Buccaneer Bob's silver, gold and black rum

About this recipe

Buccaneer Bob wrote this recipe for home distillers who want a rum with real character from simple equipment: a 20-litre bucket and a pot still. It has become one of the best-known rums in the hobby, and he released it freely for anyone to share, print and publish.

Three ideas give it its depth. The molasses wash is clarified before fermentation, so less molasses gum reaches the still. Live dunder - the spent liquid from earlier runs, left to mature - brings the wild microbes and esters that give rum its funk. And the hearts can be finished three ways: lightly oaked as a silver rum, or blended with Bob's dark rum essence for a gold or black rum. Because the spirit run takes a generous heads cut, none of them needs long ageing.

Original recipe discussion ↗

Ingredients and calculator

Fresh baker's yeast, fed by the boiled yeast from the previous batch. Fermenting the molasses first and adding the sugar later keeps the yeast comfortable on the way to about 14%.

Method

1. Molasses first. Pour the molasses into a clean fermenter of about 20 L and cover it for now.
2. Boil the dunder and trub. In a large pot, bring the dunder, the yeast trub and 1–3 L of water to the boil, stirring now and then to control the foam and stop it sticking.
3. Dissolve the molasses. Pour the boiling mixture onto the molasses and stir until it dissolves. Add water to bring the fermenter to about three-quarters full, then stir in the lemon or lime juice.
4. Settle - for two hours exactly. Leave it for 2 hours, no more and no less, for the sediment to drop.
5. Rack off the clear wash. Siphon the clarified wash into a second clean fermenter, leaving the last 2–3 cm of sediment behind. Top it back up to three-quarters full if needed.
6. Pitch the yeast. Once the wash is below 35 °C, take out about 500 mL, shake it with the yeast in a lidded jar until dissolved, and stir it back in, working in as much air as you can.
7. Ferment the molasses. Cover the fermenter so the aromas stay in and insects stay out, but loosely enough to let carbon dioxide escape. Keep it somewhere cool for 2–3 days, until the foam starts to fade.
8. Feed the sugar. Stir gently to release the carbon dioxide (watch for foaming), then add the sugar slowly, stirring until no grit remains on the bottom. Top up with water to about 3 cm from the rim, cover again and let it continue.
9. Let it finish. At about 20 °C, fermentation is done and the yeast settled 10–15 days from the start. Siphon the wash into the still, and keep the spent yeast for the next batch.

Fermentation

A healthy rum ferment keeps a light foam on its surface. Check it closely in the first day or two:

• No activity at all usually means the yeast was pitched too hot. A few tablespoons of fresh yeast will get it going.
• A thick, pasty foam means bacteria are taking over. The juice of another lemon or lime makes the wash acidic enough for the yeast to win back control.

Blackstrap molasses varies widely in sugar. With a rich molasses, 2 kg of sugar may reach about 14%; with a poorer one, 3 kg may be needed. If the wash finishes sweet, or the gravity stays high, use a little less next time; if you get less spirit than the calculator expects, a little more. Keep the wash covered throughout: rum's esters are volatile and easily lost.

Dunder is at its best 10–21 days after it leaves the still, when wild microbes are making the most useful esters. After that, mould forms on the surface: stir the pit regularly, or siphon from beneath the mould. Bob's preferred approach is two dunder buckets, staggered, so one is always coming into its prime.

Yeast trub keeps well in a jar with a loose lid. A few days somewhere warm (30–50 °C) lets the yeast break down into a richer nutrient; boil it before use.

Distilling

The stripping run

Strip the wash in a pot still with a boiler of 30 L or more, letting the distillate drip through a piece of cotton cloth pressed into the mouth of the jar as a funnel; it catches molasses gums. Collect it in jars of 1 L, and check each jar in sunlight for fusel oils floating on the surface - skim them off with a spoon, or wick them away with a paper towel. Keep collecting until it no longer tastes of alcohol: about 5 L of low wines at around 55%. Put 250 mL of the hot dunder from the still into a tall bottle and cap it, for the dark rum essence; the rest can go into the dunder pit.

The spirit run

Charge the still with the low wines, any tails from the last spirit run and 5 L of water. The water matters: it holds back some of the heavy rum oils that give a stripped spirit its peculiar twang. Run through a clean cloth again, collecting in five jars of about 1 L each:

• Jar 1 - run slowly, 2–4 drops a second, so that it takes about 1 hour. These are the foreshots and heads: keep them for cleaning or fuel, never for drinking.
• Jars 2–4 - turn the heat up to a thin stream. These are the hearts. Check each in sunlight for fusel oils, and taste the end of jar 4: if it stops tasting of alcohol, stop the run there.
• Jar 5 - collect until the flow slows and the taste of alcohol fades. These are the tails; add them to the next spirit run.

Rinse the still thoroughly after every run - fusel oils and molasses gums build up in the head and condenser. Two or three strips can be combined into one spirit run once you have the process well in hand. See also making the cuts.

Fermenting a wash is legal in many places; distilling it often is not. Distil only where it is legal to do so, and check your local licensing first.

Silver, gold or black

Silver rum

Drop the wood into the jar of hearts. For a light rum, a few days is enough to round off the fresh spirit; taste often, and take the wood out once it has given enough flavour and colour. Dilute to drinking strength, filter or rack if needed, and bottle.

Gold and black rum

1. Make the dark rum essence. Pour 250 mL of hearts into the bottle of dunder saved from the stripping run. Leave it for a week or two for the solids to settle, then siphon or decant the clearer essence into a clean bottle. At about 25% ABV it keeps indefinitely, and it clears further with each decanting - so keep a bottle or two on hand.
2. Oak the hearts while the essence settles, as for the silver rum, then dilute to drinking strength.
3. Blend. Add 30 mL of essence per litre of diluted rum for a medium-bodied gold rum, or 60 mL for a robust black rum.
4. Settle and rack. The blend starts cloudy. Leave it a week to settle - it stays dark, but turns crystal clear - then rack it off the sediment and leave it another week. Rack again if more sediment drops, then bottle. Anything left with the sediment can go into a later stripping run.

Troubleshooting

The ferment never started.

The yeast was probably pitched while the wash was still too hot. Check it is below 35 °C and pitch a few tablespoons of fresh yeast.

A thick, pasty foam on the wash.

Bacteria are winning. Add the juice of another lemon or lime to raise the acidity and let the yeast take over again.

Specks or an off-flavour in the rum.

Molasses gums and fusel oils. Clarify the wash carefully, use a fresh cloth for every jar if it darkens, skim any oils, and rinse the still head and condenser well after each run.

The spirit has a harsh “twang”.

Too many heavy rum oils. Make sure the spirit run is diluted with the full 5 L of water.

Less spirit than expected.

The molasses was low in sugar. Add a little more sugar next time; if the wash finishes sweet, use a little less.

Variations

• Other woods. Oak is classic, but apple and pecan give their own character to the finish.
• Bigger batches. Combine the low wines of two or three washes into one spirit run, scaling the dilution water to match.
• A smaller still works too: halve the recipe, or split the batch into several runs.
• Other molasses rums. For an all-molasses rum, see SBB's all-molasses rum; for a heavy, oily one, Pugi's rum.

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