• Equipment

  Procedure for Operating a Caribbean-Style Double Retort (Thumper) Rum Still

  Posted by revival rum on June 19, 2021 at 8:32 am

  I am currently exploring the use of one of these stills. I am finding it very hard to get information on how commercial distilleries operate them. I am hoping that someone on here can advise me?

  The main problem is what are they using in each retort and what would happen to the remaining liquid in the retorts after a run. I would be prepared to run virtually all the alcohol out of the system.

  I hope that I make sense?

  revival rum replied 3 years, 6 months ago 5 Members · 8 Replies
• 8 Replies

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  tuftedturtle

  Member

  July 6, 2021 at 3:18 am

  Thumpers are an interesting piece of equipment.  In my experimentation, I’ve used thumpers quite a bit and still use them from time to time in small batches.

  There is no good, “Here is exactly how you use them” answer.  I suppose I can answer the second part of your question.  The remaining liquid in the thumpers is waste.  Thumpers are a bit tricky to use if you don’t have experience with them.  You should be able to find out how Jamaican distilleries use them if you do a bit of searching.In the end, how well the Thumpers effect your product will largely be based on your skill.  I’d recommend getting a small set and experimenting with them before buying large scale equipment. 

  Turtle

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  revival rum

  Member

  July 6, 2021 at 4:49 am

  I am definitely planning to acquire a small set as you quite rightly suggest.

  I have seen some literature that says high and low wines are 2 cuts into the tails and some suggesting high wines are heads and low wines are tails. Are you able to answer that one for me?

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  silk city distillers

  Member

  July 6, 2021 at 4:55 pm

  High and low wines refer to tails cuts in this application, not heads.

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  revival rum

  Member

  July 6, 2021 at 5:08 pm

  What is the procedure with heads in this system?

   

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  mountain brewer

  Member

  July 7, 2021 at 4:09 pm

  We run a double retort system for our rum. We do a 50/50 molasses / sugar in the raw, and run it through a 150 gal still into 2x 40 gal retorts.

  My method is rum beer at approximately 10-12% abv goes into the 150 gal as a prime. We also include the lees to assist in a higher flavor rum. We then take the late tails and prime the 1st retort with those. The late tails have all the “rum oils” and thus deep flavor in them. Do a litter bit of experimenting of when this late tails cut is made. We end up with 2 different tails cuts, an early tails that we don’t want in the finally product, and another late tails for the purpose of priming the 1st retort. We then prime the 2nd retort with the heads from the previous run. This high abv from the heads will help produce esterification. We also add in a citric or malic acid to reduce the PH of the 2nd retort thus even more assisting with esterification. When the parrot begins to spit, we do a generous heads cut for the purpose of priming the next retort, but also the majority of the esters are in these heads. Up to 90% of the esters. This creates an interesting flavor profile and a difficult or unique cut into the final product. Too much heads and your rum will be “hot” not enough heads and then you are loosing a lot of those esters. It is also difficult for us to maintain enough heads to prime retort 2 for fallow on runs, and thus creates and interesting game of where to make your cuts for both the retort prime and final spirit.   

  This process took me about 9 months to perfect, but was very rewarding as we just got a double gold for our unaged white rum at SFWSC. Most distilleries will barrel age their “white rum” and then filter out the color. This barrel aging (reacting with oxygen) will assist in breaking down long chain and medium chain esters into short more flavorful sweet esters. We have rum aging on oak now that really is popping with flavor, but we will not filter out the color and keep that as our aged rum. 

  If anyone has anything to add to this, I’m always open for more information from the vast knowledge on here, but this should help and save you a good bit of time. 

  Are you adding dunder to your rum? This helps with a bold flavor rum, but also I recommend barreling any product that was dundered to give the spirit its time to shine. 

  Also the double retort system is a very fun still and has room for a lot of creativity with gins, and other unique products. It is my favorite still set up that we have. 

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  revival rum

  Member

  July 7, 2021 at 4:17 pm

  Thank you Mountain Brewer your post is very helpful. Just what I needed.

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  brewstilla

  Member

  July 8, 2021 at 2:22 pm

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi5WzVGBkuw

  Interesting watch with some info regarding what you are interested in 

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  revival rum

  Member

  July 8, 2021 at 2:58 pm

  Thank you Brewstilla, that link just gave me a very enjoyable and informative half an hour.

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