making alcohol?

Question

To make alcohol i know you use sugars and yeast. But does it matter what the source of the sugar is? Can i just use grain sugar bought from a store and mix it with yeast from a store and let it sit and ferment? I've done this before and i think i got some percent alcohol but i never seperated it from the water and other stuff.

Answer 1

Mead

In ancient records, there is mention of the egyptians drinking beer sweetened with honey.

Steps
Mix 1 quart honey with 3 quarts distilled water and boil for 5 minutes. (If you wish to add herbs and spices, add them while it cooks -- star anise and cinnamon work well)
Cool the mixture to just above body temperature.
Add a package of yeast and mix.
Put in a large container (gallon wine jugs work well).
Seal top of jug with a rinsed water balloon or plastic wrap held by a rubber band. Allow room for expansion.
Put in a dark place and let sit for 7 days.
Refrigerate until the sediment settles (2-3 days)
Strain with cheesecloth and bottle.
Store in a cool dark place.
Your mead is now drinkable, but it is even better when aged several months

Answer 2

The short answer is "yup." Simple sugars get made into alcohol by most yeasts.

A pound of sugar in 1 gallon of water will yield about 4.5 to 5% abv. The quality of yeast will determine the quality and quantity of alcohol. Many yeasts are not very good at fermenting beverages and put off some surprisingly nasty flavors. Plus, yeast need some other nutrients besides sugar in order to work properly.

A good wine or champagne yeast will do better than generic bread yeast.

The type of sugar you use will determine most of the flavor. Many sugars have more flavor compounds, which help add depth to the beverage. Molasses and raw sugar will make very different flavored beverages than plain white sugar.

Answer 3

You can do a basic sugar-water mix, but yeast needs some added nutrients to work well...add a cup of molasses or a can of tomato paste.

If you want to distill it into something stronger, just remember that it's legal only in a few countries (New Zealand, Italy, Greece, and I forget the rest) and NOT in the US.

Everything you could possibly want to know about it (knowing about it isn't illegal) can be found here:
http://homedistiller.org

Answer 4

Yes you can use regular sugar, but unless your measurements are accurate the quality may be unsavory. I have heard of people fermenting Kool-aid.

Answer 5

Making Alcohol
by The Guys Six Feet Under
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First you must obtain (steal) a holding tank. I recommend those 6 gallon Alhambra water jugs which are often left on porches and in driveways for refills. Just take it off the porch at 3:00 AM and run it home. Now, put it where you are going to put your still. They need to be kept together. Hide your still even if you don't have parents that will **** when they see it. This is illegal by federal law, and you could get busted pretty well. Make your still so it is collapsible and you can fit it all into a small box. Hide the box in your room. When you are going to use the still, take it out and hide it behind some bushes where a passing state trooper, snoopy neighbor, or phed busting you for pirated games won't see it. Keep the Alhambra jug where the still is going to be, cause they are way too big to hide anywhere.

Also, keep your still somewhere with a good breeze or away from people who will smell it. When you are fermenting the ****, it will smell like puke or even worse. When you are distilling it, your heater might put off smoke. The alcohol will smell like alcohol, and heated mash smells worse than ****.

Now go buy a shitload of fresh or frozen whatever (check the list below). Frozen corn will be easiest to deal with because it is already cut off the cob and is very forgiving with beginners. Besides, it's all part of a great American tradition: Moonshine!

+--------------------------+------------------------+
| Ingredient | Product |
|--------------------------|------------------------|
| Rye or Potatoes | Vodka |
| Molasses or Sugar Cane | Rum |
| Corn | Moonshine |
| Wheat or Rye | Whiskey |
| Barley or Rice | Beer |
| Grapes | Wine |
| Apple Juice | Hard Cider |
| Sake | Rice |
+--------------------------+------------------------+

Put about 10 bags of corn in each jug and no more, because the carbon dioxide being released sometime pushes it up and out and you could get the **** all over the ground. What a waste. Besides, it will start to rot in the ground and smell even worse.

Anyway, add just enough lukewarm water to cover the surface and leave the stuff exposed to air for about 2 weeks at room temperature. After a few days it will bubble and look and smell like puke, but that's no problem. It should do that. Just be sure you've got adequate ventilation.

Installing a small fan in your Alhambra jug is no problem. Drilling holes in the sides of plastic with a sharp drill bit is easy. Drill two holes near the top, where there won't be any corn (fans do tend to heat up and short circuit when exposed to water) and insert two tubes. Make the fan blowing air into your jug, and not out. The mist from the mash will wear it down after a while.

Now, for the still. This is complicated, so bear with us. First, take a big beaker or something like it and put a big tube going out the top. You should glue around this tube, so none of the gas will escape. Now, run a smaller tube into the side of the bigger tube, and connect a valve to it. Now, connect the other side of the valve to your huge thing of fermented whatever, but make sure the tube connects at the bottom and goes straight across so the pressure of the water will push it along the pipe (pumps get too messy). I mount my Alhambra jug on bricks, so now the whole thing looks like this:

| | | |
|Fermented | __ __ | |
| **** |_____|______| |
\__________/----|_|-----, |
| | Valve |--|
|------| / \
|Bricks| / \
|------| /Beaker\
|______| (________)

Now, bend the big pipe around, so it is pointing down at a 45 degree angle. Connect a bigger pipe to it. This will be the condenser. Connect a small pipe leading out of the condenser to a big cup or something that you will catch your 200 proof alcohol in. Also, make a rack to put the beaker on, so you can put a can of sterno or a bunsen burner under it. I would recommend putting a thermometer inside the beaker, so you can leave the temperature just above the boiling point of alcohol. If you don't, you won't get very strong alcohol.

| | ________
| | / ____ \
|Fermented | __ __ / / \ \/\
| **** |_____|______| | \ \
\__________/----|_|-----, | /cond-\
| | Valve |--| \ enser>
|------| / \ \ /
|Bricks| / \ \ /
|------| /Beaker\ \ \_____________
| | (________) \-------------,|
|------| / /\ \ ^ Pipe ^ ||
| | | \/ | |___________|
|------| | __||__ | | Alcohol |
|______| | |Sterno| | \_________/



Everything should be a little farther apart than depicted in the picture, but I only wanted to use 60 columns (80 columns with 1 inch margins). However, the longer the tube leading away from the beaker to the condenser, the longer the distillation process will take, so keep that quite close. If you get the alcohol too close to the flame, it might evaporate. Keep that at the end of a long pipe.


Now, there is only one last step. Take a very long length of surgical tubing (the stuff they make water weenies out of) and wrap it around the condenser, leaving almost no space in between coils. I usually wrap some duct tape around the tubing so it keeps it in place and insulates it a bit. Now, run one end of the tubing to mom's flower garden and the other end to a valve. Connect the other end of the valve to a hose or some other cold water source. Don't do anything stupid like use liquid nitrogen instead of water cause it won't speed up the distilling process. This is what the finished still should look like:


| | ________
| | / ____ \ ______
|Fermented | __ __ / / \ \/,----- -=> Heated
| **** |_____|______| | \ / \ __ __ Water
\__________/----|_|-----, | / / / \____|__
| | Valve |--| \/ / / >--|_|- <=- Cold
|------| / \ \/ / / Valve Water
|Bricks| / \ \/ /
|------| /Beaker\ \ \_____________
| | (________) \-------------,|
|------| / /\ \ ^ Pipe ^ ||
| | | \/ | |___________|
|------| | __||__ | | Alcohol |
|______| | |Sterno| | \_________/



A friend of mine was going to be doing a lot of distilling cause he made a HUGE still. He was going first- class. He lived near a creek that stayed pretty cool, so he was going to figure out how to use that unlimited supply of water. The creek grew plenty of bushes, so he hid his still in them. He even painted the valves green and stuck them out of the bushes and glued leaves on to them so nobody could tell it was a still. But he still didn't have any water. He couldn't have a small electric pump, cause he didn't have any electricity.


As it turns out, he now has 4 lengths of surgical tubing going down to the water, around his (superhuge) condenser. He made a rock and concrete dam about 3.5 feet high, to get a fast stream of suction. He then ran the tubes down to below the dam, and sucked on them. He siphons the water up and out of the creek, through the condenser, and back into the creek. His still is awesome! That thing can run as much as he wants it too, cause he isn't wasting any water, and it won't show up on any water bill.


If you are going to be distilling a lot of stuff, you better make a tube going out of the bottom of the beaker so you can dump out the water and garbage and every now and then. Of course, connect it to a valve, so you won't loose any precious alcohol that's trying to turn into steam in the beaker. Make sure any tubes (like this one) aren't made out of glass and can melt. It's bad when tubes melt, cause that means you have to rebuild the still almost from scratch.


Now that you've got it all set up and the corn (or whatever) is fermented and hooked up to the beaker, turn the valve on a bit to drip some puke of your Alhambra jug into your beaker. Turn on the sterno or bunsen burner to a high flame so it will heat up the beaker. Turn on the cold-water valve so you have cold water flowing around the condenser at a trickle. If the water coming out of the condenser is cold, turn the valve so even less water is coming out, because you don't want to use too much water. But, if it's warm, it's not doing its job. Keep the water coming out about lukewarm.


As this thing's just starting up, keep a good eye on your thermometer. You want to keep the temperature just above the boiling point of alcohol (which is less than the boiling point of water: 212 degrees). This is so you can separate the water from the alcohol by turning only the alcohol into steam, and you can get better stuff. If you're not sure of the boiling point of alcohol, ask your science teacher, or look it up, cause I don't know either.


Now, watch it, and adjust the valves so the fermented stuff coming out of the Alhambra jug just equals the steam going up the pipe, and it won't fill up or boil dry. Adjust the cold water valve so the water coming out of the surgical tubing is slightly warm. Now, wait. Read a book or download another Six Feet Under production, but always keep an eye on the still. When the Alhambra jug is empty and the beaker is dry, you are done. Don't expect this to go very quick, however.


If you like almost pure alcohol, distill it again. If you do it right, you could have no water at all inside your liquid high. However, even I haven't been able to get a batch that good. All it takes is practice and getting to know your still. They all have different personalities.


You now have around 198 proof ethyl alcohol in that collecting cup. Pour the alcohol through activated charcoal to remove that nasty **** that makes you retarded and blind. The stuff is now safe to drink, but don't. One swig of 200 proof alcohol will probably kill you. 150 proof is only for experienced drinkers (derelicts). The highest proof I've ever had is 138, and it must have been the worst experience of my life.


Now, mix it in with about 3 parts alcohol and 5 parts Kool-Aid or distilled water or something. The more Kool-Aid or water, the less the proofage. To give you an idea, beer is around 6 proof, wine coolers are around 12, and wine is around 20. I wouldn't recommend more than 100 proof at all. If this is your first time, make sure you have a little bit alcohol and a shitload of Kool-Aid. You probably won't notice the taste or overdose that way.


If it goes wrong, keep trying. Usually the first time, the stuff will taste like **** and be almost all water. It just takes some practice. Also, proof is roughly percentage times 2. 50% alcohol is 100 proof alcohol. 100% is way too high to drink. Never go above 75 percent alcohol (3 parts alcohol, 1 part something else), which is 150 proof. That **** could kill you.