What do they make moonshine? Making homemade mash. Using prunes

Recipes for moonshine from pears and pear juice

For mash, you can use different varieties of pears, the most important thing is that they are ripe. The sweeter the fruits are, the more moonshine they will make. Do not wash fruits... Next →

Homemade moonshine is a strong alcoholic drink that is produced at home by distilling mash through a moonshine still. In order to make moonshine in your kitchen or garage, you do not need special equipment or special skills or abilities.

How to make moonshine at home.

Make moonshine at home- you can do it in several ways. Let's first look at what you need to produce homemade moonshine. First of all, you will need a container for making mash. A glass container or glass bottle works best. Through the glass you will be able to observe how the fermentation process proceeds, the clarity of the wort, and the precipitation of sediment. The optimal container volume is 20-30 liters.

For homemade moonshine production You will also need a home-made or factory-made moonshine still.

In addition to the container and moonshine still, you will also need an alcohol meter. Next we will move on to the process itself. how to make homemade moonshine.

Homemade mash for moonshine.

Braga for moonshine is an alcohol-containing mass that is obtained as a result of the fermentation of sugar and yeast, candied grains, potatoes, beets, fruits or other products that contain sugar or candied starch substances. To prepare mash we need to choose a specific recipe for moonshine, and then start preparing the mash.

The easiest way to prepare mash:

• sugar - 5 kg;
• water - 22 liters;
• pressed yeast - 200 grams (or 70 grams of dry inactive).

The water for preparing the mash should be settled, but not boiled or distilled; the wort in the bottle will occupy approximately 1/3, because foam will actively be released during fermentation.

For preparing moonshine mash You need to dilute sugar in 0.5 liters. warm (+25°-+30°C) water until completely dissolved, then grind the yeast and place it in the solution. Afterwards, the container with the wort should be placed in a warm place (+30°C, but no more) for approximately 30-60 minutes. During this time, the yeast will come to life and active foaming will begin.

The water that remained and did not participate in the preparation of the wort must also be heated to +25°C, and the resulting mixture must be poured into it. All contents are mixed well and placed in a warm place (+25°-+27°C). You need to wear a rubber glove with several punctures on the neck of the bottle - carbon dioxide will leak through them and will be released during the fermentation process. The fermentation process itself will take approximately a week.

The end of fermentation is determined as follows:

• foaming stopped;
• the release of carbon dioxide has stopped - the glove has fallen off;
• There is no sugar in the mash, but alcohol is felt.

This is the process of processing an alcohol-containing fermented mass into a strong alcoholic drink by evaporating the alcohol with water, followed by distillation. After the mash for moonshine is prepared, pour it into the distillation cube and begin heating. According to the recipe, there will be no sediment (if you do get sediment, you need to strain it through cotton pads). The distillate output rate should be approximately 350-400 ml/hour.

As a rule, the distillation product is usually divided into three parts:

• head
• tail

1. Head- the product initially obtained during distillation. It has a strength of 75° or more and contains a large amount of fusel oils. They are difficult to remove, so we “cut off” this portion. It will be 50 ml for every 1 kg. sugar that we put in the mash. In our case - 250 ml.
2. Body- a secondary product obtained during distillation. It is this part that is used for further processing (you can also use it immediately). The minimum strength should be 40°. We check with an alcohol meter or see whether the expelled liquid burns or not (less than 40° it does not burn).
3. Tail- this part also contains many harmful impurities. However, the “tails” can be used to prepare the next batch of mash.

How to clean moonshine at home.

Cleaning moonshine at home- this is filtration of the resulting product through activated or regular carbon, precipitating the sediment using potassium permanganate, adding milk, settling and removing flakes through a filter. Unfortunately, even with high-quality equipment during the initial distillation of mash, it will not be possible to get rid of components harmful to health 100%. Therefore, moonshine made at home must be cleaned of impurities.

Ways to clean moonshine at home:

• Filtration of moonshine through activated or regular carbon. Coal can be placed in a container with moonshine, wait a while for the chemical reaction to take place and strain everything. You can also install a carbon filter at the outlet of the moonshine still. Homemade filter: (cotton wool, a layer of coal, cotton wool again)
• Planting moonshine sediment using potassium permanganate. The maximum amount is 2 grams of potassium permanganate per 3 liters. moonshine. After a couple or three days of settling, it is necessary to filter the liquid, add baking soda, stand again and clean. Old-timers in moonshine recommend distilling the moonshine again after this method of purifying it.
• Adding milk, settling and removing flakes through a filter.

