comes out.
Make sure everything is tightly done up, before using the Still.
Turn your hob on, and keep an on the temperature,
Ethanol boils at 78°C, Where as Methanol boils at 65 °C, so boil at 70-75 °C and throw away the first 100ml or so as this is most likely to contain Methanol. (although the amount is minimal for this recipe.)*
Next raise the temperature to 78-85°C and catch the liquid that comes off in your container.
Always take care when making Rum, and whenever there is Methanol involved. And do research, as this tutorial is in no way perfect, and its always better to be safe than sorry, happy Brewing.
You should get about 500ml from 2 litres of Mix,
*Some people just turn the heat up high initially, and throw away the first amount still before lowering the heat to around 78.
** Read instructions and measure your pressure cooker before buying piping as pressure cookers sizes may vary.
Some more reading material:
http://www.youtube.com/user/sansironie/videos?view=0 My youtube channel with instructions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillation - notes on distillation
http://shonari.net/tutorials/homemade-rum/ - A good guide to making rum
https://eee.uci.edu/programs/hongchem/RDGbpdistill.pdf - information on distilling and temperatures
http://www.moonshinestillpro.com/Ultimate-Stovetop-Copper-Pot-Still-p/ussac2.htm A still for sale
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=still&_sacat=0&_from=R40 Theres usually stills on here for around £170
http://criticisetheflow.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Rum View close up photos of the Still here
So to get started here is the fermentation video:
http://www.youtube.com/embed/zYaocavnJlo
It is surprisingly easy to make your own rum, with just one stop to the local grocery store and a little light Googling one day, anybody can create their own alcoholic masterpiece. Many articles on the subject will tell you that you need fancy yeast, fancy equipment and fancy setup to yield the best tasting alcohol. They’re Right. But this one will come quite close to the real thing, drinkable but not sell-able.
Ok what is Rum? Rum is a distilled alcoholic beverage made from sugarcane by-products such as molasses and sugarcane juice by a process of fermentation and distillation. The distillate, a clear liquid, is then usually aged in oak and other barrels (Wikipedia). The last part is what imparts the traditional color and flavor to the rum, the longer its aged the deeper the color and the more pronounced is the flavor. Our rum will not be aged cause it takes to long to get to the best part of the whole thing…drinking it. But if you made a lot you can put down a few in a wooden bottle or wine cask for a couple months till the flavor is to your liking, you should also experiment with adding spices at this stage.
So our Rum consists of the following ingredients:
• Distilled Water (2 litres-your standard bottled water will do)
• 1 pack plain old bakers yeast
• 1-2 lbs sugar (granulated works best)
• 8 ounces of Molasses
With this quantity of ingredients the yield will be roughly 500ml (2 flasks) of high alcohol content rum This list of ingredients is no way gospel so feel free to mix and match the quantities to your liking. There are some things you will have to take into consideration that i will explain later.There are two parts to this method, the fermentation and the distillation.
Fermentation
• So you take the molasses, sugar and two thirds of the water and combine them in a suitable pot. Let it warm (hot enough to keep your finger in there, no more) and mix till everything is dissolved. You can turn it off at this point.
• Remove half a cup of the mixture and mix in the bakers yeast. If you start to see the mixture foaming, then we’re in business.
• The bottle that the water came in should still have one third of the water remaining. Add the yeast mixture to that and lightly shake.
• Add the rest of the mixture from the pot to the bottle.
• Now you need to make an airlock. This is a device that keeps oxygen out but allowing the carbon dioxide that is produced from fermentation to be released. To make this all you need is a balloon.
• Find a balloon that will fit snugly unto your plastic bottle. Use a pin to bore a couple holes at the top of the balloon and then fit it it securely over the plastic bottle.
• Let it sit for a few days until the bubbling stops or becomes very minimal.
Now some things to note:The yeast is the workhorse of the whole operation, its purpose is to convert the sugar into ethanol (alcohol). The molasses, although it also supplies sugar is there to provide the nutrients the yeast requires to flourish. It is is not needed but the yeast works better in a nutrient rich environment. The molasses also provides the flavor of the rum, without molasses it would not be rum.
Distillation (The trickier bit - you can buy a Still through the links at the bottom.)
View close up photos of Distill here: http://criticisetheflow.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Rum
Here is a link to the distillation part of the video: http://www.youtube.com/embed/PIIjUEcTDv0
A bit of legal garbage… Distillation is illegal in some countries and states without a license. You also need to do research into Methanol and distillation, as Methanol is a not very nice chemical. Nevertheless I've explained what to do in this tutorial:
What you need:
1 Pressure Cooker
1 old bucket
Compression Coupler
2cm of 8mm Piping
3 metres of 10 mm Piping**
1 Bag of ice
A thermometer
A container to Catch your rum.
Directions:
Take your pressure cooker and remove the Whistle, now take your 8mm piping and it should push into where the whistle was. It should be half way on. (1cm in)
Bore a hole in the side of your bucket, it must be large enough for the 10mm pipe to fit through.
Take one end of the 10mm pipe and fit the 10mm pipe through the whole in the bucket.
Coil the 10mm pipe from the bottom up to the top of the bucket, leaving around a metre out the top of the bucket.
Bend the rest of the pipe so it can attach the other end of the pipe to the compression coupler.
Attach the compression coupler to the 8mm pipe.
it is advisable to try it out with water to check for any leaks, and to sterilise the pipes.
__
Now you have tested your still, add your fermented mixture to the pressure cooker.
Now you can add the ice to the bucket, keep it in a bag so it doesn't leak through the whole where the pipe comes out.
Make sure everything is tightly done up, before using the Still.
Turn your hob on, and keep an on the temperature,
Ethanol boils at 78°C, Where as Methanol boils at 65 °C, so boil at 70-75 °C and throw away the first 100ml or so as this is most likely to contain Methanol. (although the amount is minimal for this recipe.)*
Next raise the temperature to 78-85°C and catch the liquid that comes off in your container.
Always take care when making Rum, and whenever there is Methanol involved. And do research, as this tutorial is in no way perfect, and its always better to be safe than sorry, happy Brewing.
You should get about 500ml from 2 litres of Mix,
*Some people just turn the heat up high initially, and throw away the first amount still before lowering the heat to around 78.
** Read instructions and measure your pressure cooker before buying piping as pressure cookers sizes may vary.
Some more reading material:
http://www.youtube.com/user/sansironie/videos?view=0 My youtube channel with instructions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillation - notes on distillation
http://shonari.net/tutorials/homemade-rum/ - A good guide to making rum
https://eee.uci.edu/programs/hongchem/RDGbpdistill.pdf - information on distilling and temperatures
http://www.moonshinestillpro.com/Ultimate-Stovetop-Copper-Pot-Still-p/ussac2.htm A still for sale
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=still&_sacat=0&_from=R40 Theres usually stills on here for around £170
http://criticisetheflow.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Rum View close up photos of the Still here
Disclaimer: This guide is made for instructional purposes only, make sure to research the laws in your country with regards to making your own alcohol, I hold no responsibility for any actions that come from following these instructions.
