Whisky Yeast

Whisky made at home is pretty easy and convenient. If you do it right by following the instructions and recipes, you will find yourself wanting to repeat the process again and again. Making whiskey has always been popular and once you are sure that you are not breaking any rules by distilling your own alcohol in your state, you can try your hand at it.

The following are the ingredients you will need to make your first batch of good whiskey: 7 lbs rye, 2 lbs barley, 3 g of yeast, 1 lb malt, water (6 gallons), a processor or food mill, a fermentation container that is airtight, a still that can be bought at a supply store or make at home with a pressure cooker or steam kettle (these should have a steam valve), a thermometer that helps in monitoring the temperatures, rubber tubing or plastic hose, a huge pot, pillow case to strain out solids and glass or whiskey bottles.

The first step is to crush the rye and barley into a coarse looking powder. This can be accomplished by using the food mill or food processor. Crushing by hand is also fine if you use a clean brick or stone to do the job. Pour good quality bottle spring water (6 gallons of it) into the cooking pot and put it on the stove in order to heat up to a required temperature of 70 degrees F. You can suspend the thermometer into the cooking pot so that monitoring the temperature can be done conveniently and easily.

Add the crushed grains and malt into the water and stir this continuously as you slowly raise the temperature to 160 degrees F. This has to be done for 3 hours maintaining the temperature at the required degree. This will convert the starch present in the mixture into sugar. Next take off the container from the stove and cool the mash till it is around 70 degrees F. This is the moment when yeast should be added and stirred well so that it does its work. Adding the yeast into a hot mixture will kill it, therefore wait till the mixture is sufficiently cooled down first.

The next step is the fermentation process. The mixture should be put into a large container which is airtight in order to help the fermentation to begin. Use a waterproof sealant in gaps. In about the week, the fermentation should be complete. Pour this liquid through a pillowcase or filter so that you can filter out any solids.

Whisky made at home will now involve distilling the alcohol next. If you but a still from a home brew supply shop you will have no problems following the instructions that come with it. However a homemade still is also easy to make and operate. A rice or pressure cooker or a steam kettle should be used. Plastic or rubber hose/tubing should be placed over the steam valve. A plastic bag can also be used for this. Once the liquids are heated again, it will change into vapor on boiling and this vapor will escape into the hose or plastic bag, into a storage container. Drain the alcohol into the bottles and let it age to get a good taste and flavor.

Moonshine stills for sale are in plenty. Stainless steel as well as copper moonshine stills are sold by distillation equipment suppliers and manufacturers. Copper moonshine stills are sold as “art décor” and are beautifully hand crafted and many are considered collector’s items. One can buy these for any amount ranging from $ 500 to $3000 depending on the gallon size and the workmanship.

Many people are confused as to which of the two types – stainless steel or copper – is the best type of still to purchase. When compared, the stainless steel still wins the competition where durability, cost and maintenance is concerned. These stills are very easy to clean and you can use just ordinary soap and water. Moreover, they last forever!

Regarding copper moonshine stills, these are very attractive and look fabulous. However they are hard to keep clean as the copper gets tarnished and harsh, expensive chemicals are needed to keep it clean and shiny. The reason why people love them is that copper has the ability to take out sulfides and toxins which are automatically produced while distillation. Moreover, because copper is soft and can be easily handled, most people want to build their own copper moonshine stills at home.

Moonshine stills for sale are hand made/custom made from material (either copper or stainless steel) of a very high quality and the craftsmanship is very good catering to a person’s specific distilling needs. Most distilling equipment is generally user friendly that both new as well as seasoned distillers can easily use them with no trouble at all. The stainless steel still is manufactured from 100 percent stainless steel and is thus extremely durable and long lasting. These are so easy to clean as well. Distillation kits include equipment that can help you make moonshine, distil ethanol and extract essential oils as well. These can also be used to distill and purify water.

Today there are moonshine stills for sale that are solar powered and made with the help of solar energy. These “green” stills are environment friendly and deliver products of low costs making them extremely popular. No matter what your intentions are when you try to purchase a moonshine still, you have to make sure that you are not breaking any law. Everything depends on how you plan to use the moonshine still. Kindly check with local authorities and state laws before you make a purchase.

Moonshine stills for sale are defined as apparatus and equipment that are capable of separating ethyl alcohol from alcohol containing mixtures. Smaller stills (just a gallon capacity) are also used to distill water and non-alcoholic material in a laboratory, so these are obviously exempted from laws that prohibit alcohol making/distilling. However if you extract essential oils using a solvent method and alcohol is the by-product, then you are distilling! It is also important to first find out that the company you are buying your moonshine still from is professional and ethical and not dishonest. Therefore it pays to first do your homework before buying a still. Moonshine stills are pot or reflux stills. The pot still is used to make schnapps or whiskey that will get its aroma or flavor from the mash. A reflux still will not give you an alcohol with taste but this can be added later on.

Moonshine still plans you need to know include the making of a still and the basic recipes of making moonshine. To understand the technicalities of distilling moonshine, one has to understand that beer is produced by the fermentation of a grain starch and spirits/liquor is made by the extraction of water from base materials. Therefore if beer is distilled the end product is whiskey, just as brandy is produced by wine and vodka is got from a potato mash.

The main equipment you will need to produce moonshine and make a still is a stove or some heat source, a large cooking pot or vessel and cooling element like cold water or ice cubes. The principle involved is simple. The water has to boil at 100C to become vapor while alcohol will only boil at 73C. If there is both alcohol and water in a particular liquid that is heated to a specific temperature between the two respective boiling points, then the alcohol will evaporate leaving the water behind. This vapor has to be collected and condensed into the alcohol.

