Rum

Feedstocks used for rum must always be derivatives of sugar cane.
To produce rum, we can use cane juice (Rhum Agricole and Cachaça), cane sugar or molasses. The most commonly used one is molasses for which the characteristics are highly variable. We can use high test molasses (60° – 70° Brix) or blackstrap molasses (about 80° Brix) which is the final co-product of the production of sugar.

Regarding the regulations on rum, it is country dependant but the US, the European and the Caribbean ones are the references.

Production : Molasses has a high Brix which allows it to be stored but as soon as we dilute it, the contamination by bacteria and wild yeast increases dramatically. Lallemand recommends to work with the fed batch fermentation process in order to keep contamination low, and get an efficient fermentation.

For the production of rum, Lallemand Distilling recommends to use selected yeast dedicated to this application.

DistilaMax SR   isolated from molasses is high stress tolerant, and starts the fermentation quickly.

DistilaMax RM  isolated from cane juice works well and will give you a specific aromatic profile.

With an osmotic resistance at high sugar concentration, DistilaMax ML displays a short lag phase resulting in a good start of fermentation and in a low contamination from the beginning.

You can also use DistilaMax CN selected for Cachaça (Brazil) for its resistance to the osmotic stress and the well balanced aromatic profile.

Nutrition with DistilaVite in the first stages of fermentation will be very helpful to get strong and healthy yeast in order to get a good kinetic of fermentation and the expected aromatic profile.

If you have any question, please do not hesitate to contact our Technical Team who will be happy to assist you.