As it seems, everyone knows about moonshine - a strong alcoholic drink. And many people mistakenly believe that moonshine in its qualities "loses" to more noble drinks. In fact, this is completely wrong, because if everything is done correctly, observing the technology of each stage without violations, you will get an ideal product - transparent, strong, and most importantly - your own!

Homemade moonshine recipes are very diverse, because the peculiarity of the drink is that it can be prepared from a wide variety of raw materials. Grain, berries, fruits, vegetables, all kinds of jams, tomato paste, starch and even sweets - all of the above is suitable for brewing mash and subsequent distillation, while each type of raw material makes it possible to prepare a certain type of moonshine. Grains will make a strong and captivating drink, from berry mash - more aromatic, the main thing is that the raw materials are of high quality. So, choose any of the methods we have proposed and get started!

Sugar moonshine

You will need 3 kilograms of sugar, 15 liters of water and yeast (100 g). Mix the ingredients, leave for a week. Further - distillation in the apparatus. To improve the taste and impart a pleasant aroma, you can put a few currant leaves or a bunch of dry fragrant dill in the mash before infusing.

The given recipe for sugar moonshine is an example of how you can make a strong alcoholic drink from a minimum set of products on your own.

Recipe for making moonshine without yeast

Option 1

In this case, the well-known tomato paste will be the main component. So, we take a liter of pasta, stir it with sugar, dilute the resulting gruel with water and add any beer there. Insist the resulting mixture warm until the mash ferments. And only then we distill.

Sugar will need 5 kilograms, water - 15 liters, beer - 0.25 liters.

Option 2

Chop sweets (three kilograms) with any fruit filling, then transfer the whole mass to water, stir, set to ferment for about 5 days. Then we do the distillation. Water consumption - 20 liters.

Recipe for making moonshine from jam

You can use any jam (raspberries, currants, blueberries, strawberries), as long as it ferments. For 3 liters of jam we take 1.5 kilos of sugar, 15 liters of water (always warm), 100 g of yeast. Mix, put in a warm place. After 5 days we distill.

Potato moonshine

This recipe is laborious, and it is very important to withstand the technological subtleties of the process.

Required:

• 10 kg of potatoes;
• 4 kg of oats;
• yeast (about 600 g);
• water (38-40 liters).

Grind oats and pour boiling water over them. Rub the potatoes, then gradually add them to the oatmeal mixture, stirring constantly. We leave for three hours, then gradually add water and yeast, stir. We close the tank tightly with a lid, set it away from the light. As soon as sediment and bubbles appear in the container, it's time to distill.

Moonshine from honey

The main component of honey mash is, of course, honey. It will need three kilograms. In addition, you will need the same amount of sugar, 300 g of yeast. Water is also used in this recipe, you will need twenty liters of it.

Two main components - we mix sugar and honey in water, then we throw yeast into the mixture, mix everything thoroughly and put it on fermentation. After a week, ready-made honey mash can be distilled into moonshine.

Moonshine from corn

To get high-quality moonshine from corn cobs, you should first make a mash. To do this, grind the corn (about 8 kg), add 1 kg of wheat flour there, mix everything thoroughly. It is best to use a large enamelled pot for mixing. Then add boiling water (35-40 liters) to the mass, mix, put the tank on the stove and cook for about 4 hours.

Next, cool the mixture, add barley malt (1 kg), stir and leave for two hours, after wrapping the tank with a blanket. Then we cool the resulting mixture a little (to about 20 degrees), add 100 g of yeast, set everything to ferment for seven to eight days. We distill. The malt used is sprouted barley grains.

Bread moonshine

This recipe uses both bread and grains. Required Ingredients:

• black bread (seven loaves);
• ten kilograms of boiled potatoes;
• sprouted grains of oats, barley or wheat (six kilograms);
• 1 kg of yeast.

Soak the bread in 10 liters of water, then thoroughly grind the mass. We also grind the grain, and knead the potatoes to the consistency of porridge. We mix all the ground and mashed products with each other, add yeast and set aside the mass to ferment. After 7-8 days, the mash can be distilled, and it is better to do this twice.

