Homebrew / Moonshine - Sink vodka appreciation

Aero the Alcoholic Bat said:
At the risk of being a moralfag and obtaining lots and lots of puzzle piece stickers, I must ask, despite my Kiwifarms username, what would the purpose of moonshine or homemade alcoholic beverages be during an emergency?

[...]

Any other thoughts?
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Decent question and all points about the value of alcohol so far have been great, but I can't help but mention that brewed alcohol is a necessary step to create vinegar, which has many obvious practical uses. "Vinegar" actually stems from Old French vyn egre, "sour wine".

As a separate more niche reason, I brew the excessive amounts of strained kefir whey I make into relatively shelf-stable drinks. This process gets extra SHTF points from kefir whey containing enough yeast that I don't need an outside source. The ability to store this high-nutrition but high-volume whey at room temp for long times would be extremely valuable in a situation where you're processing dairy and refrigeration is hard to come by (which is admittedly a big if unless you're already on a dairy farm).

There's also acetobacter species in kefir which will turn the whey wine into vinegar after a few months- I've accidentally done it once so far with a whey + pineapple juice wine which turned into a tepache-like vinegar. I survived the caveman science of both watering it down into a drink and using it for the brine of a killer pulled pork.
 
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I mean I'm just saying said:
Decent question and all points about the value of alcohol so far have been great, but I can't help but mention that brewed alcohol is a necessary step to create vinegar, which has many obvious practical uses. "Vinegar" actually stems from Old French vyn egre, "sour wine".

As a separate more niche reason, I brew the excessive amounts of strained kefir whey I make into relatively shelf-stable drinks. This process gets extra SHTF points from kefir whey containing enough yeast that I don't need an outside source. The ability to store this high-nutrition but high-volume whey at room temp for long times would be extremely valuable in a situation where you're processing dairy and refrigeration is hard to come by (which is admittedly a big if unless you're already on a dairy farm).

There's also acetobacter species in kefir which will turn the whey wine into vinegar after a few months- I've accidentally done it once so far with a whey + pineapple juice wine which turned into a tepache-like vinegar. I survived the caveman science of both watering it down into a drink and using it for the brine of a killer pulled pork.
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I wonder what the new yeasts would due to a Kefir? Just fast ferment, or new flavors?

Also, I always wanted to make a 'Palm Wine'. It's consumed in the middle east (but haram to Muslims). It's fermented palm sap, extracted from the head of the palm tree.
Does anyone have knowledge of other, exotic brews?

(you CAN ferment _dilute_ maple syrup, it's called Maple Wine)
 
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I mean I'm just saying said:
Decent question and all points about the value of alcohol so far have been great, but I can't help but mention that brewed alcohol is a necessary step to create vinegar, which has many obvious practical uses. "Vinegar" actually stems from Old French vyn egre, "sour wine".

As a separate more niche reason, I brew the excessive amounts of strained kefir whey I make into relatively shelf-stable drinks. This process gets extra SHTF points from kefir whey containing enough yeast that I don't need an outside source. The ability to store this high-nutrition but high-volume whey at room temp for long times would be extremely valuable in a situation where you're processing dairy and refrigeration is hard to come by (which is admittedly a big if unless you're already on a dairy farm).

There's also acetobacter species in kefir which will turn the whey wine into vinegar after a few months- I've accidentally done it once so far with a whey + pineapple juice wine which turned into a tepache-like vinegar. I survived the caveman science of both watering it down into a drink and using it for the brine of a killer pulled pork.
Click to expand...
Funnily enough I recently bough some unpasteurized/unfiltered Apple Cider Vinegar, to try to harvest the mother, to turn some old white wine I have floating around into vinegar to try making it lol, though I was also wondering if it would convert the 'head' and 'tails' of distilled alcohol if some water was added to lower the abv(and dilute the methanol in the 'head') for use as cleaning vinegar in a SHTF situation to make sure nothing was wasted
 
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Watermelon Juice
FINAL
Update. ​

The bubbles stopped completely so I figured it had stalled out although I have no way of knowing for sure since my graduated cylinder is not tall enough. I'm ordering a taller one. ABV was somewhere between 5% and 10%.

It came out a straw yellow color as you can see in the picture.
20240803_132821.jpg

It was foul in a manner I can't say I've ever encountered before so at least the experience was novel. The flavor that hit my tongue is best described as spoiled sunshine. Bright in the same vein as a lemon. The aftertaste sealed the deal as it reminded me of the smell of rotting cut grass sitting next to a full trashcan. My wife said that after just one sip the smell of rot had permeated my breath and made me go use mouthwash.

Fun experiment. I hope the clowns in our local sewers appreciate it.

Tonight I intend to make some more 1 gallon batches of sugar wine, one with raisens and one without, to find out if the ancient wisdom of using them for nutrients is bunk or not. I've also ordered yeast nutrients to compare with a 3rd batch once I get it.
 
