WineMaking

The basic theory: sugar + yeast + nutrients + flavor + time = tasty drink.

See GikoCider recipe page for an easy introduction.

Drinking Wines

• GikoCider

Distilling Wines

Birdwatcher's Tomato Paste wash

• ~18 liters water
• 4kg sugar
• ~200g / 6oz tomato paste
• ~10g boiled yeast
• ~40g fermenting yeast
• pinch diammonium phosphate
• pinch epsom salts

Bring some water, ~6 liters, up toward a boil. After passing 65*C, add a packet of yeast, let the yeast die. Start adding sugar and stirring until fully dissolved, then start adding tomato paste and stirring.

After everything is well and dissolved, let the soup start cooling. Once it's below 40C, add to a clean fermentation vessel and fill with the rest of the water. After the mix is under 35C, add a pinch of DAP and epsom salt, and add 10g of yeast. Over the next day or so, keep adding yeast every 6-12 hours in batches. Be careful not to add too much at once -- you risk it "boiling" over as the yeast start to activate.

Should finish fermenting to ~12% within a week. Produces a nice, fairly neutral vodka.

Odin's Cornflake Whisky

• ~18 liter water
• ~3kg sugar
• ~700g frosted corn flake breakfast cereal
• ~10g boiled yeast
• ~10g fermenting yeast

Smash up corn flakes good and well. Bring about 4 liters of water to boil in your boiler. Melt sugar with 10g of yeast for ABV and some nutrient, then stir in smashed up corn flakes for flavor and additional nutrient. Pour into fermentation bucket, top up with the rest of the water, ferment, siphon, distill.

Breakfast cereal costs a bit more than cracked corn and this recipe allegedly does not lend itself as well to "sour mashing" as cracked corn does, but this stuff produces a fantastic result.

UJSSM (Uncle Jesse Super Sour Mash)

This is a multi stage process that produces a pretty good, cheap corn whisky. The basic theory is that sugar provides the alcohol and the corn is used for flavor and nutrients. The end result is quite creamy and corny, and plenty drinkable even without aging on oak for ... years ... and can be drank as a "white dog" whisky, such as moonshine typically is. I enjoy it mixed with sprite!

• ~18 liter water
• ~3kg sugar
• ~3kg cracked corn
• ~10g boiled yeast
• ~10g fermenting yeast

"Sweet mash"

1. Rinse cracked corn to ensure there's no bugs...
2. In a large pot, add 4 liters of water or so and bring up to 60*C or higher
3. Add 10g of yeast to boil to serve as a nutrient
4. Slowly add sugar, stirring until dissolved
5. Mix syrup with cracked corn and the rest of the water in a large, clean fermentation vessel
6. When drink cools down to 30-40c, add 10g of bread yeast

"Sour mash"

The results of your first distillation will be nothing too special. Additional runs are where the magic happens... the corn flavor amplifies and greatly improves because you'll be recycling corn and flavor-rich "backset" (what's left behind in the boiler after hooch is boiled out)...!

1. Once "beer" settles and starts clearing up, siphon it out and do a stripping run.
2. Scrape out any gray/white corn that may be on the first layer of the fermentation vessel.
3. Replace "spent" corn with fresh clean washed corn
4. After distillation finishes, repeat the recipe from before, but use ~20-40% of "backset" in the place of the water from before.
5. PROTIP: backset will still be hot when distillation ends; use this as your hot water to melt sugar!
6. Repeat as long as results stay good

Things to keep in mind

• Take good notes of your recipes and process -- learn from experience, but don't be afraid to experiment.
• You want to minimize exposure to bacteria as much as possible -- you can use cleaner such as StarSan to sanitize equipment, Campden tablets / boiling to further sanitize ingredients (eg store brought fruit), and aim to minimize exposure to air / transferring between bottles/jars/etc after fermentation has begun.
• Until fermentation has definitely ended, make sure carbon dioxide has a way out, or you will end up with a nasty, sticky, smelly explosion! After it seems like fermentation has ended in my ferments (airlock goes inactive, hydrometer nulls and and goes stable across multiple readings) I screw on a lid tight and burp it occasionally for a few days until there is no more hissing or pressure buildup.
• Avoid sunlight, high temps (> 35C), low temps (< 15C), and messing with your drinks (shaking, moving, adjusting) as much as possible.
• Virtually any sugar will ferment, but avoid making wines from orange juice -- they always end up nasty.
• A good amount of flavor will be lost via fermentation. For subtle flavorings, add those herbs, spices, or other flavors after fermentation has ended.
• If you want to sweeten up a drink you already fermented, easiest way is to use artificial sweeteners. Otherwise you need to kill off the yeast somehow and that's kind of a pain.

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AlchemySchool