Recipe for making moonshine from grain

This recipe is also laborious, but the drink is strong and of high quality.

We take 10 kg of any grain, soak it in water for about two to three days, and then dry it until crispy. Pour the grain into a tank (preferably an enamel one), fill it with ten liters of hot water, stir everything well. After two hours, add another 10 liters of hot water and again leave the mixture for two hours. After that we add cold water (2 liters), add yeast (500 g), put on fermentation for three days. After the completion of fermentation, the composition is distilled. To get a better quality grain moonshine, you can do the distillation twice.

Wheat moonshine

This recipe uses regular wheat grain. The calculation is as follows - grind four kilograms of grain, add sugar, water (three liters) in the same amount and put it in the heat. After five days, we add another kilogram of sugar, warm water (18 liters) to the composition, we insist everything for about seven days. The last stage is distillation (twice).

This recipe is often called classic, and it is this recipe that is most often used in practice.

Wheat sprouted moonshine

Mash according to this recipe is infused with sprouted grain. It is convenient to germinate it on baking sheets - sprinkle the grain, fill it with warm water. In the process of germination, we control the humidity, maintaining the ambient temperature no more than 17 degrees and turning the grain about every 6 hours. Wheat grains usually germinate after about 8-10 days. Then we grind the grains, add yeast, water to the mass and insist until the contents ferment. The process will take about 6-7 days. We distill the product two times.

Product consumption:

• grain two kilograms;
• water thirty liters;
• yeast a pound.

Rye moonshine

To make rye moonshine, we first germinate rye grains, then grind and then dilute with water. While constantly stirring, heat the mass a little and bring it to a jelly-like state.

Then we put the tank or large saucepan in a warm place for about ten hours. Next, cool the mixture to a temperature of about 17 degrees, throw in the yeast and set it to ferment. We distill once.

Water is taken based on the amount of grain 1: 3, yeast - 50 g per 1 kg of grain.

Recipe for making moonshine with pine nuts

In this case, distillation of the mash is not required. We take 3 liters of high-quality vodka or good moonshine, add 200 g of raisins, 200 g of peeled pine nuts. If you like tart drinks, you can add one tablespoon of dry oak bark.

For a mild taste, it is recommended to add about 100 g of honey. We mix all the components, pour into a jar, roll up the lid and put in a cool place for 1.5-2 months. After vystoyka distillation is not required, you just need to filter it through a strainer or cheesecloth. Moonshine on pine nuts is ready!

Moonshine on prunes

To prepare such a fragrant moonshine tincture, you will need a pound of prunes. There is no need to remove the bones. We wash the prunes thoroughly, fill them with moonshine (6 liters), set them to stand for a month. Then we filter the drink. Moonshine infused with prunes is ready to use.

Millet moonshine

We take two three-liter cans of millet and cook it until the cereal is completely boiled. Cool the porridge a little, add two kilograms of flour and warm water to make a mushy mixture. Carefully dilute 200 grams of yeast in water, add to the resulting porridge with millet, mix.

We set the content to wander. After five to seven days, we distill the finished mash, and it is better to do a double distillation.

Moonshine on cranberries

You cannot make moonshine directly from berries. But cranberry tincture on moonshine is very popular.

This will require 4 liters of strong high-quality moonshine, two kilograms of cranberries, a quarter of a kilogram of sugar. Add moonshine to the berries, add sugar, mix everything. For fermentation, we put the mash in a dark place and keep it there for three months. After the expiration date, the aromatic cranberry tincture can be consumed.

Rice moonshine

You will need three kilograms of rice (long, round - no difference), three full glasses of any sprouted grain (malt), two hundred grams of yeast.

Add warm water (8 liters) to boiled rice (do not drain the water), cool it a little, add ground sprouted grain. We leave the mixture for 10 hours, add the already diluted yeast into it and set it to ferment for a week.

After 6-7 days, thoroughly filter the mass, then distill it. From this amount of ingredients, approximately 3.5 liters of moonshine is obtained.

Apple moonshine

For the preparation of a strong alcoholic homemade drink, you can use apples of any variety.