After moonshine purification you will receive a fairly high-quality product that will contain a low amount of harmful substances.

Humanity has been brewing moonshine for a long time, but only recently, thanks to accumulated knowledge and the use of modern equipment, it is possible to obtain a drink of decent quality and taste. At the same time, despite the apparent simplicity of production, the production of high-quality moonshine will require a significant amount of time. Properly made moonshine can be used to make tinctures, liqueurs and homemade cognac.

How to make moonshine at home

To make moonshine at home, you will need simple equipment and a small amount of starting material. To prepare it you will need a warm room with a temperature of 18 to 24 O C, a fermentation container, water, yeast, sugar or sugar-containing products, a water seal, a distillation container and the time during which the yeast converts sugar into alcohol. The indicated temperature is optimal for the production of mash; minor fluctuations in one direction or another can affect the production time of the original product.

For the fermentation container, a glass bottle or milk can made of food-grade aluminum is usually used; these materials do not react during fermentation and are available for purchase. With minor modifications, the milk can can be used as a distillation cube. The moonshine production technology itself is quite simple: water is poured into the container, yeast and ingredients for fermentation are added. After 14-21 days, the resulting fermentation product (mash) is distilled and moonshine is obtained. Can the resulting product be consumed live or, after additional purification and processing, can we obtain high-quality alcohol-containing drinks? liqueurs and tinctures.

Classic ingredients for moonshine

The simplest (classic) way to produce moonshine with a minimum amount of ingredients is a composition consisting of 10 liters of water, 100 grams of yeast and 3 kg of sugar. All this is placed in a fermentation container and allowed to ferment for two weeks. After distillation
Such mash makes moonshine very hard, despite the cleaning methods used, and its taste is strongly reminiscent of yeast.

Another classic recipe for making moonshine is making mash from fermented wheat. To do this, 5 kg of grain is poured with water 5 cm above the level of the cereals. Next, add 1.5-2 kg of sugar and let it brew for 1 week. After this, 5 kg of sugar dissolved in 15 liters of water are added to the container and allowed to ferment for another week.

In the absence of grain, a composition of wheat or rye flour can be used. The method of making moonshine from flour is also quite simple. To do this, you will need a container of 25 liters of water. Thoroughly mix 4 kg of flour in 10 liters of warm water. Let the resulting wort sit for 1.5-2 hours. Add 5 liters of warm water and shake the wort thoroughly again. Then let the mixture sit again for 1 hour and add 5 kg of sugar and 100 grams of pressed yeast dissolved in 5 liters of water to the infused flour solution. Let him walk for 2 weeks. After this, the rye flour mash is distilled into strong moonshine and then into liqueurs or tinctures.

Sludge drainage and clarification

To make good moonshine, liqueurs and tinctures, the resulting mash should be carefully drained from the sediment and clarified. The need for lightening This applies primarily to mash made from rye or wheat flour; for this you can use bentonite (white clay). To prepare the brightening composition, white clay is diluted with water (or mash) to a liquid consistency. For 10 liters of flour mash you will need one tablespoon of bentonite.

Add the suspension to the mash, mix the mixture thoroughly and let it sit until the liquid clears. After a precipitate containing harmful substances has formed, pour the clean liquid into a distillation cube using a nylon tube.

There is a second way to lighten mash. To do this, take the vessel with the liquid into a cool room, limit the access of air to the wort and leave it to settle for 1 week, after which the alcohol-containing liquid is carefully drained for distillation. Blocking the access of oxygen during fermentation and especially the clarification of the mash is a prerequisite for obtaining high-quality moonshine, from which liqueurs and tinctures are obtained. Otherwise, you can get moonshine with a high content of aldehydes.

Distillation

To obtain high-quality moonshine, the tails and heads should be removed from the moonshine during the distillation process. The resulting mash has a heterogeneous composition. In addition to ethyl alcohol, does it contain substances that have a boiling point similar to alcohol? ethers, aldehydes, methanol and fusel oils.

