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John Dore’s Double Pot Still Response.
Hello.I am a fan of distillation and I am a fan of rum.I want to make high ester rum in the Jamaican style.I have made a small copy of John Dore two retorts Pot Still.But I have not the authentic information about the technology of working with such equipment.How many heads, tails,spirit % ABV and so on ? I need your help with this information.Thanks.
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29 Replies
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Can’t say I’ve heard of John Dore Rum Do you have any clues , links ? A few here have double retort ( Thumpers) but the specifics of what goes where is very generalised and open to a lot of interpretation. I am quite interested in the process but still finding it hard to pin down anything more than generic info .My recommended goto .wiki/index.ph … ion_Theory
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https://rumdiariesblog.wordpress.com/ta … pot-still/Trample the injured and hurdle the dead.
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Good article. Thanks for posting.
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Sorry, that search result only mentions Dore.But here is how most connect the dots:”Coffey’s only memorials are the impressive copper columns to be found in many a distillery around the world today. Even his business was sold shortly after his death in 1852, to John Dore & Co of Bow.”John Dore & Co being the oldest distillery/engineering firm evidently.Trample the injured and hurdle the dead.
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You can make anything from a light rum to a high ester rum suitable for blending or flavoring cakes and icecream etc., up to you. Nobody is going to spoon feed you everything as the subject is far too large.
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Search here on HD, stilldragon and ADI forums for anything mentioning high ester, carboxylic acid, and double retort. Google Fischers Esterification, and learn how esters are formed, like the building blocks of how and why.Then go over to Boston Apothecary and read everything by Arroyo.Here’s the Cousins process: https://www.bostonapothecary.com/confid … sins-1906/Let me warn you, this is a rabbit hole unlike any you’ve ever seen.Like, I didn’t sleep for like a year whille trying to unravel the intricacies of high ester rum. Like I have read all these these threads a dozen times over and when you get done reread them because your understanding will be totally different. This may be easier for you than it was for me if you hold a degree in chemistryGood luck man, let us know if you have questions.There are two types of people in this world.1. Those that can extrapolate from incomplete information.
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It is John Dore constructed two retorts Pot Still. And it is my Pot Still.I think if we want to make something authentic we must have authentic equipment too. I understand that this is a very difficult task to make something authentic.But I want to know only basic information how to work on this equipment. 1. is it one or two distillations ?2. if it is one distillation,how many heads and tails ?3. spirit % ABV ?To begin with, I only need the technical parameters.Thanks.
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Each distillation uses the byproducts from the previous distillation and provides some of the ingredients for the next distillation, plus there is dunder, muck, skimmings, trash pits and lime salts to deal with, or not, depending on what you want to make.Start by deciding what you want to make, then reverse engineer it to find out what you have to do and make to get there.
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At this stage, the task is very simple.I want to make rum spirit with my equipment.Now I have a rum wash and dunder.what are my next steps ? Should I do one distillation or two ? Which option is authentic ? The number one task is to know one distillation or two.
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After the first run, each ferment should provide a heart cut. You shouldn’t need us to tell you that.
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Sorry,English is not my native language.I can’t understand you correctly. Is one distillation acceptable?
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It feels like you’re approaching this from the wrong direction and stubbornly ignoring the advice you’ve been given. You’re asking for a recipe for your equipment. But that makes no sense. If I went to a cooking forum and said “I’ve got a 30cm stainless saucepan with a steaming rack. Give me a recipe for making a meal with it.” it would be understandable if the responses were a little blunt.If you know that you need a double retort still then you should already have a recipe that requires one. That you don’t suggests that you don’t understand the process you’re trying to copy. Or even know which process you’re trying to copy.Rum is a deep and fascinating rabbit hole that I keep working hard to stay out of. But before you go diving down it you should perhaps make some simpler runs with a normal double distillation protocol to get a better understanding of what you are doing and aiming for. Between live dunder, boiled dunder, fer.ent tenperatures, high and low wines, target abv for stripping, feints from previous runs, simple acid additions, ester salt formation, bacterial propagation… there’s a lot of parameters. And I’ve not even tried to make anything more complex than Bucanneer Bob’s rum!”I have a potstill that smears like a fresh plowed coon on the highway” – JimboA little spoon feeding *For New & Novice Distillers
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Yes, you understood me correctly.I am trying to find authentic information on working with this equipment. especially in Jamaica.I have a column still also.I am making 2 and 3 distillations.I am making a lot of experiments with wash,wild yeast,dunder.But I am making experiments with the equipmentalso.I am conducting all these experiments in parallel.I know that many distilleries have several types of equipment,and because of this, they have different alcohol profiles.I know that Diplomatico Distillery has also two retorts Pot Still,and thay make two distillation.Thay use 56% low wine for second distillation with this type of Pot.But I can’t find the information about Jamaican distilleries like Hampden,Monymusk. And today I have one question and it concerns the distillation process at these distilleries with such equipment.
