Simple Homemade Spirits

Whiskey can be made at home through the process of home distilling. Distilling is essentially the same that process that produces rain, involving evaporating a liquid into a vapor and condensing it back into a liquid. There are two basic distilling methods. One method involves distilling a water, sugar, nutrient and yeast mix into neutral alcohol then flavoring it with essences. The second method is to distill a prepared mash for whiskey. There are three types of stills commonly used for distillation process: pot, reflux, and fractionating.

The ingredients used in the first method are listed above, and the only variations come when determining what essences to flavor the whiskey with. The most common mash recipe to use for the second method is a grain-based mash. Heat four kilograms of crushed malt with 18 liters of water at 145 degrees for about an hour and a half. The malt is needed to convert starch to sugar so the yeast can use it. Next, increase the temperature to 163 degrees, strain off and save the liquid, and rinse the grains with hot water. Finally, cool to below 90 degrees, add the hydrated yeast, and leave to ferment. For additional flavor, one or two kilograms of corn can be boiled and added to the mix.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 5th, 2009 at 11:03 pm and is filed under Instructions, Whiskey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.