Remove all the packing, unless it's copper mesh. Leave a single scrubber or a LITTLE mesh in, so the vapor will have contact with some copper. You don't want it refluxing, though. Run it as a pot still, twice. Take output of the first run, dilute it by about half ,or a little more, and re-distill.

Samson,

No assery involved, it"s a valid concern
Not sure about the temp in F but in C, if you stop collecting at around 84c, you'll end up with a light smooth rum, that would be pretty quick to mature to drinking grade. Collect to 90c and you get a heartier, heaver, richer rum, though it might take a bit longer to mature ,if you use a clean fermenting yeast 3-6 weeks should be enough for it to break down,.

Don"t be alarmed though, pre-aged rum ,if you collect in the higher ends, smells like a pretty strong kick in the mouth. Just give it a few weeks to age and you should be ok.

You can also use a full reflux to distill your rum, once again, simply collect to the higher temps. I haven"t tried this yet, but theoretically it has a couple of advantages. You end up with a higher ABV starting product, hence you have less of the contaminants you rather not be drinking ,some that will come through in a double distillation method,. The second is more prolonged contact with copper. Rum produces quite a bit of sulfur in its fermentation process and copper is a natural "sponge" for it.

Keep us posted as to how things progress.

Cheers

Hey thanks for the info. My thermometer has a F.mode and a C.mode so I can get the right temp. As far as the recipe I just used 1Gal.molas 6 pounds dark brown sugar and 6 pounds cane sugar and 6.5 Gal fresh spring water. As for the yeast I used wine yeast it seems to work nice for me.