Years ago I had a chance to tour the Appelton distillery in Jamaica. Appleton makes some lovely flavorful rums. Their dark rums are good straight or over ice. Their light rums in Coke or a daiquiri are perfect. On the tour they absolutely would not say anything about the dunder pit other than "We age our ingredients." Touring the aging warehouse was heaven. the oak barrels gave an aroma that was intoxicating, literally. The pace of work at Appelton was definitely on Island Time, the air tropical and humid, with glorious scents of sugar and fermentation in the air. The tasting room had all of their varieties, plus a white dog only sold locally. Called "Overproof," the 80% unaged white dog was flavorful and aromatic, if punishingly strong. From what I saw on several visits to the island nation, I suspect that Overproof is popular with motorists on the island.
Cabbage leaf in the bottom for lacto. That last thing probably had fruit flies. It definitely had Kahm yeast. Cover your pit with a lint free cotton towel, like a bar towel or something. Tips from a kombucha brewer! Also, if you want a little acetobactor in there? Splash some apple cider vinegar in that has "the mother" listed on the label! In kombucha, lacto gives it a more mellow taste vs the tart acetobactor of vinegar.
As a former baker this whole dunder business sounds very similar to how traditional sourdough bread is made. Traditionally sourdough is made from a starter which is just wild yeast and whatever other bugs it's picked up along the way, starters are usually first made from flour and water and then left in a warm place for a bit until the micro-organisms do their thing.
Great video i really appreciate the research and time that goes into these videos. I look forward to each new upload. You present the information in a casual friendly way. I know myself if i was to stand in front of a camera there would be 15 mins of me saying ummmmm ahhhh. Keep on keeping on mate this channel has grown a lot and helped me venture out into different parts of this hobby. Cheers
Great video! I also have a dunder bucket haha. As a Cuban American I've been sticking to the Cuban/Spanish style of just aging a well blended product on oak. Though the dunder pit is a Jamaican thing so I guess it's a fusion. Just started playing with Bob's black style, more Jamaican style of adding molasses/dunder in and love it for spiced rums. Try the Cuban style tho comes out super smooth! I'm super interested in the sour yeast results! For my pit/bucket I use a kombucha mother. My friend gives it to me when she needs to get rid of it and gets rum in return lol. I imagine the kombucha gives a result similar to the lacto and sour yeast.
Something I've wanted to try in rum is a malolactic fermentation. First time I had a malo wine it was actually from NZ! SUPER smooth and interesting. Not sure those compounds would survive distillation tho...
Interesting man. I am guessing that kombucha at least has some type of lacto in it? fAre you using the kombucha dunder in the cuban as well? Or just the more jamaican styles? I will definitely be experimenting with other types of rum later on!
Still It I only have one base rum at the moment. Using the dunder pit (Jamaican style) in conjunction with relatively tight cuts and oak aging (Cuban/Spanish style). I use that as a base for spiced & black rum. Have yet to try to make a Cuban/Spanish style light/clear rum where you filter the "gold" aged product into the clear one with activated carbon. And yeah kombucha mothers have lacto in them amongst other things. When reading into kombucha seems to produce all the acids we want for esterferication so I thought why not? Lol. So far it's given my stuff a beautiful nose and a nice finish. Adding to that the air/oak aging of the rum and it's just so so smooth and rich.
Love it!!! I've been playing with all sorts of microbes for the last 50+ years since I got my first microscope. If It can be fermented I've done it.... foods, wines and beers, lacto, aceto, various yeasts and molds such as aspergillus, penicillum, geotrichum, rhizopus, sachromyeces, and brett, and various wild stuff. I have kombucha going all the time as well as kefir. I even cultured botulinum once just out of sheer madness. Dunder should be my middle name ;-) Currently I'm getting ready to check out the results of an experiment so far off the beaten path that everybody seems to think I'm mad.....I won't describe it here ;-) Just completed my third still over that 50 year spell, this one my first reflux still. The last one I built for a friend who took it with him when he moved away. Gin is high on my list of projects, and will be double distilled, once as a pure spirit run, and the next time with botanicals in the column. Rum was not high on my list, though I intended to try some....... This discussion of live dunder has inspired me to delve into it......Thanks!! Note that I've achieved decent oaking using charred oak (or maple) slivers and modulating temperatures and pressures, getting raw spirits to develop more of a real whiskey character fairly rapidly.
@@danieldanielson2650 That’s a really old post…… What I was doing was very simple. I placed it in a stainless steel soda keg…The liquor and charred white oak slivers. Using Co2, I would pressure to 60 psi….. leave it for a few hours and suddenly rapidly blow off pressure. I tried using vacuum, but there was too much evaporation of the alcohol. I also heated the keg in hot water followed by crash cooling in snow…. which seemed to work quite well. If I were doing it commercially, I would build a stainless steel cylinder… like an air cylinder, place the whiskey, and oak inside allowing generous air space above. A hydraulic cylinder would cycle the ram periodically down for very high pressure, then back to negative pressure. I’d probably play with temp as well, though pressure creates heat. The goal is to move the alcohol in and out of the wood to draw out the sugars and caramel like flavors. This happens over years as temp changes in the cellars…. no reason why we can’t speed the process up
Jesse, if you taste burnt sugar it will be from using Black Strap molasses, which is derived from the 3rd and final boiling of sugar cane juice. During sugar production, as the water in sugar cane juice is boiled away, the molasses begins to scorch in the kettle, Black Strap is scorched/burned sugar cane juice. I suggest that next time you use non-sulfured molasses, or better still use reconstituted piloncillo, which has the highest sugar content. Brum
My first few runs years back all tasted like you describe this one, kind of like air freshener or as my partner noted, sunscreen. It goes.... that particular flavour actually disappears as you do more and more rums. Im not sure how many runs you are through now, but if you go taste Puser's British Navy Rum (Blue Label) I promise you it will be the closest taste to what you are making, because Pusers is an old school recipe. All these "rums" we see in the shop now are almost liqueurs, like Kraken and the huge amount of spiced varieties now. Great job and thanks for the video.