Peel the fruit (10 kg), grind it, put it in a container. Add sugar (calculation: 150 g per 1 kg of apple mass), leave to ferment for five days. Then we filter the mixture, add sugar (150 g per 1 liter) to the resulting liquid mass, and set it to ferment again, now for two weeks.

We distill the resulting apple mash twice, after which an excellent moonshine will be ready.

Pea moonshine

First grind the peas into flour, then boil them. Cool the resulting mass, add malt (3-4 cups), mix and leave for 8 hours. Then add yeast and ferment for a week. In some cases, fermentation can last up to 10 days.

After fermenting the mash, filter and distill once.

Consumption: peas - three kilograms, 200 g of yeast, sprouted grain (malt) - 3 glasses, 10 liters of water.

Moonshine from wine

The recipe for wine moonshine is simple. We take 10 liters of any quality wine, pour yeast into it, close the tank with gauze or tie it with a towel and put it in a warm place. After 6-7 days, the mash should be ready, and after that we distil it into moonshine.

Moonshine from beer

A good moonshine can be made from unpasteurized, so-called "live" beer. To do this, pour beer (5 liters) into a container, mix thoroughly, allowing all gases to escape. As a result, there should be no foam at all. Next, we do the first distillation, add a little water (about half a liter) to the resulting distillate and distill again. After that, we stand the product for three days, and the moonshine is ready for use.

Recipe for making odorless moonshine

Moonshine has a peculiar pungent smell that not everyone likes. To remove the odor, the drink must be cleaned.

Here are the ways we offer you for this:

• for three liters of finished moonshine, add 2 g of potassium permanganate. After some time, a precipitate will form in the drink. We carefully drain the moonshine, not allowing the sediment to mix with the purified liquid.
• pour fresh milk into the finished moonshine and distill. Consumption: one liter of milk is taken for 6 liters of alcoholic beverage.

Birch sap moonshine

For mash, we take 15 liters of juice, three kilograms of sugar, yeast (100 g). We slightly warm the birch sap, then add sugar to it, mix, and then add yeast.

We insist the mass for a week, then we filter and distill the liquid.

To improve the taste, before you put the resulting mass to ferment in the heat, you can add cherry or garden currant leaves there.

Rowan moonshine recipe

1. We sort out ripe mountain ash, remove bad or damaged berries. Pour in sugar, add water. We mix everything, throw in the yeast, stir the mass thoroughly again and only then set it to ferment. Fermentation time is approximately two weeks. Distillation follows. Product consumption: mountain ash - three kilograms, water - five liters, yeast - 100 g.
2. In this recipe, you will need to take berries, bread kvass instead of water, yeast. Rowan thoroughly crush, add yeast and kvass, mix. Then we put the mixture on fermentation (about 6 days). We distill once, add moonshine (6 liters) and distill again.

Number of products: kvass - five liters, berries - three kilograms, yeast - 50 g.

Apricot moonshine

With proper observance of all stages of the technological process, you can get a great aromatic alcoholic drink from apricots.

Remove pits from apricots, grind in a blender or meat grinder, add yeast, a little sugar syrup and set to ferment. After two to three weeks, we filter the finished mash and put it on distillation. The best option is to overtake two or three times.

Amount of products: apricots - 10 kg, sugar - 10 kg, water - three liters, yeast - 100 g.

Barley moonshine

In fact, this recipe for moonshine is the preparation of homemade whiskey, where barley is the main raw material. To begin with, we germinate the grain (it takes from three to six days), then dry it and grind it. Next, pour boiling water for 10 hours, then add more water (the calculation is as follows: we take three liters of liquid for 1 kg of ground barley), add yeast.

We set everything to over-ferment, for about a week. Then we distill the mash twice.

Moonshine with dry yeast

Usually dry yeast is used in combination with sugar, then a better quality drink is obtained. You will need a bag of factory-made dry yeast, five kilos of sugar and twenty liters of water.

We carefully dilute the yeast, mix it with previously dissolved sugar and let the mass brew for about ten days. Only after that we distill the mash.

