2023-04-03 at 4:01 PM UTC
Starting homebrewing about 4 months ago and distilling about 2 months ago. I moved to Indonesia about a year ago, where booze is scarce and spendy.
Basic homebrewing can be done pretty easily with most fruit juices. I get a 1 liter bottle of grape juice or apple juice, pour it into a (fresh) 1.5L of water that I remove ~1.25L of water from, add a bit of sugar and bread yeast, shake it up real good, then add a balloon with pinholes on the lid for a makeshift airlock. Cost: about $1.5 for a liter of ~10% hooch, wait time: about 10 days. Throw it in the fridge for a day then siphon off to drink.
Fermenting sugar water (kilju) or honey (mead) is also fine, or any mix of the above. Goes fine with mixers too. Orange juice sounds good in theory but does not work in practice.
More time = better results, so I tend to make 5 or 10 bottles at a time,
As for distilling, I got a ~$100 20L (5 gallon) pot still from Indonesian Amazon (a generic Chinese stainless steel "water distiller") and a 1500W electric heater. Because they sell drinking water in 20L jugs here, I pour out about 2 or 3 liters of water into a jug (for future drinking or fermenting), melt down 3kg of sugar with some of the remaining water with multivitamins and yeast, and add the juice of one lemon. The heat kills the yeast and melts the sugar, which I pour back into the jug. The lemon juice helps the sugar invert and also lowers the hooch's PH. Then, when it cools down to tepid (a bit over 100F or around 40C) I add a packet or two of bread yeast to the 20L jug. The boiled yeast and vitamin act as yeast nutrient. After about 2 weeks, it's ready to distill at 10% strength. For this process, I use a proper airlock; finding a stopper that fits the 20L jugs of water was easy and cheap.
I make 3 of these 20L jugs, distill them one at a time to produce "low wines", then redistill these 3 hooches together in the still and aim for accurate cuts (based on smell and taste). Because I don't use all of the fermented sugar wines to distill initially, I use it to water down the low wines a bit while increasing output (waste not, want not). I get about 10 jars of vodka for about $15, including electric for the still, with this tech, the main expense being the sugar. I made some brandy this way but the flavor improvement didn't justify the increased cost. Got a lot more flavor boost adding some lemon peels to the low wines for a few days to get some nice lemon taste. Still need to experiment with more flavors.
The following users say it would be alright if the author of this
post didn't die in a fire!
2023-04-03 at 4:16 PM UTC
aldra
JIDF Controlled Opposition
sounds pretty haraam to me
2023-04-04 at 1:12 PM UTC
I've been home brewing since I was about 17. I quit drinking in 2017 though so also quit home brewing. Various types of beers, ciders and stouts mostly.
2023-04-04 at 6:48 PM UTC
POLECAT
POLECAT is a motherfucking ferret
[my presentably immunised ammonification]
I used to run a still but every time I left town some asshole would sell my still to the scrap yard, I got it back 2 or 3 times but then it was gone for good
2023-04-11 at 3:57 AM UTC
AngryOnion
Big Wig
[the nightly self-effacing broadsheet]
I brewed beer for a long time all types.
I made some really good stuff everyone really liked it.
I also have a small still that I've only used a few times with meh results.
The temps and vaper points are off and its hard to keep the the condenser temps down.
Was going to run a batch of shine infused with weed through it this winter but we never got much snow.
And I'm to cheap to buy ice, I could have made my own but I just said FUCK IT.