Yeah dude I think your totally onto it here. The flavor has morphed as this product ages (its still on oak). I had never really tasted a ester heavy rum before this. I had only had the sweet honey and molases rums. Dude, the more funky stuff grows on you. I WANT MORE!
@@StillIt Yeah the salty bitterness of the really cheap horse feed molasses is the flavour I love, its like that Dutch salty liquorice and I think what blows me away is how all these flavours come from such a simple wash. I had a mate who is really into his single malts call my rum obsession "one dimensional" recently and I said "how little you know".
At time point 12:13 it is possible the cheese smell you are getting came in part from the aerotolerant anaerobe Clostridium perfringens (non toxin producing), commonly used in making a old time classic of Salt Bread. Salt bread starter has a funky cheese smell, similar to a aged hard cheese.
Love this video. I've used wild yeast in a sour mash before but never made a dunder pit. I am betting you will have some great success with this, eventually. And by that I mean that you may have a learning curve before you really hit your stride. This is complex.
Nice work! Grab a bottle of foursquare rum, pretty much all of their releases are good, and quite affordable. They're a good rum to compare your creations to, as you've obviously never tasted quality rum ;) I'd suggest a Doorly's XO if you can find them in NZ. Keep on experimenting, I like your views on distilling
I promise you won't be disappointed. When you open up to rum a bit more, I'll recommend some funky affordable Jamaican rums. I've got a tasting tonight on some of Foursquare's releases that I've heard will win the heart of any whisky guy.
Leuconostoc cremoris is a bacteria used for sauerkraut and sour cream fermentation for its buttery flavors. Might be something to look in to for a dunder bucket
right on I feel ya I got some strawberry black berry wine ...two months old one sour one way sweet... sweet been out by the salty sea air...about ready to consume...
cool way to get wild yeast, real old school..yeast have been our buddys for a very long time,with out them and the others little friends no fun drinks with chezzz..
For the live Dunder/ muck I would suggest various brettanomyces that are available from many different beer labs. Brett Trois Vrai (WLP648 - white labs) kicks out a load of pineapple aromas that I think would be very desirable. Also these wild Brett strains have no issue fermenting anything you throw at them to super high attenuation in combination with a saison or belgian yeast ( that would kick out banana and clove flavors). With these funky yeast you dont have to worry about food safety or mold either. Also the yeast at the bottom of lambic beer bottles is a great source of wild yeast that is cheap and available.
@@StillIt In "And a Bottle of Rum", author Wayne Curtis references the gross but fairly well documented 18th century practice of adding the contents of a chamber pot to new rum fermentations. So there you go Still It, throw a turd in that dunder pit for that little extra something that you just can't get anywhere else.
Wow, that sounds super cool, I bet that yeast will do a great job. I homebrew lots of fruit wines and mead, and I want a still, but that could put me in prison for a decade here...
After watching through all your other videos, and going hey I wonder if he will use brett, finally my prayers have been answered. I suppose a dunder pit for beers would be like a coolship or repitching on yeast cake. Sadily here in France you can homebrew but you can't legally distill, you can pay a pro to distill your wash for you though so I might have a look into that. Cheers keep up the awesome videos.
When getting into breadmaking I know I read about the autolysis process breaking down your nice ball of dough (the glue that holds water+flower together) if you let the sourdough sit in there for too long (so basically not really giving you a nice rising bread). This is due to lacto taking over and breaking those bonds. Anyone that has played with sourdough knows what a nice funky-fruity-floral smell you can get from letting one sit for longer than needed for breadmaking. But that's for breadmaking, for brewing or distilling I say that that's a big big PLUS and definitely something I want to experiment with. But on a side note, you say you add some sugar and some malt.. Why not add bread? Old bread should have everything needed for a nice colony of whatever to form. I know people use it to make sour homemade milk by just letting a slice of bread float in milk overnight. Would probably test this too. It's been a while and I don't remember how that milk smelled.
Hi mate, love all the videos you make. I've just sent the Mrs out to pick up 30L of molasses for me today to get started on my rum adventures. Just wondering if you or anyone you know of has deliberately infected a rum wash? Like a kettle sour or something along those lines?? Cheers mate keep up the good work.
Thanks for the swift reply mate. Definitely won't be giving it a go for my first batch, just a shower thought more than anything. Picked up a beautiful 2" modular reflux/pot from a bloke on an Aussie page and am dying to fire it up.
Yeeeeeooooowwwwww! Your live man! For everyone elses benifit: Javi just went live with his first video on YT. He is going to be showing off NZ's awesome landscapes in a vlog/photog cross over type channel. Pretty cool stuff :)
I do also reuse the leftovers (dunder?) from my previous distillation batches and keep track of it. You have to make sure the mix is around 40 dunder and 60 percent fresh water. Otherwise, the yeast will take forever to kickoff or not start at all since it does not have enough oxygen. Flavor is even more sweeter and with roasted nuts notes. Some higher volume distillers storage it for months before the dunder is reused again.
