Homebrew / Moonshine - Sink vodka appreciation

[The Fuck's Going On Here]

Nice recipe, I would never have suspected cherries and brown sugar to pair well, but fortified wine as a whole is in that liqueur area where flavor and booze come together and make something tasty that can get even people who shy away from hard spirits into that sweet spot dint
Brown sugar is very slept on for fermentation, almost everything I use it in leaves me with a subtle Molasses taste

I must now make mead with canned peaches and brown sugar to see what happens

TBF, when it comes to mead, if you want a more molasses kinda taste, you could also try caramelizing your honey. See how well that works out.

 

[Dfackt0]

TBF, when it comes to mead, if you want a more molasses kinda taste, you could also try caramelizing your honey. See how well that works out.

Ive had Bochet once before, and it may just be a small sample size but i dont think its worth the hassle of cooking the Honey; Max Millers video put me off the idea

 

[VeteranOfTheRetardWars]

Nice recipe, I would never have suspected cherries and brown sugar to pair well, but fortified wine as a whole is in that liqueur area where flavor and booze come together and make something tasty that can get even people who shy away from hard spirits into that sweet spot dint
Brown sugar is very slept on for fermentation, almost everything I use it in leaves me with a subtle Molasses taste

I must now make mead with canned peaches and brown sugar to see what happens

I made a regular wine with the two and it was really good.

 

[Hantavirus]

Definitely save a couple bottles to try aging it, but don't expect any major changes. It might be different with fortified wines, but in my experience nothing you make at home (or country wines from commercial brewers) improves with age except mead. I usually aim to drink everything within a year, which means I give away at least half of what I make. I will save a bottle or two in case I find a recipe that ages, but from my experience there is a good reason the grape has been king since time immemorial.

Inspired by my arancello and talk of cherry in the thread, I have started a batch of cherry liqeuer steeping in Everclear just like I did with my arancello. I could not find sour cherries, so I just used bing cherries; I will cut the simple syrup probably in half and substitute the rest with water. I will dilute to around 35% then bottle.

 

[VeteranOfTheRetardWars]

Definitely save a couple bottles to try aging it, but don't expect any major changes. It might be different with fortified wines, but in my experience nothing you make at home (or country wines from commercial brewers) improves with age except mead. I usually aim to drink everything within a year, which means I give away at least half of what I make. I will save a bottle or two in case I find a recipe that ages, but from my experience there is a good reason the grape has been king since time immemorial.

Inspired by my arancello and talk of cherry in the thread, I have started a batch of cherry liqeuer steeping in Everclear just like I did with my arancello. I could not find sour cherries, so I just used bing cherries; I will cut the simple syrup probably in half and substitute the rest with water. I will dilute to around 35% then bottle.

I think maybe the age thing has to do with tannins, but I’m not sure about that part of things.

 

[Unarmed Gunman]

As someone who has enjoyed spud juice filtered through a sock, some of this shit sounds downright delicious.

 

[Hantavirus]

I think maybe the age thing has to do with tannins, but I’m not sure about that part of things.

I think it does to some extent, but I have added tannin to some low-tannin brews to give them more body, and they never had much success aging. I hope home distilled spirits age better than my country wine. Now that I have my brewing gear set up just how I like it, it's time to finally put my still together and get working on some moonshine. I think I will try my hand at something simpler like a sugarhead moonshine or grappa, then move on to apple brandy, rum, and whiskey. Anybody ITT do any distilling? I have the materials to build a Bokakob still, but have yet to actually do anything with it.

 

[Honored guest]

I bottled and gave out my cherry/peach strongwine, and literally everyone was blown away by how smooth and delicious it was. And I work with serious fancy foodies, they were like ‘oh man this is amazing’.
To recount, I brewed a wine with brown sugar, cherries from my own tree, and quality canned peaches. I brewed that wine and fortified with peach brandy, cherry schnapps, and everclear. I backsweetened with local honey and infused with herbs and spices. And after letting it sit I was left with ~5.5 gallons of this actually really good stuff.
Both fruits come through, it’s very smooth, the flavors are amazing, it’s just sweet enough, but I only expect it to get better as I don’t drink stuff that hard usually so after gifts what I have left will last a long while.
So, resounding success with that one. It was a lot of work compared to my earlier projects but worth it in the end.

That sounds amazing, do you by any chance mind sharing the details of the recipe?

 

[VeteranOfTheRetardWars]

That sounds amazing, do you by any chance mind sharing the details of the recipe?

I did post everything I did while I was doing it, but here’s everything I did:

As many cherries as you can reasonably obtain (we have a Rainier cherry tree and I got some sweet cherries on sale, I used a ton)
Four cans of good peaches in sugar syrup (leftover from last project)
Six pounds of brown sugar
Cinnamon stick
Nutmug, roughly chopped
71B Lavilin yeast

I extracted the juices from the fruit and spices by gently boiling them and using a potato masher, I do this for jelly as well because fuck pitting that many cherries. After very gently boiling and mashing the fruit for a few hours and adding the brown sugar I strained out the fruit and transferred the liquid to the brewing vessel. I added water until the vessel had 4 1/2 gallons of liquid, took a reading (1.041), and pitched the yeast when ready.
After allowing it to ferment to completion and racking the sediment out, I added one bottle of cherry schnapps, one bottle of peach brandy, and added everclear until the math worked out to 19%ABV. I unfortunately cannot find where I wrote down the amounts of each. Then I added local honey until it was sweet enough for my tastes. I added rosemary, cinnamon, nutmeg, thyme, cloves, and star anise and campden tablets. I let that infuse for a week and then clarified and bottled.

