The following is a set of instructions that explain in detail how to make rum at home. It takes about 4-10 days to make rum. This set of instructions includes how to make rum, links to how to make your own reflux flute, and links to how to dilute the final product. Rum has been produced since the 17th century in the Caribbean Islands, which are still the largest producer of rum. Traditionally, rum was made from sugarcane juice, but now rum is usually made from sugar syrup or brown sugar.
Yield: About 2-3 L of rum
Ingredients
- 2, 5 kg of sugar syrup
- 2, 5 kg of white sugar
- 20 L distilled water
- 42.5 g wet yeast
- Additional distilled water to dilute the final solution
Step
Part 1 of 4: Making a Solution
Step 1. Start by putting 20 L of water in a clean pot
The key word is clean. Even the slightest contamination can damage the rum. Before you start, make sure you have the cleanest materials and a clean work area.
Clean and soak all equipment you will use in boiling water. Turn off the stove once the water boils, and immerse the pot or barrel in the near-boiling water. Then, throw the water away. This will help kill harmful germs
Step 2. Dissolve both sugar and sugar syrup in 20 L of water heated over medium heat
Sugar will dissolve easily, but sugar syrup is more difficult to dissolve because it is very sticky. Try not to let the water boil. Continue heating only until air bubbles begin to appear, and then turn off the stove.
Step 3. Cool the solution to 28°C and add the wet yeast
It's easier if you take about 1 L of solution into the pitcher; dissolve the yeast into the solution in the pitcher. Then, when the mixture starts to foam, put the mixture from the pitcher back into the solution in the saucepan.
Part 2 of 4: Fermentation
Step 1. Allow the solution to ferment at 25°C until the airlock installed on your pan stops bubbling
Yeast needs heat to keep converting sugar to alcohol. So make sure you keep the solution in a warm place or make the room warm by using a heater. The airlock on the pan will let the carbon dioxide out without letting oxygen in. It will take about 24-48 hours for the air lock to stop bubbling.
- Airlock is a very important tool in the fermentation process. You can quite easily build your own airlock, or you can buy an airlock quite cheaply.
- Either way, make sure the airlock is securely in place and that no air is getting into the housing. Why is it so important not to let air get into the solution? The yeast eats oxygen from the sugar molecules, leaving the ethyl alcohol (and giving off carbon dioxide). If the yeast gets a lot of external oxygen supply to eat, it won't be as effective at consuming the oxygen from the sugar molecules.
Step 2. Once the airlock is no longer bubbling, let the solution sit for 3-7 days
You can use a hydrometer to test if the solution is ready. A hydrometer measures the ratio of the density of a solution to the density of water. Measure once a day starting from the day your solution should be ready. Take a small amount of the solution from the container and put it in the measuring tube. Insert the hydrometer into the tube, turning the tube gently to release any bubbles that form. If you get the same results on your hydrometer for three days in a row, your solution is ready to be distilled.
Step 3. Sink the yeast by lowering the temperature
At this point, your yeast may still be on the surface of the solution. If the yeast gets into the reflux distillery during the distillation process, the rum will smell and taste bad. To sink the yeast to the bottom of the solution, move the container with your solution to a cool place - ideally 10° - 14° C - and wait a maximum of two days. At this point, you can either drain your solution directly into a reflux distiller or store it in a container and store some of the yeast in the refrigerator to use in future rum preparations.
Part 3 of 4: Distillation/Distillation
Step 1. Place the collection container under the distiller's valve to contain your alcohol solution
It is very important to make sure all connectors are tightly closed and securely fastened.
Step 2. Connect the water source to the hole for cooling
You need a water source to cool the alcohol vapour. As the alcohol vapor cools, it condenses into liquid ethanol. This liquid will then drip from the condenser into the collection container.
Step 3. Now flow the solution into the reflux distiller using a siphon
Make sure you drain the solution carefully, avoiding the bottom, where the yeast settles.
A siphon is a tube or channel divided into legs of unequal length, which is used to transfer solution from one container to another in a lower position. Siphon is used by inserting the shorter leg of the siphon into the container above and the longer leg into the container below. The solution is forced by atmospheric pressure to rise up through the short siphon leg and then into the long siphon leg
Step 4. Start slowly by heating the solution to a boil
For rum, it's best to bring it to a slow simmer; it doesn't need to be very boiling. Start running cold water once the solution reaches a temperature between 50-60°C. The solution will start to distill as the clear drops of the solution start to come out of the tube and into the collection container.