Hey Jesse, great channel, its helped immensely in my distilling journey. Just wondering how your dunder pit is doing, as I'm just starting one here in lock-down Auckland! Cheers fella
I just started my own dunder bucket. leaving it outdoors uncovered. I threw in potato peels, tomato, sugar Caine leaves and a piece of stalk. not sure if I wish to put in dead animals. LOL
Hello guys. Really interesting videos! Would mold ontop of the dunder be a problem? Could it produce poisonous ingrediens? My experimental dunderpit is very moldy.
I'm rather new to distilling but have done a few blackstrap rum washes and was thoroughly disappointed each time. If I'm going to spend $$ on molasses,I'd like for it to taste like rum,but all I taste is flavorless ethanol
How did you get the color into the clear spirit you tasted at the end? Did you add some fresh "Dunder" from the boiler ? I think you said that but it got a bit confusing.
Hey Jesse. I kept about 20L of dunder from my first blackstrap rum run (was what was left over in the still after the run) and has been open to the air for about a month now but doesn't seem to be changing at all (no funk or odd smell). Should I be adding sugar to it or some probiotics to it?
Coke, rum and a twist of lime was called a cubalibrae, that was my drink when young but coke had to change so it was bear for a long time till now, I hope Im not telling my age. Most bartenders dont know that drink now.
I would have probably done a commercial strain of brett and lacto that is known to produce tropical esters for a rum. Things like pineapple and mango and passionfruit (those strains exist ;) ) And personally I'd have capped the bucket and thrown an airlock on it and set it in a corner. The reason being is I've had issues with fungus gnats infecting my brews. On first glance I would have expected an acetobacter vinegar producing infection but instead I got a bacterial infection that threw a bunch of isobuteric acid (baby vomit) It smells and tastes like the buteric acid which is absolutely undesirable. Just random thinking though.
The first time I went to fiji and tried fiji rum, that was the opening of my rum door. I don't think fiji rum is held that highly but I do go back to it often just for shits and gigs.
This is how REAL pure corn whiskey is done...at least in my family. Corn, malted corn, and water. That's it. No sugar. No yeast. It just sat outside in a barrel with a piece of tin roof covering it to keep critters out. Whatever wild business out there would just get in and do the deal. Not controllable, exactly, but a lot of the traditional process isn't controllable. I guess that's why each run had it's own name and dates on the jugs, just like they do with fine, French wine.
For sure, what could be simpler? My great-uncle had the same mash for almost 10 years before his 2nd wife put an end to his evil ways. A minute to learn, a lifetime to master.
Dude! When I was a kid and didnt really understand the song I thought it was "dirty deeds and the dunder chee" I was always wondering what the hell that meant. Untill someone had a good laugh at my expense at put me right hhaahahaha
@@StillIt Dirty deeds done with sheep.... Bah! :) Try a decent rum Appletons or Mount Gay.. I am not a fan of Bundaberg but I like the Carribean style dark rums.....
@@pgprentice appletons or ten cane definitely. I'm stuck on kraken as my go to black rum. I've heard good things about a rum distilled in the Guatemala
That is what a lot of people do. Bob uses it this way in his recipe. To my taste it definitly added something to it. More specificly it brought back a lot of the good charactoristics of the molassess itself.
Do not mock the herby liquors of which jagermeister is the mass-consumer version of. Many of us like them :D and it would be a challenge of itself to brew and distill and spice one. Honestly not sure where to start on that one :D
There's a very foremost fermenter in the US that makes is dunder pit basically the same as you did but he throws and rotten fruit and a cheese culture. He found a way to do it without goat heads and dead bats
For almost 10 years, due to a mishearing of a conversation, I thought that a dunder pit was similar to a longdrop shitter, dunny or honeybucket. I misheard it as "thunder pit" and assumed people were putting decomposed sewage (similar to the way natural fertilizer is made) into their rum to add flavour. It wasn't helped by the fact that I knew that molasses residue from rum production is used as a fertilizer, which in my mind would offset the lost human-derived fertilizer. So, no rum for me for the first decades of my life. Then along came the internet - I felt so bloody stupid :)
Your video doesn't address the biggest confusion about dunder. Does it come from the fermented dregs or the boiled dregs after the pot has taken out all of the alcohol? I am of the opinion that it must not be exposed to heat, and it is like sourdough starter or sour mash...
He says, at about the 1.25 mark, that he added some of the backset (AKA Dunder - not to be confused with live dunder). That will be where the colour came from.
Embrace the funk! Cheese bacteria is a good one to use. Apparently ethyl butyrate (the "baby spew" ester - i imagine you are quite familiar with it thanks to the twins) is an awesome one to have. It reeks in the dunder, but comes through the other side of the wash ferment as pineapples. A lot of the horrid, rotten, disgusting smells end up awesome after the yeast finishes with them in the ferment.
Yes! I had heard other people sugest the same thing. I had a quick look around for live culter and didnt find anything easy to get to. So I went ahead like this. I am sure in the future I will either split that batch of start another.
Still It my microbiologist friend just informed me that a lot of the "changing gross to yum" reactions happen in the column. Particularly with clostridium by products. Requires copper contact and i think a bit of reflux. All of us at the lhbs are losing our minds over dunder right now, will be watching very closely!