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Catgirl Tyranid said:
Watermelon Juice
FINAL
Update. ​

The bubbles stopped completely so I figured it had stalled out although I have no way of knowing for sure since my graduated cylinder is not tall enough. I'm ordering a taller one. ABV was somewhere between 5% and 10%.

It came out a straw yellow color as you can see in the picture.

It was foul in a manner I can't say I've ever encountered before so at least the experience was novel. The flavor that hit my tongue is best described as spoiled sunshine. Bright in the same vein as a lemon, but without any . The aftertaste sealed the deal as it reminded me of the smell of rotting cut grass sitting next to a full trashcan. My wife said that after just one sip the smell of rot had permeated my breath and made me go use mouthwash.
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I don't want to say I told you so, but here we are.
 
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Catgirl Tyranid said:
Watermelon Juice
FINAL
Update. ​

The bubbles stopped completely so I figured it had stalled out although I have no way of knowing for sure since my graduated cylinder is not tall enough. I'm ordering a taller one. ABV was somewhere between 5% and 10%.

It came out a straw yellow color as you can see in the picture.
View attachment 6267979

It was foul in a manner I can't say I've ever encountered before so at least the experience was novel. The flavor that hit my tongue is best described as spoiled sunshine. Bright in the same vein as a lemon. The aftertaste sealed the deal as it reminded me of the smell of rotting cut grass sitting next to a full trashcan. My wife said that after just one sip the smell of rot had permeated my breath and made me go use mouthwash.

Fun experiment. I hope the clowns in our local sewers appreciate it.

Tonight I intend to make some more 1 gallon batches of sugar wine, one with raisens and one without, to find out if the ancient wisdom of using them for nutrients is bunk or not. I've also ordered yeast nutrients to compare with a 3rd batch once I get it.
Click to expand...
Damn, my condolences. Melon wine is a worthy experiment imo even if the results are usually weird and kinda like a trashcan fire, since most people never get to taste it. It's a unique experience.

My experiment just finished up too, you inspired me to do a 5 gallon sugar wash that I sent to the liquer fairy for 3 bottles of pot still vodka that are way better than I expected.
I'd always heard that sugar wash vodkas were garbage, so I'm honestly just confused at this point
 
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Captain Wetbeard said:
Damn, my condolences. Melon wine is a worthy experiment imo even if the results are usually weird and kinda like a trashcan fire, since most people never get to taste it. It's a unique experience.

My experiment just finished up too, you inspired me to do a 5 gallon sugar wash that I sent to the liquer fairy for 3 bottles of pot still vodka that are way better than I expected.
I'd always heard that sugar wash vodkas were garbage, so I'm honestly just confused at this point
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Did you use straight white sugar or something fancier like brown or Demerara sugar?
 
Catgirl Tyranid said:
Did you use straight white sugar or something fancier like brown or Demerara sugar?
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I used Zulka Morena pure cane sugar. I boiled 15 cups of sugar in some water with the juice of half a lime until it was fully dissolved, then added some warm water until I had a little less than 5 gallons of wash. Once the temperature was good I added in a pack of Red Star Blanc yeast I activated in some warm water, then shook the wash around until it was well mixed.
 
Why are so many here making sugar wash? That's usually just a distilling thing. What's the point?
 
Troonos said:
Why are so many here making sugar wash? That's usually just a distilling thing. What's the point?
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When I was a very desperate teen I made Kilju, a sugar wine. It was not good but it got you tipsy, and it was cheap as fuck. Eventually I figured out more stuff and made some serviceable brews for what was basically prison wine.

For the first time in almost a decade I'm trying to brew again, so I made like five gallons of apple cider that I'll be fermenting.
Now that I don't have to hide it from my parents I can be a bit more thorough lol.
If it turns out good I might get more into brewing. We have a good amount of apple trees, an Asian pear tree, and a big ass cherry tree. Where I live we also have prickly pears and juniper berries fucking everywhere, and even in the stores you find prickly pear cider that's pretty solid. It seems like a fun thing to experiment with, and I know I like ciders and meads.
 
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There is only one true master mead maker. Today I’m making my second batch of mead, with some peach juice from crushed peaches. Bubbling up nicely toobz. The first batch I freeze-distilled until it stopped freezing, I don’t have the tools to measure but it was pretty alcoholic. I hope I get 10-15% abv because that’s around the level of Jinro soju, which is really very nice stuff.
 
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Zashaiba said:
There is only one true master mead maker. Today I’m making my second batch of mead, with some peach juice from crushed peaches. Bubbling up nicely toobz. The first batch I freeze-distilled until it stopped freezing, I don’t have the tools to measure but it was pretty alcoholic. I hope I get 10-15% abv because that’s around the level of Jinro soju, which is really very nice stuff.
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You're freeze-distilling to get to 10%? You can get to 18% from simple fermentation alone.
 
Troonos said:
Are you in Saudi Arabia? Is it illegal to import brewing yeast into your country?
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Nah I’m in Singapore we have brewing yeast. I’ll go buy it sometime, no excuses really why I don’t.
 
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