Making Rum At Home

Making rum at home can help to curb the cost of imbibing on some of your favorite adult beverages.  With some very basic equipment and ingredients, and a little bit of time, you will be able to produce some of the liquor.  This will allows you to save a vast amount of money on the expensive drink, and, with practice, you will not be able to tell the distance between this rum and the top shelf varieties.  Before making rum at home, make sure that you look into local laws regarding distilling.

When making rum at home you will need:

• Distilled Water (2 liters)
• 1/4 oz yeast
• 1-2 lbs sugar (granulated works best)
• 8 ounces of Molasses
• balloon
• 10 ft of 1/4 inch copper tubing
• 2 copper couplings
• 1 pressure cooker
• A clean two gallon bucket; frosting buckets from the local bakery work well
• Waterproof sealant (preferably silicon)

1. To begin making rum at home, combine the sugar, molasses, and about 2/3 of the water into a pot, warming it until it is dissolved.  Make sure that it does not get too hot to touch.  Remove from heat.
2. Mix the yeast with 1/2 cup of the mixture.  Foaming should result.  Add the yeast mixture into the remaining distilled water.  Shake the yeast water gently.  Add the remaining molasses and sugar water into the bottle.
3. Use a balloon that will fit closely to the plastic bottle.  Make two pin holes at the top of the balloon, and fit it over the mouth of the bottle. 
4. Let the mixture ferment until there is very little bubbling.  This will take a few days.
5. Put a small hole in the bottom of the bucket for the tubing. 
6. Cut about one foot of tubing off.  Coil the remaining nine feet of tubing to fit into your bucket, leaving a bit of tubing hanging out of the bucket for a drip into your container. 
7. Make the tubing output in the bucket waterproof.  Food grade silicon sealant is the preferred method.
8. Using a coupling, connect the tubing onto the top of the pressure cooker. 
9. About three inches from the top of the cooker, make a 90 degree bend in the tubing. 
10. Using the remaining coupling, connect the coil with the pressure cooker tube.
11. Add the fermented liquid into the pressure cooker.
12. Warm the stove element on high, then reduce it to medium heat.
13. Fill the bucket with ice water.  Replace the ice in the bucket as it melts.
14. Discard the first few drops.
15. Finish distilling the liquid.  When making rum at home, you may want to distil the rum a few times, as it may be brown and oily, or have a molasses taste.