Fractional distillation involves separation into heads, bodies and tails. Heads are fractions with a low boiling point that should be destroyed or used for technical purposes. The body is the main product of mash processing. Tailings are high boiling point products containing small amounts of alcohol which can later be extracted by fractional distillation.

Modern distillations with steam chambers make it easy to separate the heads from moonshine. The tails begin to be cut off when the strength of the outgoing moonshine drops below 40 o C. In order to properly cut off the heads and separate the tails in the distillation tank, the composition is first heated to a temperature of 65-75 o C and 1% of the poured mash is cut off. Next, the container is heated to a temperature of 80-85 o C and the alcohol-containing body is removed. The selected tailings can be added to the next mash or, if there is a large amount of them, re-distilled.

Moonshine cleaning

There are two ways to purify moonshine: chemical and biological.

For the chemical cleaning method, potassium permanganate and activated carbon are used. To do this, dissolve 2 grams of manganese in a glass of water and pour it into a container with moonshine, stir and let it sit until a sediment forms at the bottom of the container and the drink becomes
transparent. Carefully pour the liquid or pump it out using a nylon tube. The next step is filtering. To do this, moonshine is passed through a paper filter filled with activated carbon.

During biological treatment, milk or kefir is poured into the alcohol solution, and egg white can also be added. Mix everything and wait until the coagulated sediment falls to the bottom. After which the solution is drained and filtered. In order to obtain good liqueurs and tinctures, biological treatment can be carried out after chemical treatment.

Homemade moonshine drinks

There are many ways to refine moonshine; the most common are tinctures and liqueurs. Moonshine-based products can be divided by type of ingredients. If fruits and or berries are used to add flavor, then such drinks are called liqueurs or liqueurs. Basically, these drinks are quite sweet, and their strength usually does not exceed 18? 25 o C. To obtain tinctures, dry materials are usually used: herbs, nuts, roots, dry berries. The strength of tinctures is usually 25? 55 o C.

Liqueurs

Making liqueurs at home is very simple. For this glass jar is filled with berries? or 2/3 and add moonshine with a strength of 50? 55 o C. Close the container with a lid and put it in a cool, dark place for 3-4 weeks. The resulting drink is filtered and sugar is added depending on the sweetness of the berries and taste preferences. Liqueurs are usually made from strawberries, cherries, plums, chokeberries or chokeberries.

Tinctures

Tinctures are made according to the same principle as liqueurs. Hot peppers, sage roots, blackcurrant buds and other materials can be used as ingredients. Sugar is not added to tinctures after filtration.

Noble drinks from moonshine

From well-refined moonshine you can prepare elite drinks? vaguely reminiscent of cognac and whiskey in taste.

To prepare homemade cognac, pour a handful of walnut partitions into a 3-liter jar, a tablespoon each of black tea, cumin and vanilla sugar. Add a few cloves, add citric acid on the tip of a knife and fill everything with moonshine. Cover with a lid and leave for a week in a cool place. After straining, you can enjoy your homemade cognac.

To prepare the simplest homemade whiskey, add three tablespoons of oak bark, 50 grams of charcoal, 5-7 prunes to a 3-liter jar and pour in 45°C moonshine. Infuse for two weeks, and after filtration the drink will resemble the taste of whiskey.

Sugar moonshine is a classic of Russian distillery. She has won the love of many homemade alcohol lovers. There are a huge number of recipes for making mash from sugar at home in which the proportions sometimes differ, but the yield of moonshine is always almost the same. Making homemade alcohol is justified for several reasons. First, the raw materials are environmentally friendly, sugar is a pure product and properly prepared moonshine does not cause poisoning or a severe hangover. The second is the cost of the product; making moonshine at home is much cheaper than buying store-bought alcohol. 1 kg of granulated sugar yields approximately 1.1 liters. finished drink with a strength of 40 degrees.

As a result, you will get decent alcohol, and if you refine it using various methods, it will be in no way inferior to expensive elite drinks. The easiest way for a beginner is to “ferment” making mash from sugar, and then get a distillate. How to prepare intoxicating drinks correctly, what proportions to use, what kind of dishes and how many ingredients to take, the entire cycle of making moonshine is described in detail in this article.