Awesome man! I have seen reference to "estrification" through reflux. Perhaps the same thing?! I have an idea in mind to test this actually. But I will need to get a bunch of half decent rum and dunder first haha.
Good luck with the live dunder I can't wait to see how it turns out! How can I get your address? I'd like to send you some bourbon barrel staves I picked up in kentucky if you're interested
I know how it works with multiple strains of yeast but adding the brett in there could go either way. When you mix yeast strains and reuse the cake for many generations around about generation 6 you will start to notice one yeast pulling ahead in the flavor profile (in my experience it's been the Belgian strains) Around about generation 10 it's almost entirely a single flavor profile that doesn't change much after that. IMO it was actually around generations 3-5 that you get the most interesting and complex flavors. If you ever find yourself in San Diego for a few months you can drop in on this annual experiment whitelabs.com/frankenstout (even just one trip to their tasting room will open your eyes to the wonderful and varied world of yeast). My unscientific guess is that the brett will take over in a matter of a few months.
Thats a super good point my man. A lot of the conversations I have followed talk about the ballance and how to find it etc. At least in this case the belgian yeast dosnt really have a chance. There is none of the wash in here. But I guess it could have jumped in via something uncleaned etc etc. It will definitly be interesting to see! I had wondered about it as well, especially seeing as this is rather different to multiple generations of beer in some ways. But also very similar in others. Its esentually just one long fermentation, not really generations. The mostly more complex sugars will also favour the brett I guess. But perhaps thats why people feed it fresh fruit etc. Mab that helps the Sac / Pedio / Lacto etc have a chance??? I will also start splitting this at some stage. That may prove to be very interesting!
I know Hampden in Jamaica have an insane long ferment time. Three months has been mentioned. My guess is that the primary ferment finishes fairly quickly in the Carribean, and then they leave it for the Brett and bacteria to do their thing. Their unaged stuff is full on funky, but I heard recently they'll start releasing some aged stuff soon. I just bought a load of molasses to get my first rum ferment going!
Years ago I had a chance to tour the Appelton distillery in Jamaica. Appleton makes some lovely flavorful rums. Their dark rums are good straight or over ice. Their light rums in Coke or a daiquiri are perfect.
On the tour they absolutely would not say anything about the dunder pit other than "We age our ingredients." Touring the aging warehouse was heaven. the oak barrels gave an aroma that was intoxicating, literally. The pace of work at Appelton was definitely on Island Time, the air tropical and humid, with glorious scents of sugar and fermentation in the air. The tasting room had all of their varieties, plus a white dog only sold locally. Called "Overproof," the 80% unaged white dog was flavorful and aromatic, if punishingly strong. From what I saw on several visits to the island nation, I suspect that Overproof is popular with motorists on the island.
I built my own still and am getting ready to distill my third run here soon and I owe A LOT to your channel. Keep putting out the great vids!
Awesome man! Love to see another person ready to go!
Cabbage leaf in the bottom for lacto. That last thing probably had fruit flies. It definitely had Kahm yeast.
Cover your pit with a lint free cotton towel, like a bar towel or something.
Tips from a kombucha brewer!
Also, if you want a little acetobactor in there? Splash some apple cider vinegar in that has "the mother" listed on the label!
In kombucha, lacto gives it a more mellow taste vs the tart acetobactor of vinegar.
As a former baker this whole dunder business sounds very similar to how traditional sourdough bread is made. Traditionally sourdough is made from a starter which is just wild yeast and whatever other bugs it's picked up along the way, starters are usually first made from flour and water and then left in a warm place for a bit until the micro-organisms do their thing.
Yeah it sounds VERY similar. I have been meaning to do a proper starter based pizza dough for a long time. But I am lazy haha.
Great video i really appreciate the research and time that goes into these videos. I look forward to each new upload. You present the information in a casual friendly way. I know myself if i was to stand in front of a camera there would be 15 mins of me saying ummmmm ahhhh. Keep on keeping on mate this channel has grown a lot and helped me venture out into different parts of this hobby. Cheers
Thanks man. Appreciate it 🥃
Who says there ISNT 15 min of ummmmsssss. Thank God for the power of video editing! Haha
Great video! I also have a dunder bucket haha.
As a Cuban American I've been sticking to the Cuban/Spanish style of just aging a well blended product on oak. Though the dunder pit is a Jamaican thing so I guess it's a fusion. Just started playing with Bob's black style, more Jamaican style of adding molasses/dunder in and love it for spiced rums. Try the Cuban style tho comes out super smooth!
I'm super interested in the sour yeast results! For my pit/bucket I use a kombucha mother. My friend gives it to me when she needs to get rid of it and gets rum in return lol. I imagine the kombucha gives a result similar to the lacto and sour yeast.
Something I've wanted to try in rum is a malolactic fermentation. First time I had a malo wine it was actually from NZ! SUPER smooth and interesting. Not sure those compounds would survive distillation tho...
Interesting man. I am guessing that kombucha at least has some type of lacto in it?
fAre you using the kombucha dunder in the cuban as well? Or just the more jamaican styles?
I will definitely be experimenting with other types of rum later on!
Still It I only have one base rum at the moment. Using the dunder pit (Jamaican style) in conjunction with relatively tight cuts and oak aging (Cuban/Spanish style). I use that as a base for spiced & black rum. Have yet to try to make a Cuban/Spanish style light/clear rum where you filter the "gold" aged product into the clear one with activated carbon.