One of the most simplest ways to do this is to put the mash into the container and heat it over a stove. Use two containers – one smaller so that it fits into the large one, on a two inch platform from the base and seal the large container that has the smaller one that has the mash inside. Also seal a heater (aquarium heater) in the mash and switch it on so that it heats the mash. When the right temperature is reached the vapor will begin to rise and collect on the large container walls. It will condense in the cooler part and drip to the bottom of the container. As long as you don’t allow the temperature to increase the mash will continue to heat in the smaller container and alcohol will collect in the larger one. This is probably one of the cheapest, easiest and simplest ways of distilling moonshine.

Another recipe that is simple is as follows. Mix the molasses and yeast with water and let it ferment until it bubbles. You will need an old steamer with a lid, copper tubing, a large plastic bottle that has a lid, a storage jug or container, some waterproof sealant, coffee filters and charcoal. It goes without saying that it is best and wise to first check all state, local and federal laws first to make sure that you are not breaking any law by distilling alcohol at home.

Drill a hole in the steamer lid and feed an end of the tubing into the steamer. Make a large hole into the storage container to feed ice into it. Make another hole in the lid of the plastic bottle and feed the tube into it letting it emerge from the bottle side before it enters the storage jug where you plan to store your alcohol. Seal all gaps so no vapor escapes from any hole. Fill the steamer with your ingredients and fill the bottle with ice cubes. While the mixture heats, vapor will escape out of the lid into the tubing where it will pass through the bottle, get cooled by the ice cubes, condense and drain as alcohol into the storage jug.

Make whiskey at home and you will find yourself making it over and over again because it is convenient, easy and more importantly – cheap! Making whiskey is becoming very popular and most amateurs like to make their own by following the simple instructions. The first thing you should do is make sure that you have the right ingredients and equipment at home.

Ingredients needed to make your first batch are as follows. 7 pounds of rye, 2 pounds of barley, a pound of malt, 3 grams of yeast, 6 gallons of good water, a food mill or processor, a container for the fermentation process that has to be airtight, a still that can either be bought at the store or made at home with the help of a steam kettle, a pressure cooker or rice cooker with a steam valve, a cooking thermometer to monitor the temperatures, plastic hose or tubing, a big meal cooking pot, a pillow case for straining and of course some glass bottles or whiskey bottles.

The first thing you would have to do is to crush the barley and rye into a powder that is coarse. You can do this with the help of the food processor or the food mill. If you want to do this crushing by hand then make sure that you use a clean stone or brick to do it. Next you would have to pour in the 6 gallons of bottled water into the large metal cooking pot and place it on the stove for heating it to a temperature of around 70F. The cooking thermometer can be suspended in the pot to enable you to monitor the temperature.

The next step is to put the crushed mixture of malt and grains into this water and stir the mixture continuously while raising the temperature to around 160F. The stirring of this mixture has to be done for 3 hours while making sure that the temperature is constantly maintained at the said degree. This makes the starch into sugar. After the required time, the container can be taken off the heat so that the mash cools to 70 degrees F. At this juncture, the yeast should be added and stirred thoroughly so that it combines with the mixture.

Fermentation is the next step. The mixture should be poured into the container that is airtight so that fermentation starts. Make very sure that the container is well sealed. This process should take around a week or so. After the week, you can pour out the fermented liquid through the pillowcase so that if there are any solids they are filtered out.

Distillation is next. Either you buy a still from the supplier or make your own at home. All you need to do is take the rice or pressure cooker that has a steam valve or a steam kettle and place a hose or plastic bag over the valve. The liquid will have to be heated so that the steam or vapors will escape through the steam valve into the hose or plastic bag. These vapors will condense and cool and the whiskey will be produced and drained into the bottles. Let the whiskey age for several weeks in order to get a good flavor.

How to make a still for moonshine can turn out to be pretty easy if you know how to go about it. There are different types of moonshine stills like the reflux still and the pot still. The latter is the easier one to make and if you have all the equipment and ingredients, and follow the instructions, then very soon you will be sampling your own brew!

Two components which are the pot and the condenser basically make up the pot still. The pot is just a large container that is used to heat up the brew. The condenser on the other hand is used to condense or convert the escaping spirits or vapors into the alcohol liquid. You will need a pressure cooker which can be stainless steel or aluminum and has a one gallon capacity. The cooker should have a good tightly fitting lid.

The next step is to make a coil of copper tubing that has a diameter of 10mm. Take a broom shank that is wrapped tightly with some adhesive tape and newspapers and wind the copper tubing over it so that it forms into a coil. Before winding the copper tubing, plug one end of it and fill it with salt and then seal the other end so that there is no collapsing of the tube while winding. Even though you will have to use a bit of pressure to wind the tube make sure you wrap it around the prepared broom shank to form the coil. Once this is done you can unplug the ends and remove all the salt. It is essential to keep this coil cool so that the condenser works efficiently.

The next step in making the still is to take a bucket with a drilled hole in its side. Fit the coil into the bucket so that the bottom tube end comes out of the hole while the top end is just an inch lower than the top of the bucket. Be sure that all openings and gaps in the places where the tube enters or leaves is sealed tight with the help of waterproof sealant.

Always make sure that there is an opening on the lid of your pot to enable the vapors to escape. A meter of plastic tubing should be fixed on the steam valve or opening so that the vapors can be transferred into the condenser coil after they escape. Remember that it is not legal in most parts of the country and almost all over the world to produce or brew moonshine at home. Numerous laws restrict moonshine production at home.

How to make a still for moonshine can be easy for you if you follow the DIY procedures and instructions that will help you produce your own alcohol or spirit. Moreover, if you are curious about the brewing process and need to find information about it you can always visit a library or also visit a site online that will give you all the information you need on how to make a still for moonshine.