To make mash you will need: fermentation dishes, water, sugar, yeast, water seal, saccharometer, aquarium heater. The last three devices are not required; it is quite possible to do without them.

Container for mash. The main indicators when choosing fermentation vessels are: volume, material of manufacture, tightness. Some types of mash still require a water seal, which performs two functions: it ensures the release of carbon dioxide and prevents oxygen from entering the mash.

Capacity volume for fermentation depends entirely on your needs. It is imperative to take into account that the mash should fill no more than ¾ of the volume of the fermentation tank. Otherwise, there is a risk of foam being thrown out during fermentation.

Material. The most preferred material for fermentation is glass. Various bottles, glass jars. Food grade stainless steel can also be used. Currently, plastic containers of various sizes are sold, the main thing is to make sure that it is suitable for food products. Aluminum utensils, milk flasks, and pots are often used at home. It is very convenient if the container has a drain tap, which will greatly facilitate the work.

Attention!

1.Before use, be sure to thoroughly rinse all dishes with hot water and detergent, and then dry well with a clean towel. The cleaner the dishes, the less the risk of the mash turning sour, which can lead to an unpleasant taste of moonshine.

2. Before pouring water, place the fermentation container on a stand 0.5 meters high. Firstly, this will improve heat exchange and secondly, in the future it will be easier to drain the fermented mash.

Which yeast to choose. To prepare moonshine, it is advisable to take special alcoholic yeast. The use of alcohol yeast gives a higher yield of alcohol during fermentation and better organoleptic properties. The instructions always say how much sugar the pack is designed for. The only disadvantage of alcoholic yeast is that it is difficult to find and is quite expensive. But instead of alcoholic ones, available dry or pressed ones from Belarus are suitable. Dry yeast is taken from the calculation 20 grams per kilogram of sugar. Proportions for pressed: 100 grams per 1 kg of sugar.

Adding dry yeast makes the mash no worse in quality, and sometimes even better. Raw pressed ones give the drink too much of a fusel taste, while the use of dry ones results in rapid fermentation and abundant foaming. Another advantage of dry and alcoholic yeast is their long shelf life.

What water to use. Good, proper water is the basis for the taste of the final product. To prepare sugar mash, well-purified water should be used, odorless, tasteless and without additives. The most suitable water is spring or bottled. If tap water is used, it is recommended to let it sit for 1-2 days before use, and then carefully drain it with a hose. Hydraulic module: 1 kg. sugar - 4 liters of water.

Classic sugar moonshine recipe

This recipe is used to prepare mash from sugar and yeast. The yield of purified moonshine is approximately 5.5 liters after the second fractional distillation, the alcohol content of the drink is 45 percent.

Ingredients:

• Sugar – 5kg;
• Dry yeast – 100 g;
• Spring water – 20 l.

Preparation of wort:

1. Pour warm water at 25-30° into the container where fermentation will take place and add sugar. Stir the mixture thoroughly until the sugar is completely dissolved. Lately, there have been frequent complaints about sugar – it doesn’t ferment well, it’s not sweet, etc. To avoid embarrassment, you can use a device - a saccharometer. A saccharometer shows the density of sugar in the wort. For normal mash, the saccharometer should show a density of 18-22%.
2. In a separate bowl, dilute and ferment the yeast. Pour in 300 ml of water 28°, add a tablespoon of sugar, stir, add dry yeast, dilute, after about 10-15 minutes, when the yeast has risen, add it to the fermentation container. To reduce foaming during fermentation, it is recommended to add “Saf-moment” yeast – 11 g. If you use pressed yeast in the recipe, then you need to take 500 grams of it.
3. For normal operation of yeast except sugar and water feeding required . This is not a mandatory point, but desirable, it allows you to speed up the process. There are special chemical fertilizers with phosphorus and nitrogen, and there are ordinary household ways to “energize” the mash. First of all, this is black bread, for 20 liters of mash, half a loaf will be enough. It is also recommended to use grapes, raspberries, and strawberries as top dressing at the rate of 15-20 pieces per 20 liters.
4. It is not necessary to install a water seal for sugar mash; it is enough to close the lid loosely, and if the neck is small, then cover it with several layers of gauze.