And yeah kombucha mothers have lacto in them amongst other things. When reading into kombucha seems to produce all the acids we want for esterferication so I thought why not? Lol. So far it's given my stuff a beautiful nose and a nice finish. Adding to that the air/oak aging of the rum and it's just so so smooth and rich.
Awesome man!!
Rum is where I would like to learn more. Love your rum videos my man!! Very informative on the yeast and bacteria strains as well! Keep it coming!!
Thanks my man. Yeah rum is fascinating for me too!
Love it!!! I've been playing with all sorts of microbes for the last 50+ years since I got my first microscope. If It can be fermented I've done it.... foods, wines and beers, lacto, aceto, various yeasts and molds such as aspergillus, penicillum, geotrichum, rhizopus, sachromyeces, and brett, and various wild stuff. I have kombucha going all the time as well as kefir. I even cultured botulinum once just out of sheer madness. Dunder should be my middle name ;-) Currently I'm getting ready to check out the results of an experiment so far off the beaten path that everybody seems to think I'm mad.....I won't describe it here ;-) Just completed my third still over that 50 year spell, this one my first reflux still. The last one I built for a friend who took it with him when he moved away.
Gin is high on my list of projects, and will be double distilled, once as a pure spirit run, and the next time with botanicals in the column. Rum was not high on my list, though I intended to try some....... This discussion of live dunder has inspired me to delve into it......Thanks!!
Note that I've achieved decent oaking using charred oak (or maple) slivers and modulating temperatures and pressures, getting raw spirits to develop more of a real whiskey character fairly rapidly.
Can you please elaborate a bit on the last notion of aging spirits?
@@danieldanielson2650 That’s a really old post…… What I was doing was very simple. I placed it in a stainless steel soda keg…The liquor and charred white oak slivers. Using Co2, I would pressure to 60 psi….. leave it for a few hours and suddenly rapidly blow off pressure. I tried using vacuum, but there was too much evaporation of the alcohol. I also heated the keg in hot water followed by crash cooling in snow…. which seemed to work quite well. If I were doing it commercially, I would build a stainless steel cylinder… like an air cylinder, place the whiskey, and oak inside allowing generous air space above. A hydraulic cylinder would cycle the ram periodically down for very high pressure, then back to negative pressure. I’d probably play with temp as well, though pressure creates heat. The goal is to move the alcohol in and out of the wood to draw out the sugars and caramel like flavors. This happens over years as temp changes in the cellars…. no reason why we can’t speed the process up
The closed caption for "brettanomyces" is "Britain oh my seas" Love it!
Jesse, if you taste burnt sugar it will be from using Black Strap molasses, which is derived from the 3rd and final boiling of sugar cane juice. During sugar production, as the water in sugar cane juice is boiled away, the molasses begins to scorch in the kettle, Black Strap is scorched/burned sugar cane juice. I suggest that next time you use non-sulfured molasses, or better still use reconstituted piloncillo, which has the highest sugar content. Brum
Really excited to see how this works out. You're a brave man for tasting the horse blanket funky stuff:-)>
Yeah I'm excited too. Will be interesting. I'll send you a sample of the stainless pot to taste mate ;)
I know this is an older video but I've watched a lot of your stuff and this is one of my favorites
My first few runs years back all tasted like you describe this one, kind of like air freshener or as my partner noted, sunscreen. It goes.... that particular flavour actually disappears as you do more and more rums. Im not sure how many runs you are through now, but if you go taste Puser's British Navy Rum (Blue Label) I promise you it will be the closest taste to what you are making, because Pusers is an old school recipe. All these "rums" we see in the shop now are almost liqueurs, like Kraken and the huge amount of spiced varieties now. Great job and thanks for the video.
Yeah dude I think your totally onto it here.
The flavor has morphed as this product ages (its still on oak). I had never really tasted a ester heavy rum before this. I had only had the sweet honey and molases rums. Dude, the more funky stuff grows on you. I WANT MORE!
@@StillIt Yeah the salty bitterness of the really cheap horse feed molasses is the flavour I love, its like that Dutch salty liquorice and I think what blows me away is how all these flavours come from such a simple wash. I had a mate who is really into his single malts call my rum obsession "one dimensional" recently and I said "how little you know".
Thanks jess - bumped into this recipe a few months back but never jumped into it - glad you ran this recipe and thx for all the work on the vids :)
Pleasure mate :)
A easier way to hold the screen in place is to use the "O" ring inside the lid as a big rubber band. Works great.
Ah nice idea! . . . . These lids don't have them. But will keep an eye out for some that do.
At time point 12:13 it is possible the cheese smell you are getting came in part from the aerotolerant anaerobe Clostridium perfringens (non toxin producing), commonly used in making a old time classic of Salt Bread. Salt bread starter has a funky cheese smell, similar to a aged hard cheese.
Love this video. I've used wild yeast in a sour mash before but never made a dunder pit. I am betting you will have some great success with this, eventually. And by that I mean that you may have a learning curve before you really hit your stride. This is complex.
Yeah...hahaha tell me about it mate. So many factors that I feel I have very little control over!
Nice work! Grab a bottle of foursquare rum, pretty much all of their releases are good, and quite affordable. They're a good rum to compare your creations to, as you've obviously never tasted quality rum ;) I'd suggest a Doorly's XO if you can find them in NZ. Keep on experimenting, I like your views on distilling
Thanks for the suggestion my man! I will keep an eye out for them!
