■ 🕑 1. Homemade alcohol │ Interested in making booze at home? │ Is saving money or making delicious drinks an appeal to you? │ Experimenting with new recipes or techniques? │ │ This a thread for homebrewers and distillers to ask questions, give │ advice, or share progress reports. │ (Pictures and experiences are very welcome!) │ ├─■ 🕑 2. │ │ I've been making alcohol at home for about a year now. I started with │ │ various wines (grape juice, apple juice, sugar water, and even orange │ │ juice) and naturally progressed to distilling about 9 months ago. │ │ │ │ These days, my favorite wines are lower % apple juices or meads, along │ │ with ginger ale, while my preferred spirit is vodka, in part because │ │ it's cheap, as well as because it can be further flavored after │ │ production... eg, going from vodka to gin is very simple │ │ │ │ For my "drinking wines" (as contrasted with "distilling wines") I prefer │ │ making lower % stuff because they have more flavor and are more │ │ generally drinkable. Everything I make, I ferment to 100% "dry" (no │ │ sugar remaining) and if I want to correct the taste, I'll add artificial │ │ sweeteners after fermenting. │ │ ├─■ 🕑 3. │ │ Making tomato paste wash (birdwatchers): 18L of 10% │ │ https://imgur.com/a/58rhQQc │ │ │ │ Doing a "stripping run" to produce "low wines" │ │ https://imgur.com/a/8DWdYKH │ │ │ └─■ 🕑 4. │ │ Can I know if baker's yeast can make mead from honey │ │ │ └─■ 🕑 5. │ Sure can! │ │ I go for 150g honey per 1.5L, works out to be │ beer strength (around 5%). For best results, you │ want to keep adding small batches of honey every │ week or two. This keeps the yeast from getting │ stressed, improving flavor, and also lets you │ work to higher percents. │ │ Black tea and fruits at the end of fermentation, │ or throughout, will definitely improve the flavor │ ├─■ 🕑 6. │ │ stop drinking anon, you'll become gay dick lover like everyone. │ │ go out and r.pe someone instead. its better for your health │ │ │ └─■ 🕑 7. Ayoo cuh │ Nigga please, it's just honey, yeast and water in a bottle. │ ├─■ 🕑 8. │ │ Doing a "spirits run" now. │ │ │ │ I stripped ~60L of ~10% sugar wine to ~10L of ~40% low wines. diluted │ │ down to 12L. Feeling optimistic for how this will turn out, it's been │ │ a good while since I did some proper distilling... │ │ │ └─■ 🕑 9. │ Ack, maybe I should make the spoiler syntax be two percent signs instead │ of one, annoying formatting error... │ ├─■ 🕑 10. │ One of my last experiments was 4 parts apple juice to 2 parts cranberry │ juice (well, storebought juices, and the cranberry also has pear and │ grape juices mixed). It turned out fantastic! More sour than a typical │ cider -- in a good way -- with a lot more complexity. │ ├─■ 🕑 11. │ │ Started three new wines: │ │ │ │ 1. Apple:cranberry (5:1) │ │ 2. Blueberry:honey-water (5:1) │ │ 3. Mango:apple:peach (1:1:1) │ │ │ │ All should work out to be 10% in about a week from now, curious to see │ │ how they turn out. I really liked the cranberry:apple from before; │ │ wanted to try to do something with blueberry and honey just felt like a │ │ natural fit │ │ │ └─■ 🕑 12. │ The apple cranberry finished first: really I have to say, it's an utter │ delight to drink. Apple ciders fermented *dry* on their own can │ sometimes be a bit unpleasant, but somehow the more sour cranberry │ matches these off-tastes, and really ups the end result. │ ├─■ 🕑 13. │ │ Distilled ~14L of 40% alcohol from tomato paste wash (72L, 14%) this │ │ week. Sadly, they need another distillation or two yet to become a │ │ vodka, but it's been nice to keep busy. │ │ │ └─■ 🕑 15. │ For those who wondered, I got roughly 7 liters of 80% as an end result │ of hearts pickiness from a batch of low wines │ ├─■ 🕑 14. PURCHASE ALERT! │ │ A few kilograms of dry malt extract, various hops, food grade │ │ 20L / 5 gallon buckets, and airlocks with grommets are coming in │ │ the mail. My beer and whisky making arc will begin soon. │ │ │ │ I'm thinking of initially trying to make whisky via UJSSM tech but also │ │ considering making one from dry malt extract sans hops -- I hear hops │ │ are neither necessary nor desirable when producing whisky ... │ │ │ │ Big concern for beer production: I don't have any feasible way to │ │ carbonate beverages, whether in glass bottles or keg. So I guess │ │ it'll be "not even beer!" depending on one's definition. I'd love to │ │ buy a keg and CO2 tanks, maybe even a devoted fridge down the line, but │ │ wife is already annoyed as-is by the malt/hops/buckets/airlocks │ │ purchase. We'll just have to wait and see. │ │ │ └─■ 🕑 16. │ A month out and here's where we stand on the order: │ │ 1. Airlocks came first │ 2. Buckets came second │ 3. Dry malt extract is still in transit (???) │ 4. The hops seller cancelled the