While it's usually perfectly legal to brew your own wine, beer or cider at home, it may not be legal to distill spirits. Check your local regulations before attempting anything like this. In some countries you may be allowed to distill a small quantity, while in others you may not be allowed to distill spirits at all.
The upside if this is that you will get a much higher quantity of the base wine than you would get with distillation, as there are modest losses in the process unless you use professional equipment.
This video is basically an insight into making a generic wine base for the addition of fruit cordials for flavouring, or even distillation of that base into a spirit in countries that permit it. Rather than go the traditional route of fermenting real fruit slowly over a long period of time, I show the absolute trash approach of banging out something that can be made in a week or less, and rivals the luridly flavoured adult alcopops often sold as "cider" which often have no connection to actual apples at all other than the flavourings and bulk addition of malic acid.
This information is provided for scientific interest and not with an intent to turn you all into raving alcoholics.
Even if you're not really into drinking alcoholic beverages, brewing and distillation is still quite an interesting subject with lots of diverse information on the Internet.
You can chuck me a dollar for moonshine and cookies at https://www.patreon.com/bigclive if you wish.
The upside if this is that you will get a much higher quantity of the base wine than you would get with distillation, as there are modest losses in the process unless you use professional equipment.
This video is basically an insight into making a generic wine base for the addition of fruit cordials for flavouring, or even distillation of that base into a spirit in countries that permit it. Rather than go the traditional route of fermenting real fruit slowly over a long period of time, I show the absolute trash approach of banging out something that can be made in a week or less, and rivals the luridly flavoured adult alcopops often sold as "cider" which often have no connection to actual apples at all other than the flavourings and bulk addition of malic acid.
This information is provided for scientific interest and not with an intent to turn you all into raving alcoholics.
Even if you're not really into drinking alcoholic beverages, brewing and distillation is still quite an interesting subject with lots of diverse information on the Internet.
You can chuck me a dollar for moonshine and cookies at https://www.patreon.com/bigclive if you wish.
You can use %100 fruit juice with sugar and ferment that. It works pretty good…
Can I get a link to the water distiller?
For a big man you can tip-toe around stuff very elegantly!
Home stills are ILLEGAL in Northern Ireland.
One day an RUC officer visited a house and he was very interested in the pipework beside the cooker. It was a still which the officer was looking for.
He asked the homeowner what the pipework was for and the homeowner replied that it was a part of the central heating system.
The constable accepted the explanation.
Part of me is curious about what might happen if you tried to use the turbo-yeast to make bread. Would it just fly away like a deflating balloon?
Many years ago I was brewing a batch of beer, I was using a new yeast and it was a fast acting yeast, it was a porter so the yeast was geared for wine and it was really active. It was so vigorous the hops were pushed up on foam into the airlock resulting in a plug. The pressure carbonated the wort and eventually blew out the rubber plug. The blast shot green hops and yeast shit all over the kitchen ceiling and to this day I sometimes find a bit of hops stuck in some odd corner. Fortunately I had a wet vac right in the kitchen and I was able to slurp it up before it ran into the next room. 3 of 5 gallons of wort were ejected out of the carboy. I heard the explosion, and then I heard a wooshing sound. I'd love to have seen it honestly. The mess took hours and days to clean up.
Drill out the safety valve on an old-as-I-am pressure cooker (with a removable weight in the middle). Replace the safety valve with a thermometer. Hook a suitable pipe up to where the weight was and run the pipe through some iced water. Take the result and pour it into pickling jars with fruit. Leave at least 2 weeks. 6 months is better.
Clive I dont know where you got your information on methanol in wine, but it is wildly wrong, methanol is only a tiny fraction of any distillation, the ammount of methanol in any bottle of wine even at the highest quantities is around half of one thousandth of the bottle, there is less than half a ml in a whole bottle. Btw if 1/3 of the alcohol in a bottle of wine or anything was methanol even weekend drinkers would be blind within a year. Methanol is toxic to us because it attacks the optic nerve, and causes blindness.