I promise you won't be disappointed. When you open up to rum a bit more, I'll recommend some funky affordable Jamaican rums. I've got a tasting tonight on some of Foursquare's releases that I've heard will win the heart of any whisky guy.
Leuconostoc cremoris is a bacteria used for sauerkraut and sour cream fermentation for its buttery flavors. Might be something to look in to for a dunder bucket
Interesting. So I assume it makes a whole lot of diacetyl then? That would be cool as brett loves to clean that up too.
right on I feel ya I got some strawberry black berry wine ...two months old one sour one way sweet... sweet been out by the salty sea air...about ready to consume...
Aw man, thats going to be interesting for sure!
cool way to get wild yeast, real old school..yeast have been our buddys for a very long time,with out them and the others little friends no fun drinks with chezzz..
Indeed sir. 🥃
Yep! exactly right?!
For the live Dunder/ muck I would suggest various brettanomyces that are available from many different beer labs. Brett Trois Vrai (WLP648 - white labs) kicks out a load of pineapple aromas that I think would be very desirable. Also these wild Brett strains have no issue fermenting anything you throw at them to super high attenuation in combination with a saison or belgian yeast ( that would kick out banana and clove flavors). With these funky yeast you dont have to worry about food safety or mold either. Also the yeast at the bottom of lambic beer bottles is a great source of wild yeast that is cheap and available.
whoops, wrote this before he mentioned it
I'm still waiting to hear you say why is all the rum gone?! 😂😂😂😂🍻
Hmmmm I'll have to work on setting that up...
. . . . Of course you will have to act all impressed and surprised with my wit and humour when it happens
Please, do it.
@@StillIt In "And a Bottle of Rum", author Wayne Curtis references the gross but fairly well documented 18th century practice of adding the contents of a chamber pot to new rum fermentations. So there you go Still It, throw a turd in that dunder pit for that little extra something that you just can't get anywhere else.
I am also experimenting on extracting the yeast from the leaves of sugarcane. I'm hoping it works better with the molasses
Wow, that sounds super cool, I bet that yeast will do a great job. I homebrew lots of fruit wines and mead, and I want a still, but that could put me in prison for a decade here...
Just fabulous understanding, l am going to double my contribution, man I love you.
After watching through all your other videos, and going hey I wonder if he will use brett, finally my prayers have been answered. I suppose a dunder pit for beers would be like a coolship or repitching on yeast cake. Sadily here in France you can homebrew but you can't legally distill, you can pay a pro to distill your wash for you though so I might have a look into that. Cheers keep up the awesome videos.
When getting into breadmaking I know I read about the autolysis process breaking down your nice ball of dough (the glue that holds water+flower together) if you let the sourdough sit in there for too long (so basically not really giving you a nice rising bread). This is due to lacto taking over and breaking those bonds. Anyone that has played with sourdough knows what a nice funky-fruity-floral smell you can get from letting one sit for longer than needed for breadmaking. But that's for breadmaking, for brewing or distilling I say that that's a big big PLUS and definitely something I want to experiment with. But on a side note, you say you add some sugar and some malt.. Why not add bread? Old bread should have everything needed for a nice colony of whatever to form. I know people use it to make sour homemade milk by just letting a slice of bread float in milk overnight. Would probably test this too. It's been a while and I don't remember how that milk smelled.
Hi mate, love all the videos you make. I've just sent the Mrs out to pick up 30L of molasses for me today to get started on my rum adventures. Just wondering if you or anyone you know of has deliberately infected a rum wash? Like a kettle sour or something along those lines?? Cheers mate keep up the good work.
I have not. But I have pondered using a lacto/Bret pitch in the next one I do after primary fermentation has finished.
Thanks for the swift reply mate. Definitely won't be giving it a go for my first batch, just a shower thought more than anything. Picked up a beautiful 2" modular reflux/pot from a bloke on an Aussie page and am dying to fire it up.
Awesome! Sounds like a score to me. Happy craft chasing.
I need to come over to taste test it ;) I can't believe on UA-cam with you now! :D
Yeeeeeooooowwwwww! Your live man!
For everyone elses benifit:
Javi just went live with his first video on YT. He is going to be showing off NZ's awesome landscapes in a vlog/photog cross over type channel. Pretty cool stuff :)
Thanks bro!
I do also reuse the leftovers (dunder?) from my previous distillation batches and keep track of it. You have to make sure the mix is around 40 dunder and 60 percent fresh water. Otherwise, the yeast will take forever to kickoff or not start at all since it does not have enough oxygen. Flavor is even more sweeter and with roasted nuts notes. Some higher volume distillers storage it for months before the dunder is reused again.
Hey Jesse, great channel, its helped immensely in my distilling journey. Just wondering how your dunder pit is doing, as I'm just starting one here in lock-down Auckland! Cheers fella
When you did your you jssm did you add more Alpha amylase or six row to your mash
Ujssm is a sugar wash flavoured with corn. So there is no starch to sugar conversion going on :).
Still It ahhh got it
I just started my own dunder bucket. leaving it outdoors uncovered. I threw in potato peels, tomato, sugar Caine leaves and a piece of stalk. not sure if I wish to put in dead animals. LOL
Next episode: he buys some rum and tastes it to make sure he’s actually made rum
Hahahaha ! That's a good one. Thanks for the laff !
I have home made saurkraut full of natural lacto. How much would a little salt hurt the mix?
I have a keg distill. Sometimes it takes forever to make a run. Do you know if you shut it down then continue the next day mess everything up? Thanks
Nope can do man. Just may have to take heads off again.