Malt moonshine recipe

Malt is obtained from sprouted grains of wheat, barley, rye. In malt recipes, yeast can be dispensed with. Here's an interesting option:

• germinate barley grains, dry, grind;
• we prepare a steaming: we brew 200 g of fresh hop cones in hot water (2 liters), then filter the broth from the hops, cool it a little, add three tablespoons of flour, stir, let stand for an hour;
• we take half a bucket of apples, add malt, steam, warm water (to get a semi-liquid mass), then set it all to ferment for about a week. Then we distill.

Moonshine on oak bark

Moonshine infused with oak bark has a pleasant aroma and beautiful color.

To prepare a drink, add dry oak bark to the ready-made moonshine (about 30-50 g of bark per 1 liter). We insist at a temperature of 17-18 degrees for about a week, then filter and pour into bottles.

Moonshine from flour

Dilute rye flour with water, then add yeast for fermentation and put in a warm place. After a week, perhaps a little more, we filter and distill the resulting mash.

Calculation of ingredients:

• 100 g yeast;
• for 1 kg of flour, about 1 liter of water.

Banana moonshine

To prepare this exotic drink, take 1 kg of bananas, one pineapple, nutmeg (100-150 g), anise (120 g), sugar (100 g).

Peel the bananas, mash them with a fork in mashed potatoes. Peel the pineapple, cut the pulp into pieces, cover with sugar. Mix banana puree and pineapple pulp, cover with chopped nutmeg, fill with moonshine (10 liters).

We insist for about 8 days, carefully filter. One distillation will be enough and your moonshine with a pleasant banana aroma is ready!

Mulberry moonshine

Good moonshine is obtained from mulberry (mulberry) berries.

Knead 10 kg of berries, add sugar and yeast to the gruel. We put everything in a warm place, carefully monitor the fermentation process, stirring the mass for the first two days. Then we distill the mash.

Sugar will need two kilos, one hundred grams of yeast.

Moonshine on rosehip

In this version, the finished mash does not need to be distilled. We take five to six glasses of rose hips, add seven liters of water, mix the mixture.

Then add yeast (about 100 g) and sugar (4 kg). The fermentation period of the mass is about three months. After the end of fermentation, filter the liquid. Moonshine is ready to drink.

Persimmon moonshine

Grind persimmon, squeeze out the juice. The next step is the addition of sugar, yeast. Calculation: for 10 liters of juice 1 kg of sugar and 50-80 g of yeast.

We put the mass in a container to ferment in a warm place, the time is about a week. We distill in the apparatus.

Moonshine with herbs

Many people like to cook moonshine with various herbs. This drink has a pleasant aroma, rich taste, and therefore is easy to drink.

1. For six liters of moonshine, we take dill (10 g), sage (100 g), coriander (30 g), rose hips (30 g). Pour the components with moonshine, insist for about five days. After standing, we distill the mass. After distillation, add sugar syrup (glass) to the finished product.
2. We take wormwood (20 g), mint (200 g), rosemary (15 g), cloves (10 g), fill everything with moonshine (12 liters), close tightly. We remove the container and insist for three days. After that we filter the tincture and distill it once.

Grape moonshine

So, to make moonshine from grapes you will need:

• 10 liters of grape pomace;
• five kilos of sugar;
• yeast (100 g);
• 30 liters of water.

Gently fill the grape pomace with water, let it stand, add the rest of the ingredients. Stir the mixture constantly during cooking, then put it in a warm place. The aging period is a week.

After that we filter the mash and only then distill it. It is advisable to do the distillation twice, in this case, you get a transparent tasty moonshine.

Pepper moonshine recipe

You cannot get moonshine directly from pepper, but you can give the finished drink certain qualities. This is especially important in those cases when you want to get a drink of a beautiful color, without a specific moonshine smell, but with a pleasant aroma.

We take black peppercorns (at the rate of 15 g per liter), cloves (3 g per liter), ginger (10 g per liter). We add all of the above to the finished moonshine, insist for a week, filter.

We have given only some of the recipes, but there are a lot of them. In a huge variety of options, everyone can find their own, the most suitable, of the available products.

