Saturday 4 June 2011

Homemade Spirits Part 1 : Fermentation

PLEASE NOTE: Home distillation may be illegal in your country - I live in NZ where the government allows this. Make sure you check local and/or federal laws before attempting to follow this procedure


OK here's part 1 of the guide I promised - this part deals with fermentation. To make your own spirits, first you must ferment sugar to alcohol, then you must distill the mash into alcohol. Fermentation is achieved by mixing water, sugar and yeast together in a fermentation vessel, and keeping it relatively warm.





In this batch, I used ~7 KG of sugar, and 1 pack of Still Spirits Turbo Classic Yeast. The sugar was dissolved in hot water, then the yeast added once the 23L mix of water and sugar hit 30 degrees Celsius.


This is the batch as of now, 5 days after fermentation began.



It'll be ready to be distilled soon, so watch out for part 2 of this guide.

15 comments:

  1. Is is legal to distill on your own property? Do you need a lisence?

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  2. Ahhhhhh, ooooohhhh, might have to try this one day. Made beer in a bath a long time ago, didnt really work.

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  3. Very informative and interesting stuff here, I will be back for part 2

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  4. This is awesome, looking forward to more.

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  5. @M Fawful

    Hey, yes you will need a licence in most countries, I live in New Zealand which allows people to make their own personal spirits at home with no licence, but with the exception of Canada I think all other countries need a licence.

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  6. I always wanted to try brewing my own. NZ here I come.

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  7. sweet, I want to brew now!

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  8. this makes me want to try am brewing

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  9. Just found your blog! Following' along with your progress. Really liked the Tactical Nuclear Penguin vid, haha. Thanks for sharing

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  10. Thanks for the guide, will have to try it when it's all up

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  11. That's a hell of a lot of sugar. I would love to try this.

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  12. oh man that is going to be a tasty brew

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  13. Looking delicious as ever, sir.

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  14. Looks interesting, thought I'm not much of a drinker to say the least.

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  15. This looks pretty fun! Cool blog :)

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