Hello guys. Really interesting videos! Would mold ontop of the dunder be a problem? Could it produce poisonous ingrediens? My experimental dunderpit is very moldy.
Could you use a lambic blend? It has some bugs in it
well this is a great use for some of my sour dough starter
I'm rather new to distilling but have done a few blackstrap rum washes and was thoroughly disappointed each time. If I'm going to spend $$ on molasses,I'd like for it to taste like rum,but all I taste is flavorless ethanol
Awesome work dude!!
Thanks Hayden 🥃
All good Jesse. Keep up the funk!!
owwwwwwwww we want the funk! Give us the funk!
How did you get the color into the clear spirit you tasted at the end? Did you add some fresh "Dunder" from the boiler ? I think you said that but it got a bit confusing.
Hey Jesse. I kept about 20L of dunder from my first blackstrap rum run (was what was left over in the still after the run) and has been open to the air for about a month now but doesn't seem to be changing at all (no funk or odd smell). Should I be adding sugar to it or some probiotics to it?
Coke, rum and a twist of lime was called a cubalibrae, that was my drink when young but coke had to change so it was bear for a long time till now, I hope Im not telling my age. Most bartenders dont know that drink now.
would you attempt a Woods Navy style Rum?
Would love to!
Will probably work my way through a few other styles of spirits first. But definitely keen to try at some time :)
Have you ever open-fermented anything you were planning on distilling?
Most of what I ferment is partually open. Its not under a airlock, just a loose fitting cover (definitly not air tight haha).
I would have probably done a commercial strain of brett and lacto that is known to produce tropical esters for a rum. Things like pineapple and mango and passionfruit (those strains exist ;) ) And personally I'd have capped the bucket and thrown an airlock on it and set it in a corner. The reason being is I've had issues with fungus gnats infecting my brews. On first glance I would have expected an acetobacter vinegar producing infection but instead I got a bacterial infection that threw a bunch of isobuteric acid (baby vomit) It smells and tastes like the buteric acid which is absolutely undesirable. Just random thinking though.
What percentage of dunder from the pit would you use on a fermentation?
The first time I went to fiji and tried fiji rum, that was the opening of my rum door. I don't think fiji rum is held that highly but I do go back to it often just for shits and gigs.
Interesting man. I have not heard anything about it.
Jason Burke i agree i am not much of a rum drinker but i do like to drink bounty rum from Fiji.
Bounty is awesome but Unobtanium in NZ apparently owned by coke amital now. It's 58% Abv so not for the faint hearted.
Would it be fine if i made a dunder pit by just adding backset from the first run through the still, then just cover it with cheese cloth?
This is how REAL pure corn whiskey is done...at least in my family. Corn, malted corn, and water. That's it. No sugar. No yeast. It just sat outside in a barrel with a piece of tin roof covering it to keep critters out. Whatever wild business out there would just get in and do the deal. Not controllable, exactly, but a lot of the traditional process isn't controllable. I guess that's why each run had it's own name and dates on the jugs, just like they do with fine, French wine.
Yep, agreed. This is a easy beginners method to "sour mash".
For sure, what could be simpler? My great-uncle had the same mash for almost 10 years before his 2nd wife put an end to his evil ways. A minute to learn, a lifetime to master.
Appleton estate is the best rum in the world give it a try sometime
Just starting down the dundery road ! I’m wondering,, could you add actual pro-biotic tablets ??
Do you come from a land down dunder?
You should have named this episode Dirty Deeds and the Dunder Chief. Your welcome, you will never hear that song the right way again.
Dude! When I was a kid and didnt really understand the song I thought it was "dirty deeds and the dunder chee" I was always wondering what the hell that meant. Untill someone had a good laugh at my expense at put me right hhaahahaha
@@StillIt Dirty deeds done with sheep.... Bah! :) Try a decent rum Appletons or Mount Gay.. I am not a fan of Bundaberg but I like the Carribean style dark rums.....
@@pgprentice appletons or ten cane definitely. I'm stuck on kraken as my go to black rum. I've heard good things about a rum distilled in the Guatemala
@@Hix1388 Try Ron Zacapa 23 - it is amazing - ua-cam.com/video/i9K-pDTW-OE/v-deo.html
LOL Dirty Deeds done with sheep! It is a Kiwi kinda thing... :D
Okay did I miss something here. If you haven't put any wood in it yet where did the color come from.
He used a little backset
Yep, that's the backset/fresh dunder.
Didn't know it was added directly to the drinkable product. Thought it was only added to the next wash
That is what a lot of people do. Bob uses it this way in his recipe. To my taste it definitly added something to it. More specificly it brought back a lot of the good charactoristics of the molassess itself.
thought the same
Do not mock the herby liquors of which jagermeister is the mass-consumer version of. Many of us like them :D and it would be a challenge of itself to brew and distill and spice one. Honestly not sure where to start on that one :D
Dunder from down under!
You know it 😉
I do hope you have a future!
There's a very foremost fermenter in the US that makes is dunder pit basically the same as you did but he throws and rotten fruit and a cheese culture. He found a way to do it without goat heads and dead bats
For almost 10 years, due to a mishearing of a conversation, I thought that a dunder pit was similar to a longdrop shitter, dunny or honeybucket. I misheard it as "thunder pit" and assumed people were putting decomposed sewage (similar to the way natural fertilizer is made) into their rum to add flavour. It wasn't helped by the fact that I knew that molasses residue from rum production is used as a fertilizer, which in my mind would offset the lost human-derived fertilizer.