And having mastered the basics of moonshine, you can experiment, coming up with new recipes for homemade moonshine. The most important thing is not to overdo it with drinking, remember that everything should be in moderation.

Cognac is a noble drink that is quite difficult to make at home. based on the use of ordinary ethyl alcohol as raw materials, only a crude counterfeit can be obtained. Only by making a real one can you enjoy a fragrant bouquet without fear for the quality of the alcoholic drink you consume.

What is cognac distillate?

Cognac distillate is made from certain varieties of white wines with the obligatory observance of all the rules of distillation and aging. Only with strict observance of all production conditions will cognac acquire its characteristic color, bouquet and taste.

Consider the stages of the distillate manufacturing process:

1. Preparation of wine materials, which includes the cultivation and collection of grape varieties with a minimum sugar content.
2. Obtaining grape juice and making must from it.
3. Fermentation
4. Primary and secondary distillation of the resulting wine with separation of the middle fraction.

The efforts spent on production will pay off, because the cost of 1 liter of cognac distillate, made by yourself, is significantly lower than the price of cognac in a store. The result of the correct passage of all stages will be homemade cognac, which is pleasant to drink yourself or treat friends.

Cognac distillate or cognac alcohol - which is better?

Nothing is better, they are different names for the same product. According to the latest national standard (GOST), cognac distillate was introduced instead of cognac alcohol that existed in the legislation until 2012.

It should be noted that the description of the cognac alcohol production technology is identical to the standard for the production of cognac distillate.

Failure to comply with the requirements for production technology increases the amount of harmful substances, including fusel oil, which is part of the cognac distillate, the hazard class of which is defined as the third.

Grape varieties for the production of cognac distillate

Cognac distillate can only be obtained from certain sour grapes. Their distinguishing feature is their low sugar content. In France, Folle Blanche, Colombard and Ugni Blanc are used for these purposes, which stand out for their particularly intense and persistent aromas.

So which grape variety should you choose for making your cognac? These should be fruits of white, less often pink varieties with clear juice without a nutmeg aftertaste. Isabella grown everywhere in the south of Russia is not suitable as a wine material for the production of cognac due to the low yield of the product.

The most suitable varieties were recognized by the Institute of Winemaking and Viticulture:

• Grushevsky white;
• Kunlean;
• Bianca;
• Swim;
• Aligote;
• Scarlet Tersky.

These grape varieties at the stage of technical maturity have the required sugar content and acidity, as well as are characterized by thermal stability and increased juice content, which is necessary for the production of must by the runoff method.

Preparation of wine materials for cognac distillate

Go through the harvested grapes, removing the spoiled fruit. It is impossible to wash the grapes because of the yeast cultures on the skins, which are necessary for fermentation. To obtain juice, crush the grapes together with the seeds.

Pour the resulting juice together with the pulp into an enamel vat and cover with a small amount of sugar if the berries are slightly not ripe. Within two weeks, natural yeast forms on the surface and the fermentation process starts. If fermentation is not too vigorous, add wine yeast. Close the container hermetically and place in a warm place. Remember to stir once a day.

After 1-2 weeks, measure the strength of the young wine with an alcohol meter. If it shows 11-12%, drain it by filtering the pulp through cheesecloth. Long aging of wine is not recommended because of the possibility of the appearance of Madeira aftertaste.

Primary distillation

Cognac distillate is produced from young white wine by double distillation. Pass the wine material obtained as a result of fermentation through a distiller to produce raw alcohol. It is also very important at the stage of the first distillation to be able to correctly separate the middle fraction from the head and tail.

The result of the primary distillation will be a crude distillate with a strength of 25-30% and vinasse.

It is permissible to leave the middle fraction together with the tail for re-distillation. In this case, before the re-distillation process, it is necessary to lower the strength of the raw alcohol by diluting it with clean water.

Secondary distillation

Improving the quality of the product is achieved through repeated distillation, during which it is also necessary to separate the fractions and cut off the central fractions from them.

The head fraction has a strong unpleasant odor and has a strength of about 80-85%. Its production takes about 3% of raw alcohol and up to half an hour of working time.