Fermentation. In order for the wort to ferment well, it must be provided with a favorable temperature regime. The ideal temperature for fermentation is 28-31 °C. It can be a little lower, but in no case higher than 35°, at this temperature the yeast will die and the mash will not ferment.

This mode can be achieved in a warm room or using an aquarium heater. Heaters come in different powers from 50 watts and more, which one you need to choose depends on the capacity of the container. For 40 liters of mash, a power of 100 watts is enough, provided that it is located indoors. The convenience of the heater is that it maintains a stable temperature using a built-in thermostat. Set the regulator to 28° and lower it into the fermentation container, connect to the power supply, the temperature will be set and maintained automatically.

With proper temperature maintenance and the presence of fertilizing, fermentation lasts 7-14 days. The sugar mash must be thoroughly stirred once or twice a day to remove carbon dioxide.

How to determine the readiness of the mash:

1. Carbon dioxide stopped being released, the water seal calmed down and stopped gurgling. No rising bubbles are visible on the surface. Light a match over the mash; if it burns, it means no gas is being released.
2. There is separation in the mash, the top layer has become light, and the yeast has partially precipitated.
3. The taste of the mash has become bitter, the sweetness is not felt.
4. The smell and taste of the mash has a distinct aroma of alcohol.
5. The most accurate method is to use a saccharometer. If the wort has fermented, the saccharometer will show “0”.

Clarifying and cleaning mash

Clarification and degassing must be done in order to improve the final taste of moonshine. Degassing is the process of removing residual carbon dioxide. To do this, the wort must be heated to 55 °C; live yeast dies at this temperature. One of the easiest ways to lighten mash is with cold, if the temperature allows. Place the mash in the cold -5° or +5° for a day or two and it will naturally lighten. The yeast will fall to the bottom, after which the mash needs to be decanted, that is, carefully drained from the sediment using a thin silicone or PVC hose.

You can speed up the process and lighten the mash in other faster ways using bentonite, gelatin or protein. For sugar mash, they most often prefer to use bentonite for clarification. Bentonite is a natural product, natural white clay. The Pi-Pi-Bent brand is suitable for cleaning, the main thing is that it does not contain fragrances. For 20 liters of mash, 2-3 tablespoons of clay are enough. Before use, it must be dissolved in a glass of warm water and stirred thoroughly. Then pour the mixture into the mash and mix. After 12-24 hours, the mash becomes transparent, all that remains is to drain it from the sediment.

Making moonshine from mash

First distillation. Pour the clarified, purified mash into the cube of the moonshine still. And overtake at high power. There is no need to select heads and tails during the first distillation. The first time, the raw material is taken almost up to the water, so that the stream would be 5-7 degrees.

Intermediate cleaning. The resulting moonshine must be cleaned of harmful impurities before the second fractional distillation. There are many proven methods for this. The most popular method among distillers is charcoal purification. There is a method of cleaning with oil and others.

1. Cleaning moonshine with coal. You can clean the raw material using a carbon filter or fill the coal with raw material. For the first method, you need to make a filter from a plastic bottle. Cut off the bottom of the bottle and drill several holes in the cork. Place a thick layer of cotton wool into the cork and screw it onto the bottle. Pour BAU or KAU coal at the rate of 10-12 grams of coal per 1 liter of moonshine. Pass the moonshine through the filter. In the second method, pour the coal directly into the raw alcohol. First grind the coal, add 50 grams per liter. Stir thoroughly and leave for a day. Then filter the moonshine. Coal absorbs up to 80% of fusel and various esters.
2. Cleaning moonshine with sunflower oil. To clean, you need to take refined sunflower oil. Dilute moonshine to 15-20 degrees strength, add 20 grams of oil per liter of raw alcohol. Stir well three times at intervals of 1-3 minutes. Leave to settle for a day, drain with a straw without touching the top oily layer. Strain through a cotton filter. These two methods can be combined for cleaning efficiency. First with oil, then with charcoal.

