Sugar - let's settle it for ourselves

sleepy · Post by **sleepy** » Sun Mar 02, 2014 12:02 am

We've been babbling on for a long time about sugar (added or otherwise) in rum. Given the increased popularity of home brewing, syrup production, etc., the market is flooded with cheap refractometers, which measure the % sugar (Brix index) in a drop (!) of liquid, based on its refractive index.

A typical basic refractometer sells on Amazon for $25-30 - lower-end lab-grade models are <$100. For our purposes, I think the basic models would be fine.

I propose the following: I am willing to provide the tester's choice of basic refractometer to someone (Jimbo) with an extensive rum collection (Jimbo), some availability of time (Jimbo - and it might quiet the rants for a week or so), a technical mind (Jimbo), and the desire to bring this kind of information forward (Jimbo). So, if anyone (Jimbo) would like to volunteer to run samples, he/she would forevermore be acknowledged as Capn (Jimbo), chemist extraordinaire!

Volunteers (Jimbo)?

In all seriousness, this is something that I wouldn't mind doing, but I just keep very few rums. If Jimbo, who has a full plate helping Sue (and snook season opening), is unable to take this on, we could institute a community traveling tester. Test what you have, then send the beast to the next sucker. As a statistician, I love it - multiple measurements on common rums!

My money is on Pussers as the sweetest of our highly rated rums - hmm, maybe just after Gran Matusalem.

Dai · Post by **Dai** » Sun Mar 02, 2014 4:03 am

I've never heard of this device before. Curios as to how accurate it would be for rum.

Post by **Capn Jimbo** » Sun Mar 02, 2014 7:41 am

Yet another brilliant suggestion from the gang...

I don't know what it is about the The Project, but I continue to be impressed with the intelligence and quality of our great posters, moi excluded of course.

I believe the focus on sugar - though a bit narrow - has great impact as it is likely the most common adulterant and the poster additive for the whole issue of impurity of product. As more and more people become aware of this issue - and they are! - this may well prove to be the crystal that broke the glass camel's back...

Post by **Capn Jimbo** » Sun Mar 02, 2014 10:32 am

Plant a seed and a mighty oak will grow (pun intended)...

What we have here, moi thinks, is a truly great suggestion. I'm happy to comply and will immediately purchase a meter as soon as we can all agree on the methodology. The idea that a group of talented people - together - go forward with this and test rums and publish our results.

Let's grind this out. At Amazon, the description of a $25 meter was...

* Great for the testing the amount of sugars and dissolved solids in Fruits, Vegetables and Grasses

* Used in wine and Beer making to get just the right concentration of sugars

* Built-in automatic temperature Compensation system from 0 to 30 degrees C

* Gives accurate readings with as little as 2 drops of solution per test

* Brix (sugar) range of 0 to 32 brix

This seems more than doable, and the overall impact on changing things will be substantial. At least the monkeys will no longer be able to hide behind the "...it's all good if it tastes good" chatter. My only concern is that the meter will also measure other "dissolved solids" and we will be left to distinguish sugar from others. The solution (pun intended) may be - in Rum Project fashion - to set forth the usual "reference standards" for absolutely sugar or additive free rums.

My first impulse is to use say a Doorly's White for the uh, whites, the gold for gold and perhaps Seales Ten for aged rums. We know that BS rum is sugar free, but we don't know what else might be in there, and this is a BIG question.

Thoughts?

Post by **Capn Jimbo** » Sun Mar 02, 2014 5:49 pm

Hold up there rough riders!

Received an unsolicited email from a well-known distiller who has raised some important points about how or why a refractometer MAY not work quite as expected, but this is NOT final. In the meanwhile, do take a moment to familiarize yourself with the use of this instrument in winemaking (to determine sugar/Brix)...

http://www.grapestompers.com/refractometer_use.aspx

This method is also used for determining sugar/brix in beer. A few more considerations:

1. Although all meters will show "Brix", aka Pluto aka Balling (all refer to sugar weight), not all show specific gravity as well. Some meter DO show both.

2. There is a "Rule of Four" that is accurate for lower sugar levels, namely multiply Brix x 4 = rough SG, eg a metered Brix of 4 is rougly a specific gravity of 1.0036. At high sugar levels the rule begins to fail.

3. I do not believe we are dealing with "high levels" of sugar as would be present in fermentation; if so, a simple refractometer may be just fine. To be examined.