It took a lot of time and babying, but it was worth it in the end.

 

[Honored guest]

I did post everything I did while I was doing it, but here’s everything I did:

It took a lot of time and babying, but it was worth it in the end.

Sounds a wee bit too advanced for my notice hooch making skills but I will definitely keep notes on that recipe for later use thank you!

 

[Joshua Connor Tomar]

I’m thinking of using champagne yeast to bottle condition in a glass growler. I’ve overcarbonated beer before—shot over a foot in the air—without the glass breaking. I figure the swing-top cap would fail before the growler itself. I know people say not to use growlers for this, but I haven’t had any issues so far. Think it'll work

 

[Hantavirus]

It will probably be fine, use mini champagne bottles if you are really worried, though come to think of it, I have never seen a corking setup for champagne bottles. You should not need to add more yeast to bottle condition, did you let it ferment to depletion/yeast death with a lower-ABV-tolerant yeast?

 

[Dfackt0]

I’m thinking of using champagne yeast to bottle condition in a glass growler. I’ve overcarbonated beer before—shot over a foot in the air—without the glass breaking. I figure the swing-top cap would fail before the growler itself. I know people say not to use growlers for this, but I haven’t had any issues so far. Think it'll work

Most traditionally shaped growlers are also some degree of pressure safe, I discovered this when I was really into making homemade soda, though its by no means a sure thing

 

[Zhores Medvedev]

Just bottled 24 bottles of wine from the fruit in the yard. 16 apricot and 8 blueberry. The apricot turned out absolutely fantastic. Once it ages I think it will be the best thing I've ever made.

 

[Absurdist Laughter]

I hate muscadines. They have such a weird pungent flavor that tastes like a saccharin fart.

Anyway, my Korean work colleague and I have been making a few batches of makgeolli (막걸리), or Korean rice wine. We're experimenting between using nuruk (누룩, lacto-malted wheat), diastatic malt powder, and pure isolated amylase and glucoamylase. All three of these techniques are used to supply the enzymes that convert the rice's starch into fermentable sugars for the yeast to eat.

It comes out a bit sour, but I lagered it for a couple of weeks, and now it tastes like a commercial nigori sake. Even better with a bit of allulose for added sweetness, since makgeolli is a live drink, so sugar would just get fermented out.

We're trying to be fairly traditional, so we're still rinsing, soaking, and steaming sweet glutinous rice to make it with. We're using the sugok method now, where instead of pitching nuruk directly into the rice, we soak double the dose of nuruk in water for a long time and then strain out and dispose of the solids. This extracts the enzymes into the water, but reduces the lactobacillus content that would produce lactic acid and make it sour.

Have you had any problems with allulose back sweetening and yeast? I back sweetened some cider with allulose and ended up with some bottle bombs; they weren't laggered that might have an impact.

 

[Troonos]

Have you had any problems with allulose back sweetening and yeast? I back sweetened some cider with allulose and ended up with some bottle bombs; they weren't laggered that might have an impact.

Did you stabilize? What was your final SG?

 

[Absurdist Laughter]

Did you stabilize? What was your final SG?

Nah, I didn't stabilize it. Final SG was 1.008, don't think that is enough sugar left to rekick fermentation but maybe the introduction of oxygen got them microbes going again. But I really think it is just the stabilization, usually I just pasteurize which I did not do with these guys. Added some honey to naturally carbonate.

 

[Troonos]

Nah, I didn't stabilize it. Final SG was 1.008, don't think that is enough sugar left to rekick fermentation but maybe the introduction of oxygen got them microbes going again. But I really think it is just the stabilization, usually I just pasteurize which I did not do with these guys. Added some honey to naturally carbonate.

No, that's definitely enough residual sugar for a bottle bomb, especially after more honey was added. Even the priming sugar that we add for bottle carbonating only brings it to maybe 1.002-1.003 at most, and that creates some significant pressure. If you add even a little bit too much priming sugar, it'll explode. You should have left it alone a bit longer to see if the yeast would slowly whittle down the last bit. Even if my fermentation seems done at 2 weeks, I leave every brew in primary for at least a month to give the yeast time to clean everything up and maybe restart fermentation.

If it got down to 1.000 or less, you probably could've skipped stabilizing, but you bottled it way too soon. Brewing is not an impatient man's hobby.

One month in primary.
Stabilize or rely on Delle stability if you're an advanced brewer.
Rack to secondary when visually clear.
Let it sit in secondary for 1-2 months to let the microparticulate floculate.
Bottle.

What was the SG after the honey was added? Did you calculate how much you needed? Honey is a bad idea for bottle carbonation because it's natural and therefore inconsistent. You could have honey that's 18% sugar or honey that's 23% sugar. This is why brewers use priming (corn) sugar, because it's a known gravity added per unit.

 

[Honored guest]

Does the source of the sugar used have an effect on a brew? Is there a difference between granulated cane sugar and granulated beet sugar when it comes to brewing? How about using corn syrup as a sugar source?

 

[Troonos]

Does the source of the sugar used have an effect on a brew? Is there a difference between granulated cane sugar and granulated beet sugar when it comes to brewing? How about using corn syrup as a sugar source?

They have different contributions to the gravity of the mash/must. A pound of honey raises the gravity of a gallon of water by 35 points (0.035). Sucrose and dextrose are 46 points. Corn syrup is 37, but watch out for added vanilla, which most brands add to soften the flavor. Most fruits have a very small impact, like raspberries add about 2 points (0.002) per gallon.