Fractional distillation. Pour purified, diluted moonshine from sugar to 20 degrees into the distillation cube of the moonshine still. Proceed to distillation with the selection of fractions. At low power, select the head fraction. The heads are selected drop by drop, the sampling rate is 1-2 drops per second, such a slow intake of liquid allows you to qualitatively get rid of the poisonous first fractions. The number of heads is taken 50 ml for each kilogram of sugar.

Then change the receiving container and select the “body” drinking fraction. The body is taken up to 45-50 degrees in the stream. Next will be the tails, whether to select them or not is up to you. Usually the tail fraction is added to the mash before distillation to increase the yield of moonshine.

Finishing and refining of moonshine

As a result, you will get moonshine from sugar with a strength of approximately 65 degrees. This strength is too high for drinking, so it needs to be diluted with clean bottled water to 40-45 degrees. A special calculator will help you do this correctly. To soften the taste, you can heat the moonshine on the stove to 70 degrees, and unnecessary substances will evaporate from it. Pour the diluted distillate into bottles, let it “rest in glass” for 2-3 days, or better yet, let it sit for a week and you can start tasting.

Sugar moonshine has a more neutral taste compared to grain and fruit distillates. Therefore, at home it is more often used for preparing various liqueurs and infusing berries and fruits with it. Make other delicious homemade alcohol.

In the process of distilling mash, an excellent strong alcohol-containing drink is obtained. The technology for making moonshine will be completely incomprehensible and complex for a beginner. Practice, the availability of all necessary materials and raw materials, as well as adherence to technology and proportions are very important here. Everything must be done according to the recipe, then the drink will be high-quality and pure.

The main component of good moonshine? this is ethyl alcohol. This alcohol is used for rubbing and preparing herbal infusions, and is a food product. To prepare mash, the main raw material is sugar paired with yeast. In making mash you can also use many other products, fruits, berries, starch-containing products, corn grains, wheat, oats, barley, etc., which are also suitable for liqueurs. Another option for producing mash at home is fermentation; the process is very complex and therefore rarely used. In this case, starch-containing substances are used, since starch is converted into sugar during the fermentation process, which requires extreme precision in cooking technology.

Moonshine preparation technology

The most standard version of making moonshine at home, which has been known for centuries, uses sugar, yeast and water. In most cases, the following proportions are used: for 1 kg of sugar we pour 5 liters of water, and add 100 g of yeast, you can
Use both baker's and dry yeast. If you decide to use dry yeast, you will need about 18 g.

Water should be used clean and warm so that the sugar dissolves faster, especially in warm water, the yeast begins to play faster. First add sugar and stir until dissolved, and then pour in the yeast. All this is done in a special fermentation container, after which it is tightly closed, a water seal is inserted and the liquid is left to ferment for a certain amount of time. The mash can be considered ready in about a week to a week and a half. It is very important not to miss the moment when the mash is ready; if you overdo it, the drink will turn out cloudy and of poor quality.

After the mash is ready, it should be carefully poured into the moonshine still, so that the settled liquid does not fall into the vessel. Then you can begin distillation and the process of obtaining moonshine. If you want to add an unusual taste or smell to your moonshine, you can add various fruits, berries or herbs during the fermentation process.

How to prepare sugar-yeast mash

One of the most important stages in the production of moonshine at home is fermentation. When using 5 kg of sugar per
100 g of dry yeast, you will get 5.5 liters of moonshine. The strength of such a drink will be about 46%. To prepare mash, you can use special fermentation containers or glass jars, metal vessels, tanks, anything that can be hermetically sealed. You can use anything, avoiding plastic or galvanized utensils that are not intended for cooking.

In order to correctly follow the entire fermentation procedure at home, it is more convenient to use sugar that has already been distributed into 1 kg bags. It is better to use dry yeast; standard wet yeast should be discarded on the advice of moonshine professionals. When using dry yeast, the moonshine turns out to be of much higher quality and stronger, it acquires a rich taste and does not contain a pungent odor, whereas when baking yeast is added, the alcohol acquires a bitter taste. In order to prevent large foam from appearing in the process of making mash, it is best to add finely ground cookies in a small amount to the mash. After adding the cookies, the foam goes away quickly. It is better to use clean water for mash, or filter tap water.

