rum brandy?

[invisigoth]

hmm, well tomorrow i strip my first experimental wash, and my first pot still run.

the ingredients were 2kg of dark brown sugar (one shade tougher than gun metal grey) and 2.25kg of sultanas.

i made a syrup of 3 litres hot water to dissolve the sugar, then added half to 1l of water just brought to the boil, added half the sultanas and brought to the boil again with stirring, boiled for about a minute with stirring and allowed to cool enough to pour into the fermenter. this was repeated with the other half and made up to 13 litres with water.

originally it was gonna be 1.5kg of the sugar, but the remaining half kilo looked lonely :violin:
i though i'd try out the rum distillery yeast that stillspirits put out. since it has the required nutrients i didn't put in the usual suspects with my recipe. it handled the brew realy well, but i've only just managed to wrap my head around the idea that i don't have to make things full strength and if i do something similar again, i'd probably use the same amount of sugars in 20 litres.

still not sure how much of the sugar in the sultanas was actually fermented, but i'm gonna press them to get all the liquid that's swelled them up into the boiler. after the cuts from the spirit run have been blended i may or may not oak for a month, after which i'll dilute to drinking strength and age with raisins for 3 months. sure hope this works! :pray:

[invisigoth]

welp, strip run's done. came out as 3l at 48% abv :o

diluted to 40% should fit very nicely into the 5l boiler.

[NotBenStiller]

sounds interesting - let us know how it tastes :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[invisigoth]

ok, spirit run done, cut's made and blended. when i sniffed the jars as they came off the still , there was a distinct smell which i could swear was 1-butanol, but given that it started coming out so early that seems hard to believe. it gradually got fainter, but i could still pick it up almost all the way through the run. i left the lids loose for 24 hours and aside from the forshots and the first cut after, it was gone. i started in the middle, took alcometer readings and diluted 2ml samples accordingly. i never got as far as noticing any burn. it got to a point where the taste was sharp and i just wasn't digging it, so i called it a day for heads there. tails were similar, not bitterness or bad smells, just wasn't digging what i was tasting.

final tally: 1l @ 81% abv kept, and 800ml of feints (the 100ml of forshot and first 50ml cut after that i could still smell that off smell i dumped)
the taste at 40% was a little much for me. not unpleasant, just too strong. i've diluted to 65%. i'll put some of it to one side and oak the rest for a month to see if it mellows.

[invisigoth]

well, it's been a month on oak. the colour looked nice and it smelt good. i diluted a sample to 40% along with a sample of the white dog i'd set aside at the same time. age had improved both, but the oaked sample tasted better. when diluted, i wasn't happy with the colour, and thought that it could stand some more time with the oak. i know that diluted to drinking strength isn't ideal for oaking, but i'll just have to see how it goes. i've also added a handful of raisins so i'll check it again in a month's time. :think:

[invisigoth]

i filtered the "rum'n'raisin" and bottled it. turned out ok. it has some of the character of the raisin mixed in with the rum, and the residual sweetness that i was after. it's turned out very smooth, however some of that may have been down to the fact that the thieving angels got greedy and left me with 30% abv. :crying-blue: