The alcohol you sip, you enjoy and can even get you troublesome is apparently made from a very junior mix, that you wouldn’t imagine could punch you to sleep. It all started from a combination of sugar and water plus a toss of yeast, then fermented and distilled.
If you decide to produce your own alcohol, you can joggle through several recipes and ingredients. Your output depends on what ingredients you will use and how you decide to run your moonshine still. What’s most important is your sugar source, here’s a table of typical fruits use to extract alcohol and their potential yield.
| Sugar | 100 % | Grape | 16-30 % | Cassava | 25 % |
| Sugar Cane | 9-14% | Artichokes | 17 % | Corn | 70 % |
| Sugar Beet | 12-18% | Bananas | 20-25 % | Potatoes | 20 % |
| Molasses | 50% | Barley & Malt | 68 % | Raisins | 60 % |
| Honey | 80% | Carob beans | 40% | Apples | 24 % |
Corn and malt are commonly used to produce whiskey, regular brandies are distilled from grape washes. Fruit mashes are very ideal for flavored spirits, their retain taste gives texture to the alcohol. Potatoes are great ingredients in producing vodka and schnapps while sugar cane juice and molasses can make really good rum.
Note that you always have to keep the ratio of available sugar to water similar to a sugar based wash to keep the yeast happy (about 0.20 - 0.25 kg/L). So, cane juice can be fermented without dilution since it only has 9-14% sugar content. Raw sugar from juice and corn would best require dilution.
If you’re thinking of how much alcohol you can expect from a single batch, a typical result is about 10-20%. That being said, a single run of a 5 gallon mash could potentially make 1 gallon of alcohol.
Reference: homedistiller.org
Posted by Jason Stone on
I have a two gallon still I would like to have a recipe for a Cherry bounce or something like it.