Stay tuned for more details which I'll share ASAP, but for a few days hold up on purchasing a meter. In the meanwhile - and on the assumption that a simple ($25) meter will do, who's in for this People's Sugar Test?

Hassouni · Post by **Hassouni** » Sun Mar 02, 2014 6:27 pm

Was this well-known distiller Richard Seale?

sleepy · Post by **sleepy** » Sun Mar 02, 2014 10:49 pm

Great for the testing the amount of sugars and dissolved solids in Fruits, Vegetables and Grasses

If elevated values are due to other additions to what should be a clear distillate? Oh, the palate will tell!

At a maximum of 32 Brix, some of the most sweetened rums will max the system.

If such a device is used, cleaning between measurements is critical, as is zero-testing/calibration against distilled water between tests.

Having released the djinn from the bottle, what do we say about results that are uncomfortable - Matusalem has already been exposed as having added extracts, using a generations-old recipe. What if Pussers is found to be "sweetened" due to addition of raw dunder to the post-distillation blend to give that "special character" that we love?

Would such a finding change our concept of "pure" rum? Lead us to reject to ration of the queen's navy?

Would that we had a taste of the rum Washington demanded for his inauguration and state events - "pure" or "sweetened"? The great man distilled whiskey at Mt. Vernon (a recreated distillery is operating there today). What did he so value in rum above his own product?

Given that rum recipes are as tightly held as the recipe for Coca Cola, what will we actually learn? Anything more important than what our noses and palates tell us?

I am torn...

da'rum · Post by **da'rum** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 2:40 am

You raise a good point sleepy. In pussers case where there would be unconverted sugar in any dunder that they added (although that by itself would add very little sugar as a tiny amount of under would go a long way). I think pussers sugar would be in larger part from the ddl portion of their blend.

However the question remains, are we against all sugar? Or only sugar added to mask bad rum?

Dai · Post by **Dai** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 2:41 am

All we can do is gain the knowledge from there it is a personal and individual decision. That decision will be weighted on many factors money, additives, availability, taste, etc.

All we can do is educate the rest is down to the individual to make the conscious choice.

Dai · Post by **Dai** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 2:48 am

sleepy wrote:
Great for the testing the amount of sugars and dissolved solids in Fruits, Vegetables and Grasses
If elevated values are due to other additions to what should be a clear distillate? Oh, the palate will tell!

At a maximum of 32 Brix, some of the most sweetened rums will max the system.

If such a device is used, cleaning between measurements is critical, as is zero-testing/calibration against distilled water between tests.

Having released the djinn from the bottle, what do we say about results that are uncomfortable - Matusalem has already been exposed as having added extracts, using a generations-old recipe. What if Pussers is found to be "sweetened" due to addition of raw dunder to the post-distillation blend to give that "special character" that we love?

Would such a finding change our concept of "pure" rum? Lead us to reject to ration of the queen's navy?

Would that we had a taste of the rum Washington demanded for his inauguration and state events - "pure" or "sweetened"? The great man distilled whiskey at Mt. Vernon (a recreated distillery is operating there today). What did he so value in rum above his own product?

Given that rum recipes are as tightly held as the recipe for Coca Cola, what will we actually learn? Anything more important than what our noses and palates tell us?

I am torn...

I'm about to throw a spnner i the works as far as purity goes :
Ready!

Bourbon barrels!!
200 hundred years ago they would of been fresh or re used rum barrels.

Post by **Capn Jimbo** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 7:07 am

There's good news, then bad news, then good news and...

First Dai and Sleepy, no worries. Our more than qualified source has already addressed your concerns and to keep it simple, no worries - the readings will be reasonable insofar as added sugar. Based on my discussions, we are VERY close to an easy, inexpensive and reasonably reliable method that any of us can perform on our "rums", and which should detect various amounts of added sugar from low levels on up, to be added to our database.

First, the good news:

1. As we already know, refractometers are used to very accurately measure sugar in all manner of fluids, fruits, beer and wine (before fermenting).

And the bad...

2. According to my source a refractometer will not work based on the fact that the meters are designed to reveal Brix readings for sugar solids in water. Since alcohol is less dense, the readings will be too high. This is the reason that refractometers are not advised once fermentation starts, ie presence of changing alcohol levels. As my source put it "the readings will thus be nonsensical". There may be a way around this (below). In the mean, he recommended another inexpensive method:

And last, the good...