Step 5. Discard the first 100 ml of the clear solution
This section is called the “head,” and is usually discarded for health safeguards. This part contains unstable methanol, which can be lethal if swallowed. Better safe than sorry, especially when you're distilling three liters of alcohol.
Step 6. Collect the next 2-3 L of distillation that comes out of the tube
Stop collecting once the temperature reaches 96°C.
Step 7. Turn off the stove, then turn off the cold water flow
Step 8. Unscrew the flute to prevent a vacuum from forming inside your flute
Part 4 of 4: Solution
Step 1. Ripen your rum by storing it in oak barrels or roasted oak barrels (optional)
Often, rums are ripened by being stored in roasted oak barrels for 10 years or more to increase the flavor and color of the rum. If you don't have the luxury of barrel roasted oak, or 10 years' time, you can soak roasted oak chips in your rum for three weeks to give your rum its distinctive flavor. Strain your rum with a cheesecloth or clean cotton cloth to filter out any wood chips.
Step 2. Use water to dilute the alcohol to the desired level
Depending on how the reflux is distilled, the alcohol content in your pure rum can be as high as 95%, which is very dangerous to drink. Use a diluent calculator to dilute your rum to about 45% for the best taste.
Step 3. Add flavorings from additional ingredients to enhance the taste
Make a spice rum by adding cinnamon, ginger, and cloves to the final rum mixture; Soak the ingredients in the rum for 1-2 weeks. Some choose to add a little caramelized sugar to the rum.
Tips
- Fractional distillation (the type of distillation described here, reflux distillation, is a form of fractional distillation) is usually required to reach levels as high as 95%, and is used primarily for rum. Distillation with a pot still (such as that used for whiskey, many other types of alcohol, and some types of so-called "rich-flavored" rums) yields close to 70% (in the double distillation process) or 80-88% (in the double distillation process). triple).
- Moonshine isn't well known for its taste, although if you do get to a 95% solution it should be relatively tasteless - see Neutral Spirit. The levels will be significantly reduced if cooked in stainless steel barrels (stainless steel barrels are usually used to ripen white rum or some spice rums, oak barrels for gold/spice rum, and roasted oak barrels for dark rums, but ripening in wooden barrels it's a bit scientific). “Almost all alcoholic beverages mature in about 1-2 years” (a notable exception being corn whiskey, which can be flavored with sweetcorn juice), and many ripen for much longer than that. Filtering through charcoal can also help remove impurities, although this process is usually used for vodka, not rum.
- Commonly added flavorings in rum include: coconut extract (clear), sugarcane juice. One common flavoring (and probably the most common overall) for all types, except white rum, is sugar syrup. Caramel is often used as a flavoring for golden rums and rum spices. The rum spice can also be added with cinnamon extract (in small amounts), or honey. Alternatively, Haitian-inspired rums may also contain a small amount of nutmeg peel extract and/or basil flowers.
- Yeast to make alcohol will not produce methanol. But other bacteria in the air and the environment can contaminate the rum you're making (though they're not common throughout the region). A clean work environment, sterile gloves, sterile containers for storing ingredients, and clean and pure ingredients are essential to ensure rum is safe for consumption. Thorough cleaning of the distiller (even dry sterilization) between uses is very important. Professional production even goes to the extent of replacing the air in the distillers and ripening vats with nitrogen (inert, and non-flammable) to further reduce the risks - but this is not a cheap or easy thing to do at home. Removing the initial portion of distilled rum is done more to remove unwanted flavors but in a professional setting, this is still lost (in fact more is lost) through safe heating near but not to the boiling point of ethanol (~80%.. around 60C) while still in the ripening tank (and open to the air to allow the material to escape).
- Try using a larger pot for your next rum-making. Otherwise, you'll end up with a mess of something sticky. Also, a funnel can help pour into containers.
- If you plan to ripen your rum at home, it's best to store it in a shed or somewhere with a roof outside, from the first snow melts in early spring until the first frost appears in late fall. Evaporation rates ('angel share') range from ~2% in Scotland to ~8-12% from Puerto Rico to the equator. Ripening with a small amount of glycerin (5ml/L), a commonly used sweetener and food preservative, can help reduce the density of the rum. You don't need to dilute the alcohol with spring water (some find that distilled water has a certain taste due to the absence of minerals in it, and raw water is healthier) if you boil the rum in a stainless steel barrel, but if you did dilute it, make sure the final result the rum is strong enough to contain the excess alcohol content you want to achieve so you can still add other ingredients for final flavoring (so try to count the angel parts).