The central fraction, which is the desired cognac alcohol, is cut off as the pungent smell weakens. The cut-off is also done based on the strength of the product, starting at 78% and finishing at 58% to avoid unpleasant tails in the distillate.

As the strength of the produced product decreases from 50% and below, the stage of cutting off the tail fraction approaches. The third fraction has a significant volume and often accounts for 40 to 50 percent of the total amount of raw alcohol. The tail can be left for further distillation.

The result of the secondary distillation and the separation of the middle fraction will be a high-quality cognac distillate - a colorless transparent liquid with a taste of ethyl alcohol and a pronounced wine aroma, suitable for further aging.

For a long time, Calvados was considered the alcohol of commoners, since the drink is made from ordinary apples. But after this alcohol began to appear in the works of the writer Remarque, the situation changed. The elite became interested in the apple moonshine infused in barrels and it quickly became fashionable. We will look at how to make Calvados at home according to the classic recipe and in the form of an imitation tincture.

On a note. Calvados can only be called a drink produced in Normandy (a region in northwestern France), in all other cases, apple distillate should be called brandy.

Simulated Calvados (Apple Tincture)

Cooking takes a minimum of time and money. The smell of the tincture is slightly similar to the original. For those wishing to cook a real homemade Calvados, I advise you to go straight to the second recipe.

Ingredients:

• apples - 2 kg;
• vodka - 1 liter;
• sugar - 200 grams;
• water - 150 ml;
• vanilla sugar - 10 grams.

Technology

1. Wash the apples, remove the core and pits, cut into cubes.

2. Put the cubes in a jar, sprinkle with vanilla sugar.

3. Add vodka, close the lid and put the jar in a dark place at room temperature for 2 weeks to infuse.

4. Remove the apples by filtering the drink through cheesecloth. Squeeze the pulp.

5. Mix water and sugar in a saucepan, bring to a boil, boil for about 5 minutes (until foam is released), removing foam from the surface. Cool the finished sugar syrup to 25-30 ° C, then pour into the apple tincture and stir.

6. Pour the finished tincture into glass bottles and seal tightly.

Store in a cool, dark place. Shelf life - up to 3 years. The taste is sweetish apple vodka with a strength of 32-35 degrees.

Apple Calvados Recipe (Real)

The proposed technology is as close as possible to the original. Of the ingredients for homemade Calvados, only apples are needed. Although you end up with a distillate (moonshine made from fermented juice), I still advise you to take the quality of your apples seriously. They should be ripe, with no signs of rot or spoilage. The variety is not of fundamental importance, but it is better to use sweet and juicy fruits.

1. Getting cider. Squeeze the juice from apples in any way possible. The less pulp, the better. Let the juice stand for 24 hours in a dark place at room temperature. Then remove the foam from the surface and drain from the sediment through a tube into a fermentation vessel. Install a water seal or a rubber glove with a small hole in one of the fingers (pierce with a needle).

Transfer the container to a dark place with a temperature of 18-27 ° C. After fermentation is complete (signs: the water seal does not let bubbles for several days or the glove deflates, the drink has become lighter and does not taste sweet, a sediment appears at the bottom) drain the finished cider into the alembic, trying not to touch the sediment at the bottom, you can additionally filter through gauze. If this is not done, the hard part will burn during heating, ruining the taste of the Calvados.

Wort fermentation under a water seal

2. Distillation. It's time to get the distillate out of the cider. This requires a moonshine of any design. During the first distillation, the yield should not be divided into fractions, taking all the product until the strength in the stream falls below 30 degrees. Measure the strength of the obtained apple moonshine and determine the amount of pure alcohol.

Dilute the moonshine with water to 18-20 degrees, then distill again, taking away the "heads", "body" and "tails". Collect the first 12% of the amount of pure alcohol in a separate container and pour it out (use for technical needs), these are "heads" that contain harmful impurities, spoil the taste and have a bad effect on health.

3. Excerpt. For apple moonshine to turn into calvados, it needs to be infused with oak wood. The classic technology uses oak barrels. But at home, not everyone has such an opportunity, so a simpler option is suitable - aging in glass jars (bottles) with oak pegs.