I've been brewing for about a year, I really like this kind of content, cheers clive
In my country (Romania) is called DAMIGEANĂ
That is cooked man.
I cant believe what you done.
Your ingenuity blows me away.
It also concerns me a little as well.
For one how lucky to find a jar perfect for alcohol that fits in your still so well.
I have a 15 litre version but it is for adding flavour to the final process with wood chips and an essence for 1 month.
For two those stills dont have a way to adjust the heat output so you jerry rigged a new plug just to keep the fermentation warm. You live in england or what?
I would never run anything electrical intentionally at a power rating it was not designed for. That usually ruins things in my experience. But my electrical skills end at speaker set ups particularly for car amps.
And three the temperature range of yeast at least the type i use is apparently between 20⁰ – 30⁰ celsius but the slower the brewing process the better the quality. I learnt that the hard way. Between 20⁰ – 24⁰ has been showing a lot of promise. It is worth noting that the yeast at temperatures too close to 30⁰ creates a run away process that kills some yeast and the bubbling is violent and usually ends ubrupty withing 3 days when my yeast is designed for up to 10 days as yeast produces its own heat and can cook its self beyond the back ground temperature getting it over 30⁰.
Quick tip the packet says get the water initially to 30⁰. That is not necessary if you water is already in the 20⁰ – 25⁰ range. It simply starts slower. It wont hurt the yeast. It is meant to be stored at 5⁰ if still in the pack. When you buy it from the brew store, bring an esky with you so it stays cold.
As for your vessel, you can buy 30 litre water barrel from the local hardware store. They must be drinking water grade. Make sure it has a wide mouth, i am talking 10cm or ⅓ of a foot. For me in aus that is bunnings.
Drill a hole in the top with a step drill and stick a bung in it from the brew store which ideally already has a hole to suit the size of the bubbler which they also have.
The yeast packs i buy require 21 litres of water and 8 kilo of sugar. That takes the total volume to just under 25 litres. I know as i have 2 barrels at 30 litres and 2 barrels at 25 litres and those ones almost make it to the top.
So each batch i get almost 100 litres of predistilled spirit st roughly 20% alcohol.
My still is 4 litres, takes about 2 hrs and i get 700ml of 70% alcohol.
I stop when it stops igniting but i bring a bit extra over and when i have enough made for 4 litres i run it through the still again.
I also dont bottle the first 100ml.
Depending on the taste. Just a drip on the finger. I spit it out mind. After a while you get good at telling when the trash is over. The first part burns the lips to the point it tingles, then a section comes over without any taste of alcohol, it simply has a nasty taste. Once that is gone a wait a couple minutes then capture it directly into a cheap water filter jug with aluminium foil covering the jug to reduce the angels share.
Before and aftwr each batch wash with a water pressure machine and a dilluted bleach. Wash it several times with clean water. Any bleach will ruin it.
It must be beyond a doubt sterile though.
When you use a spoon or mixer for the sugar to dissolve then do the same thing. Same with your hands. Take every consideration. Wipe.the sweat off your brow before leaning over the open barrel during filling. I use 10 litre spring water jugs from the store. Not tap water. The chlorine is enough to kill fish, yes i grow koi, you can trust me on that. Tap water is ideal for the prep though.
Tech tip. Another reason to get rid of methanol.
If you're making alcohol fuel, the methanol component will corrode your fuel lines and carburetor.
I've seen NileRed making moonshine out of toilet paper.
In 2002, there was actually a big case in Norway, where smugglers had mixed in methanol because they had to fulfill an order and couldn't produce. A lot of people died. So if you're going to break the law, I think it's better to do it yourself rather than depending on unknown strangers.
Hello.
I have a question.
I have solar electric and a battery, and hot water, but not got round to doing feed in.
However, as I still have excess, it occurred to me that it would be fun to do some moonshine using excess. As this comes, in the summer, in chunks of a few hours at a time, would that be adequate or does it have to be distilled "in one go"?
As I don't actually drink, this could be even more fun.
You can also run vodka or whatever through a Brita filter and it will take out a lot of the impurities