 Rank: Newbie Groups: Registered
Joined: 9/16/2013(UTC)
Posts: 3
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"I'm fermenting sugar & molasses to make rum. I distill twice and come off with a nice clear neutral 186(ish) proof spirit. I use filtered water to cut it back to 140 proof and then barrel. Some months later I will drain the barrel into a stainless pot and add more filtered water to get me down to 90 proof. I then add a dark rum essence to the bottle and fill.
Odd thing - it's cloudy. I'm not sure if it's cloudy before the essence is added or not. Over a period of a couple of weeks the cloudiness settles out to the bottom of the bottle. The first time this happened I thought it was fibers from the coffee filters I filtered through to trap any charcoal flecks from the barrel - yesterday I didn't filter from the barrel at all so that isn't the problem. It's either adding the essence or from the barrel...
Has anybody else ran into this?
Does anybody have a good method to filter it out w/out buying the big stainless charcoal filter?
Thanks in advance,
Dan"
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 Rank: Administration Groups: Administrators
Joined: 2/10/2002(UTC)
Posts: 501
Was thanked: 8 time(s) in 8 post(s)
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Try using demineralized water (most cheap distilled water works well). The cloudiness is most likely the result of minerals in the water that are not soluble in alcohol, so when you use the water to dilute the minerals come out of solution and make the product cloudy. They will slowly precipitate out, and do not change the flavor or smell, but they make the product look less attractive to drink.
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 Rank: Junior Member Groups: Registered
Joined: 3/17/2013(UTC)
Posts: 14
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I 2nd what admin is telling you,,, the cloudiness happened to me,,,, now I distill my own water,,,, good bye cloudiness....
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Rank: Junior Member Groups: Registered
Joined: 2/17/2013(UTC)
Posts: 78
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I use filtered water and don't get cloudiness, tap water I do. Also if you run to far into tails the oils will make it cloudy. I'm confused why your making a rum wash, then stripping the flavor from it and then adding essence back in to flavor it?, sounds like the hard way to make rum when you can get beautiful rum from a good wash.
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Rank: Junior Member Groups: Registered
Joined: 2/2/2013(UTC)
Posts: 37
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I have come across two contributing factors to cloudiness.
First when making your wash or wine ... make sure you let the yeast and everything settle to the bottom of the solution for at least one week. Then siphon off only the top of the wash leaving the sediment at the bottom. You do not want to distill this.
Another thing is make sure you are making your runs nice and slow. Slower the better. It will also help with cloudiness.
I have just had this problem and been figuring it out.
It works and I use tap water. Just saying ...
Also for the filter ... Go buy activated carbon.
You can buy a container in the pet fish section and it costs about 7$. Then make you own filter. It is a lot cheaper than buying one and works all the same.
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Rank: Junior Member Groups: Registered
Joined: 2/2/2013(UTC)
Posts: 37
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Also for the filter ... Go buy activated carbon.
You can buy a container in the fish section and it costs about 7$. Then make you own filter. It is a lot cheaper than buying one and works all the same.
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