You need oak wood with a trunk diameter of 25-35 cm. Bark, sawdust and shavings are not suitable, as they contain too many tannins that make Calvados bitter.

The wood must be divided into pieces 5-8 mm thick and 10-15 cm long. Pour the resulting pegs with boiling water, leave for 10 minutes, drain the broth, soak in cold water for 20 minutes, then drain the liquid and dry the wood. Put the processed pegs in jars and fill with apple alcohol diluted with clean cold water to 45 degrees. Roll up the jars with iron lids (close tightly with corks), put for 6-12 months in a dark cool place for ripening.

Filling bottles with apple alcohol

4. Filtration. Filter the finished homemade Calvados through several layers of gauze and cotton wool, then pour into bottles for storage, close tightly with corks.

The video shows an alternative technology for preparing Calvados with sugar and yeast. Although the technique is inherently correct and a little simpler than the proposed one, due to the addition of other ingredients (yeast and sugar), the recipe cannot be called classic, the aroma will be worse, and the taste will not be so soft.

How to make moonshine at home. Simple instruction in 5 steps.

Do you want to make real moonshine yourself and feel the buzz from moonshine? In this article, I will talk about how to make quality alcohol at home. Everything is on the shelves, in simple language, without formulas and clever terms.

People have known about moonshine for thousands of years, but they do not stop making it now. Yes, in 2019, supermarkets are inundated with alcoholic products of various varieties, but moonshine is not dying, but only gaining popularity... And not only because purchased alcohol is getting more expensive (vodka from 215 rubles, cognac at least 388 rubles), but also because it is simple, interesting and, in addition, moderately safe for health!

In the arsenal of our ancestors there were no moonshine stills made of food steel, no alcohol meters, no water locks. At the same time, they managed to brew a wonderful and safe drink for health. Today, you have a bunch of bonuses at your disposal in the form of affordable moonshine equipment for every taste and wallet. You will be surprised, but there are even specialized stores for moonshiners that make life so much easier that making moonshine is no more difficult than making soup.

Read 5 easy steps and you will learn how to make your first alcohol.

Wort preparation

Wort is the basic raw material for mash. To prepare it, you need to mix only two ingredients:

1. water;
2. sugar-containing foods... To choose from:
   • sugar (to get the classic sugar moonshine);
   • fruits, berries or jam (for brandy);
   • grain or malt (for whiskey).

• Water - 10 liters.
• Sugar - 2 kg.

The water must be clean, soft and unboiled.

Before mixing the ingredients, you need to prepare an airtight container for the subsequent fermentation of the wort. Will fit:

• Plastic (cheap and practical);
• glass (nice and more expensive);
• enameled;
• container made of food grade stainless steel or copper.

Glass container

Do not use an aluminum jar. Aluminum is harmful to health.

The container must first be cleaned, rinsed with hot water and wiped dry.
Stir sugar in water - the base is ready! Now it's time to revive the wort.

The wort turns ... into mash

To make a mash from the wort, add yeast to it. Yeast can be:

• Dry (alcoholic)- 30 grams;
• Pressed (bakery)- 150 grams.

Even 10-15 years ago, all homemade distillers used ordinary baker's yeast to make mash. They are cheap, but have a number of disadvantages - they ferment for a long time, give out a low strength (no more than 9%) and emit an unpleasant odor during fermentation.

Specially designed for making homemade drinks. They make the mash stronger (alcohol content up to 20%), do not emit foam and odor, and ferment faster. I recommend using alcohol.

Do not add yeast to hot wort - it will die. The wort temperature should be no more than 28 ° C.

After adding the yeast, tightly close the lid, install a water seal to release the carbon dioxide, then put it in a warm environment of 20-25 ° C and wait for the yeast to convert all the sugar into alcohol. It's not fast, you have to wait 4-5 days. The exact time depends on the type of yeast. At the end of fermentation, you will receive a sugar wash.

If the yeast fermentation period has passed, then the mash is checked for readiness. Signs of the readiness of the mash:

• Bitter taste... So all the sugars have been converted to alcohol.
• No foam... The surface is smooth, the characteristic hiss is gone.
• Transparency... Braga became more transparent, and a sediment formed at the bottom.