order. Tried ordering a few different │ kinds of hops from a few different sellers; they all seemed to cancel. │ I will have to try sourcing hops again later. Until then, I can │ try making a whisky once this DME shows up. │ ├─■ 🕑 17. │ Made like 3 liters "low wines" last night, probably going to get 5 │ liters tonight. One of the ferments didn't go well and I couldn't get it │ to really pick back up. Ah well, still getting my fun + cheap booze out │ of it :D │ │ I'm planning to make gin after doing a spirit run on this. │ ├─■ 🕑 18. │ Sipped on some apple cider with spices added, then some homemade vodka │ with coca-cola. Very tasty. │ │ In a few days, my first generation of UJSSM (kilju with cracked corn) │ will finish fermenting; after I distill that, I'll throw some backset │ back in the bucket with some new sugar to start a proper sour mash of │ corn whisky. Looking forward to it! │ ├─■ 🕑 19. │ Message removed │ ├─■ 🕑 20. │ │ Distilling my "sweet mash" UJSSM whisky now. I was surprised, the top │ │ layer of corn is gray but most of the corn is still good and yellow. │ │ It fermented pretty quick and it smells a bit corny but nothing │ │ really impressive. │ │ │ │ Once my distillation is done, I'll pour some of the "backset" (the │ │ beer without alcohol left in the boiler) back into my corn yeast sugar │ │ bucket and kick off a "sour mash fermentation." │ │ │ │ Right now I'm using cracked corn for flavor, partially because it's │ │ so damn cheap, but I've seen people speak very highly of corn flake │ │ whisky. │ │ │ │ Made about 6L more of apple cider this afternoon, too. I am a busy │ │ little bee! │ │ │ └─■ 🕑 21. │ │ I did the second batch of UJSSM whisky yesterday (aka, a proper sour │ │ mash bourbon) and ran it with the low wines from the first stripping │ │ run. After taking decent cuts, I diluted and blended all the jars today │ │ and mixed the better tasting stuff together. Ended up with 4x 700ml │ │ bottles around 43% each. │ │ │ │ It's nowhere near as smooth as it could be if I distilled it another │ │ time or carbon filtered it or aged it on charred oak for a few years. │ │ But for what it is, it's pretty good. I've been mixing it with Sprite │ │ and sipping it on the rocks. The bourbon is sweet, corny, and... creamy, │ │ almost buttery. It's a little hard to drink neat, but it adds some nice │ │ flavor to mixed beverages. │ │ │ │ My 3rd generation UJSSM is currently fermenting, 20L worth, along with │ │ another 20L of sugar-wine (kilju) that will end up as vodka. There is │ │ no more tomato paste for sale in my town so I tried adding some of the │ │ bourbon backset with some boiled yeast to serve as a nutrient for the │ │ new vodka. │ │ │ └─■ 🕑 22. │ I managed to drink 3/4 of a bottle of my bourbon last night (mixed with │ Sprite and Coca-Cola) while the most I've ever been able to drink of │ commercial whisky in a night is 1/4 of a bottle. And that 1/4 a bottle │ of whisky would always give me a terrible headache while I'm feeling │ terrific today. │ │ Whether that's a statement in favor of or against moonshining depends on │ your point of view... only $2 down the drain on that bottle, at least. │ ├─■ 🕑 23. │ │ 6 bottles of corn whisky, 3 liters of apple cider, and 1.5 liters of │ │ ginger ale ready for consumption. Bringing it to a party tomorrow night! │ │ │ └─■ 🕑 24. │ My friends (2/3) preferred the apple cider to ginger ale, but they all │ enjoyed everything. They were really impressed by the homemade whisky -- │ per my advice, they mixed it with Sprite (I brought several bottles of │ Sprite) and they had several servings of it. │ │ Had fun bringing the party in a dry county for $10-ish. │ └─■ 🕑 25. Recently produced ~12 liters of "low wines" from sugar washes.
Biggest game changer in my fermentation for distillation lately: I add a tablespoon or two of diammonium phosphate and tiny pinch of magnesium sulfate per ~20L of ferment I do. Seems to make a pretty big difference: ferments go faster and cleaner.
Picked up about 200g of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) today and converted it to washing soda (sodium carbonate) by throwing it in a saucepan on the stove at a low heat and constantly stirring. Sure enough, I could see the powder "boiling" -- despite wearing a face mask, some funky smells came through. After about 20 minutes or so, the texture of the powder appeared to change, and the powder seemed to stop reacting.
Spilled a little in the process. Post-cook weight of sodium carbonate was about 120g which is consistent with the theory.
Tomorrow I'll be throwing my 12 liters of "low wines" into the pot still with 3-4 liters water and 4 tablespoons of washing soda. This should result in a large volume of hearts, which will be turned into... gin! this Saturday.