Name: To Obtain Rum From Molasses
Ingredients: 2 or 3 gallons of water; 1 gallon of molasses; 1 gallon of yeast; 1 ounce of jalap root powder (or 1.5 ounces in winter)

To Obtain Rum From Molasses

Ingredients

2 or 3 gallons of water
1 gallon of molasses
1 gallon of yeast
1 ounce of jalap root powder (or 1.5 ounces in winter)

Directions

Start the wash

Mix 2 or 3 gallons of water with 1 gallon of molasses.
Add 1 gallon of yeast for every 200 gallons of the mixture.
Stir the mixture once or twice a day as the head rises.

Feed and finish fermentation

After 3 or 4 days, add 2 gallons more of water for each gallon of molasses used, along with the same quantity of yeast as before.
Five or six days later, add a portion of yeast and 1 ounce of jalap root powder.
Allow fermentation to proceed for about 50 days until the wash is ready for distillation.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Molasses: Supplies the sugars that yeast ferments into alcohol, and adds its rich, dark flavor.
Yeast: Ferments the sugars in the mixture into alcohol and carbon dioxide.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.