If all the signs of readiness are present, then the last thing remains to be done - lighten the mash... This is necessary to completely remove yeast residues that have an unpleasant taste and odor.

A simple and affordable material is used as a clarifier - bentonite... It is white clay ground into powder. Getting into the mash, in just 24 hours, it collects all residual fermentation products and falls with them to the bottom. Low consumption - 1 tablespoon for 10 liters of mash.

We get raw alcohol

Now the most interesting thing - we will distill the mash into raw alcohol on a moonshine still. Here I will not disassemble the features of purchased and home-made devices, but I will immediately recommend purchasing a ready-made moonshine still. They are now available to everyone, understandable in management, and most importantly, they give the same and predictable result. There are a great many models of moonshine still, but here I will tell you how it works classical, he is in the first photo.

The classic moonshine still with a dry steamer "Germany". Professional moonshine still "Wein 4".

A good device is high-quality and safe moonshine.

Rinse the device thoroughly before use. Pour the clarified mash into it 3/4 of the way, connect to the kitchen mixer, put on the stove and bring to a boil. The selection of raw alcohol is carried out until the thermometer on the apparatus shows a mark of 98⁰С. Then the selection can be stopped. At the exit you will get 30-40 ° alcohol.

The alcohol obtained after the first distillation cannot be consumed. It is saturated with impurities that are harmful to health and needs to be cleaned.

To make our alcohol usable, pure and hangover free, a second distillation is required.

The birth of moonshine

Dilute the resulting alcohol with clean drinking water to a strength of 20–25⁰.

Rule: moonshine is added to water, not vice versa! Otherwise, it will become cloudy.

During the second distillation, we will distill the resulting raw alcohol into moonshine on a moonshine still. The connection diagram is the same, but additional equipment is required to select a harmless part. You will need an alcohol meter to determine the strength of the drink and a graduated cylinder for easy work with the alcohol meter.

Connection diagram for the second distillation

The second distillation is carried out by dividing the resulting product into 3 parts, which follow each other during the distillation:

1. "Heads"... This is the first and very harmful part that needs to be separated from the useful “body”. To understand how much "heads" need to be selected, it is necessary to calculate the volume of absolute alcohol in the raw material. We multiply the volume of raw material distilled by its strength and divide by 100. In our case, we have 20 liters of raw material with a strength of 25⁰. We calculate: 20 * 25/100 = 5 liters of absolute alcohol... "Heads" are 10% of the volume of absolute alcohol, which means we get the volume of "heads" - 500 ml.
2. "Body"... This is what we need, what we will drink. It is selected after the "heads" until the alcohol strength drops to 45⁰. All that is after - "tails".
3. "Tails"... It is also a harmful part of moonshine, which should not get into the finished drink.

An alcohol meter immersed in moonshine will immediately show its strength.

Congratulations, we got real moonshine! Now, having received the "body", we will make the drink truly ideal, having cleansed it of all impurities.

Moonshine cleaning

You can use birch or coconut charcoal for cleaning. There are 2 ways:

• Infusion... Moonshine is poured into a filled container with coal and infused for 2-3 hours, stirring occasionally.
• Filtration... It is carried out by passing moonshine through a container with coal.

Before using coal, you need to get rid of coal dust, which can cloud the drink.

The drink purified in this way is already suitable for consumption.
As a result: with 2 kg of sugar we got 2.5 liters of pure hangover-free drink.

Finishing touches

Before use, moonshine is usually diluted to the desired strength. Again, remember the golden rule of mixing: add alcohol to water. And before serving, let the moonshine brew in the refrigerator for a couple of days so that it becomes soft, pleasant and light.

Wasn't I right when I argued that making moonshine is easy ?! In fact, this is just the tip of the "iceberg" of home brewing. There are immeasurably many opportunities for experimentation and new recipes. Prepare cognac by steeping moonshine in barrels; get new flavors using different ingredients; Recycle old jams and crops into homemade drinks!

Homemade natural drinks with your own hands.