So, no rum for me for the first decades of my life.
Then along came the internet - I felt so bloody stupid :)
Your video doesn't address the biggest confusion about dunder. Does it come from the fermented dregs or the boiled dregs after the pot has taken out all of the alcohol? I am of the opinion that it must not be exposed to heat, and it is like sourdough starter or sour mash...
So how the hell did you get that colour spirit? Its not in your previous, its not in this and everything your collecting is clear.
He says, at about the 1.25 mark, that he added some of the backset (AKA Dunder - not to be confused with live dunder). That will be where the colour came from.
Try Zacapa, you'll never go back to anything else and then you'll try to emulate it.
Embrace the funk! Cheese bacteria is a good one to use. Apparently ethyl butyrate (the "baby spew" ester - i imagine you are quite familiar with it thanks to the twins) is an awesome one to have. It reeks in the dunder, but comes through the other side of the wash ferment as pineapples. A lot of the horrid, rotten, disgusting smells end up awesome after the yeast finishes with them in the ferment.
Yes! I had heard other people sugest the same thing. I had a quick look around for live culter and didnt find anything easy to get to. So I went ahead like this. I am sure in the future I will either split that batch of start another.
Still It my microbiologist friend just informed me that a lot of the "changing gross to yum" reactions happen in the column. Particularly with clostridium by products. Requires copper contact and i think a bit of reflux. All of us at the lhbs are losing our minds over dunder right now, will be watching very closely!
Awesome man! I have seen reference to "estrification" through reflux. Perhaps the same thing?! I have an idea in mind to test this actually. But I will need to get a bunch of half decent rum and dunder first haha.
I think that's what she was getting at. She's operating about 800 levels above me with that science stuff.
Pretty cool you have someone like that to talk to about this stuff dude!
After distilling, do you top off the live dunder pits with the sterile dunder from the boiler? (Once cooled of course)
Thats the plan yep :)
Good luck with the live dunder I can't wait to see how it turns out!
How can I get your address? I'd like to send you some bourbon barrel staves I picked up in kentucky if you're interested
Alcohol tolerant penicillin in the making haha. I still say your barmy, please don't change. :D
Heeeeeehahahahahaahooooooohoho.
. . B. . Like my mad laugh?
People pleasing never ends well mate, be yourself, as in real and the channel will grow naturally. :D
heh,
Yeah good advice dude.
@@StillIt I like that you get tongue twisted every couple vids and have a lil laugh with us. Like Tricky said. 👍
I know how it works with multiple strains of yeast but adding the brett in there could go either way. When you mix yeast strains and reuse the cake for many generations around about generation 6 you will start to notice one yeast pulling ahead in the flavor profile (in my experience it's been the Belgian strains) Around about generation 10 it's almost entirely a single flavor profile that doesn't change much after that. IMO it was actually around generations 3-5 that you get the most interesting and complex flavors. If you ever find yourself in San Diego for a few months you can drop in on this annual experiment whitelabs.com/frankenstout (even just one trip to their tasting room will open your eyes to the wonderful and varied world of yeast). My unscientific guess is that the brett will take over in a matter of a few months.
Thats a super good point my man. A lot of the conversations I have followed talk about the ballance and how to find it etc.
At least in this case the belgian yeast dosnt really have a chance. There is none of the wash in here. But I guess it could have jumped in via something uncleaned etc etc.
It will definitly be interesting to see! I had wondered about it as well, especially seeing as this is rather different to multiple generations of beer in some ways. But also very similar in others.
Its esentually just one long fermentation, not really generations. The mostly more complex sugars will also favour the brett I guess. But perhaps thats why people feed it fresh fruit etc. Mab that helps the Sac / Pedio / Lacto etc have a chance???
I will also start splitting this at some stage. That may prove to be very interesting!
I know Hampden in Jamaica have an insane long ferment time. Three months has been mentioned. My guess is that the primary ferment finishes fairly quickly in the Carribean, and then they leave it for the Brett and bacteria to do their thing. Their unaged stuff is full on funky, but I heard recently they'll start releasing some aged stuff soon. I just bought a load of molasses to get my first rum ferment going!
So I guess this is where the term "dunder head" came from? I can see it being the polite way to say "s**thead"...but meaning the same thing basically.
No goat heads??? WTF
Try not doing the dunder. Use a straight came sugar wash and don't sour it.
Translation required: - What is a Tiki Drink?
I guess if you really want to learn about dunder a trip to Jamaica would be in order. Jamaican rum is superior to any of the other stuff.
Ahhhh that would be amazing! One day perhaps 🤔
Norbury . . . .. hahaha . . . .just hahahah!
If cannabis is legal where you are why not a infused liquors made whit that or if you can make a ki d of booze whit weed for base
ive either missed the episode but would be good to see this being dragged out and used.
Rum is not my favorite but its will get you drunk!
Hahaha sooo, you approve, but only just!?
KUMBUCHA
I got tea puerh .......use a live bottle from farmers market and health food. Use that keep it serial add bottle drink that too .kumbucha
Dunder.... A.. aahhhh... aahhhh... aahhhh... ahhhh... Dunder...
ua-cam.com/video/e4Ao-iNPPUc/v-deo.html
Had to do it Jessie.. ;)
Dunder struck 🤘
Ad some chilli into your rum
The wealthy onion findingsinitially occur because japanese connoly lighten aside a silly feedback. ablaze, special spandex