- Attachments
- Wild yeast from pineapples works
- Dunder
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This link seems to have some information about the Monymusk rums. Bear in mind that the method will not be the same for each of the marks. Presumably similar details exist for Hampden (which also produces a range of rums) and Diplomatico. Unless you know which rum you are trying to replicate, you won’t be able to get an answer as to how to use your still (which is very pretty by the way). It’s unlikely that the the process is the same even for one mark from one distillery, let alone between the three that you cited.”I have a potstill that smears like a fresh plowed coon on the highway” – JimboA little spoon feeding *For New & Novice Distillers
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I have no task to make an exact copy of rum from Hampden or Diplomatico.But my task is to learn how to work on such equipment like in Hampden or Long Pond.I understand that my rum will be different.But if I learn to use authentic distillation technology, it will be a great success in my experiments.Ok,Thanks.
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The article I posted above is loaded with pointers. So anything written by Richard Steele is worth following. Richard has a very high regard for Maggie Campbell (also mentioned). So she is also someone to research. Rum can be like a riddle with many answers. It is very difficult to explain because the more one learns the more one realizes how much more there is to learn. Rum is definitely a rabbit hole.What part of the world are you located?Trample the injured and hurdle the dead.
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And in my case, an expensive one. Despite the colonial history and existing rum producing islands that are considered a part of France (They use the euro in Guadeloupe), molasses are non trivial to source and expensive in anything less than industrial quantities. I can get a good price per litre but I have to buy 500 litres in an IBC… and that’s a lot of rum!”I have a potstill that smears like a fresh plowed coon on the highway” – JimboA little spoon feeding *For New & Novice Distillers
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“It feels like you’re approaching this from the wrong direction and stubbornly ignoring the advice you’ve been given. You’re asking for a recipe for your equipment. But that makes no sense. If I went to a cooking forum and said “I’ve got a 30cm stainless saucepan with a steaming rack. Give me a recipe for making a meal with it.” it would be understandable if the responses were a little blunt.”He is looking for volumes/ratios with which to charge the retorts with is what in sounds like to me?Trample the injured and hurdle the dead.
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Exactly Larry … the recipe book isn’t there . That is what I was refering to My recommended goto .wiki/index.ph … ion_Theory
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Exactly Larry … the recipe book isn’t there . That is what I was refering to Yessir. Confirmed. The answer is,,,, it depends lol.Trample the injured and hurdle the dead.
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A double retort is a single pass run with multiple distillations like a column with bubble plates, but its debatable is that’s 2 full extra distillations. I think most people would agree that a retort is approximately 50% as efficient as an initial distillation, so would you count the boiler as 1 and the 2 retorts as .5 each for a total of 2… I dunno. This is further muddied by the fact the the retorts are charged with feints from other parts of previous runs (According to the 1905 sugar plantation report the first retort is charged with low tails, and the second retort has high tail). So you have a higher abv enriching your vapor but it’s also loaded with congeners that are in lower parts of a run. It’s not as simple as giving you a recipe… this shit is complicated and hard to explain without a full understanding of all the intricacies involved. Again further convoluted but the fact there there is only bits and pieces of information given out over hundreds of years of rum history.There are two types of people in this world.1. Those that can extrapolate from incomplete information.
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1. That’s debatable, for the the ease of simplicity there are 3 distillation stages.2. This is going to be determined by so many variables I can’t even give you a good guess3. If you start with a 5-6% rum beer which would be historically accurate, and charge the first retort with low tails, and second retort with high tails your final abv will be around 80-90% but again that’s going to depend on a lot of other variables.There are two types of people in this world.1. Those that can extrapolate from incomplete information.
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Thanks for the article.I’ve already read it.But all these guys from distilleries are very tricky ones.They don’t say anything specific about the process.I’ve only seen one video from Diplomatico distillery in which they talked about the specifics of distillation with specific parameters.I am from Russia.
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Thank you, that’s what I wanted to hear.This is a single distillation process.I had some doubts about that, but now I’m completely sure.It remains to understand the subtleties of the process, the heads, the heart and the tails.
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Maybe it’s just a translation thing, but no, it’s not a single distillation process. It’s a single pass with multiple distillations.There are two types of people in this world.1. Those that can extrapolate from incomplete information.
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There is no ‘authentic’ way to run it. It’s a multipurpose tool that can be used in a variety of ways. You have to decide what you want to make with each run, then find out what to charge each retort with to accomplish it.
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Maybe it’s just a translation thing, but no, it’s not a single distillation process. It’s a single pass with multiple distillations.We call this type of distillation MSD (many steps distillation ). But the whole distillation process is a single one.We do not prepare low wine for the second distillation separately.But Diplomatico distillery makes double distillation using low wine 56% ABV from column still. Therefore, I had doubts about the distillation process in Jamaica. Is it one or two distillations?
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Generally speaking, you put wash in the main boiler, charge the retorts with whatever you need to make what you want, then run it and choose your heart cut and heads and tails cuts etc. from what comes out of the spout.
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I see what you’re saying and I think we’re talking the same thing. So by your MSD definition, a single pass through a double retort would be one.There are two types of people in this world.1. Those that can extrapolate from incomplete information.
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