3. Anyone who has made beer (or wine) should also be famliar with hydrometers which measure specific gravity (density). A rum with sugar solids added will have a higher SG than the same rum without sugar. The hydrometer looks like an outsized glass thermometer with a bulb on the bottom. The scales on different hydrometers marked may include Brix, specific gravity, potential alcohol (for solutions to be fermented), and actual alcohol.

These are VERY inexpensive and available from brewing and home distillation suppliers. They are very simple to use. A measure of the liquid, eg rum, is poured into the glass test tube, and the hydrometer is floated in it and a reading taken, in this case from a hydrometer marked in alcohol content. The lower the density (reading) the higher the alcohol level. Here's the reveal:

According to our source if a 40% rum is being tested and the reading shows an alcohol level LOWER than that (a higher density) this means sugar (and minor amounts of aging solids) are present. A table can easily be constructed by testing a known 40% alcohol solution with increasing amounts of sugar. The result...

With table in hand, each of us can easily, cheaply and reasonably accurately determine the presence of sugar and roughly how much. Stay tuned - a final method, tables and equipment needed will be published.

*******
Special Note: the discussions now are confirming the final method, and also how a refractometer table might be constructed, as although these meters are a bit more expensive, they are more accurate and only need a few drops of fluid. Extremely easy, accurate and fast.

Hassouni · Post by **Hassouni** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 12:41 pm

da'rum wrote:You raise a good point sleepy. In pussers case where there would be unconverted sugar in any dunder that they added (although that by itself would add very little sugar as a tiny amount of under would go a long way). I think pussers sugar would be in larger part from the ddl portion of their blend.

However the question remains, are we against all sugar? Or only sugar added to mask bad rum?

Remember that DDL's raw distillate is unaltered - it's what gets aged/bottled as El Dorado that has sugar and caramel added. I'm sure for blended rums they export the pure stuff.

I personally am against sugar insofar as it: dumbs down quality rums - imagine what ED15 would be like without any, and; it can be used as you said to mask bad rum, which is a practice of dubious ethics.

It's not to say sugared rums don't have their place - Matusalem, ED12, etc are a nice alternative to an after dinner port or whatever, and as I've recently discovered, ED12 makes a great Old Fashioned base spirit without the need of any added sugar. What I, and I guess most of us here, want, is transparency.

da'rum · Post by **da'rum** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 12:57 pm

You're right of course. Transparency has always been the goal and now you mention it ddl's bulk rum is probably unaltered. As for the pity that is Ed15 I have always said that cases illustrated by this one show an underestimation of the customer. Jimbo has said before that firms are often led astray by marketing departments and I would suspect this could be the issue there.

da'rum · Post by **da'rum** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 1:09 pm

Capn Jimbo wrote: Anyone who has made beer (or wine) should also be famliar with hydrometers which measure specific gravity (density). A rum with sugar solids added will have a higher SG than the same rum without sugar.

Gee I wish I'd mentioned that before :/

Post by **Capn Jimbo** » Mon Mar 03, 2014 3:03 pm

da'rum wrote:You raise a good point sleepy. In pussers case where there would be unconverted sugar in any dunder that they added (although that by itself would add very little sugar as a tiny amount of under would go a long way). I think pussers sugar would be in larger part from the ddl portion of their blend.

However the question remains, are we against all sugar? Or only sugar added to mask bad rum?

Would we be asking the same about single malt whisky? I think not. Dunder is added to the ferment, not the end product. Also, keep in mind that a real and true dunder pit - and it is a literal open pit, represents many years old of accumulation. I truly doubt there is unconverted anything in that morass, and on the odd chance there was, it would hardly survive the actual ferment to which it was added, not to mention that any solids are left behind in the stripping, nicht vahr?

It's about honesty and transparency. Rum is simply a mixed drink in the bottle and if we accept that even in part, the whole survives. A fish rots from the head. What better sales proposition than to be able to sugar, flavor, smooth and alter a distillate from which every possible drop of alcohol has been extracted (think 90% plus - near vodka) that is only rum by the virtue of having a piece of sugar cane in its past, and about which the producer can claim almost anything, including unbonded "age".

And remember: sugar is but one of a tankerful of additives.