How to properly dilute yeast in water? To do this, you need to select a container of the right size. For these purposes, you can use a large basin or a large enamel bowl; the main thing is to choose dishes in which it will be convenient to mix all the ingredients. The water should be warm, but not more than 30°, so that the yeast does not spoil. When all the ingredients are mixed, they are allowed to sit while the yeast begins to work and swell. At this time, we prepare water with sugar in the fermentation container; you need to use warm, but not hot water, in which the sugar is diluted and stirred until completely dissolved. When the yeast has swollen, it is carefully mixed and poured into a fermentation container. The required amount of water is added from above.

It is very important that the container in which the mash will ferment is hermetically sealed. To do this, you can use a regular lid, but do not forget about the water seal; you need to make a special hole for it. To prevent the room from smelling like mash, you can run a special hose that will pass through the water seal and go out the window. In the room in which the mash matures, it is necessary to maintain a certain temperature; it should not exceed 27°. If this is not possible and the room is cold, then the mash can be heated using special devices, but the temperature should also be no more than 27-28°.

How to make moonshine from starch-containing materials

You can prepare a professional elite drink at home. This is considered moonshine made from grain. To make it you need to have some experience, otherwise there will be very little chance of getting a truly worthwhile drink. Despite the rather complex cooking technology, the process and time spent are worth it. What is the essence of such preparation? Any grain and cereal contains a lot of starch, and starch is known to be rich in sugar molecules. The starch itself can be quickly processed into sugar using the fermentation process. If you use 1 kg of any grain and begin the process of fermenting the starch present in it, turning it into sugar, then the output will be an amount of sugar comparable to its content in 6 kg of flour. The cereal used should be boiled. The resulting solution is usually called wort.
The procedure itself does not have to be performed using malt. To simplify the process, you can use ready-made enzymes.

A complex process like fermentation requires precision and focus to extract the right amount of sugar from the available starch. To preserve the quality of enzymes, the wort should not be heated above 74°C. But it is even more important to maintain the desired temperature of the wort; if it is insufficient, the fermentation will not complete as it should. After cooking, it is important to cool the wort to room temperature. Otherwise, the yeast will die and they simply will not be able to reproduce.

When the required sugar is obtained, the solution can be fermented by adding the required amount of yeast. When all stages are completed, the actual distillation of moonshine begins. In this case, use a glycerin or water bath; a regular moonshine still will not work; the wort can burn at high temperatures.

Method for preparing moonshine based on berry-fruit mixtures

Preparing such moonshine is one of the simplest options, but it also has certain flaws and subtleties. When preparing raw materials
must be completely crushed. The peels of fruits and berries contain natural yeast, which accelerates the fermentation process in a natural way. All fruits and berries are also suitable for moonshine liqueurs. Chopped fruits placed in a container begin to ferment within a couple of days.

If desired, you can add more sugar, approximately 1.5 kg per 10 liters. These mixtures can also be diluted with water to make the drink softer. All ingredients, and especially sugar, are added with calculation, just as when preparing a standard mash of sugar and yeast. Before distilling moonshine, it is important to make sure that there are no particles or pieces of berries in the finished mash; to do this, it needs to be strained or filtered. You can also use a water bath or steam generator.

How to properly distill moonshine

To distill mash at home, use a special moonshine still. The quality of the drink itself, as well as its quantity, will depend on the quality of such a device. A bad moonshine still can allow air to pass through and the alcohol will escape, but in the end the output will be little drink. All devices consist of a container for mash, a cooling tank and a coil. When the mash heats up, alcohol vapors are formed in it, they pass through a coil, in which they cool and condense.

An important point in the entire distillation is the obligatory adherence to the temperature regime. In order for the moonshine to be of the highest quality and purest, you need to ensure that the temperature does not rise above 90°C. If the temperature rises higher, the process should be stopped. If you do not have a special thermometer, then this stage can be simplified by soaking cotton wool in moonshine and setting it on fire. If the flame does not turn blue, this means that the content of fusel oils in the drink exceeds the norm and distillation should be stopped immediately. The first batch of moonshine, approximately 300 ml, is called “pervak”, you should get rid of it. It is prohibited to consume this liquid; it contains many toxins and fusel oils. After this, the moonshine is purified using activated carbon and passed through a dense layer of cotton wool and gauze.