Not that any of ya'll would know about the "INs and OUTs of it, but I'm thinking I might be able to save a few dollars...I'm sitting here, on my fourth beer & wishing I didn't have to go to town to replenish my supply of alcohol...I don't really give a chit if it's wine, hard stuff, or beer......between late June and early August, I've got a solid supply of blackberries and would like to be able to take advantage of the natural resource...I'd be capable of building a still, but I'd rather not...back in the day, I crushed up some Thompson seedless grapes, threw in some flieshmans yeast, and drank the results a week later...from what I recall, the results were good..Any recipes/ guidance???

You gonna catch De Gouch on them shins. Then you'll wearing Crocs to vent them flaming big toes. lol

Google UJSM or uncle jesse's sour mash. That's the best reciepe for a beginner runnin a still IMO.

ujsm recipe site:homedistiller.org

Copy and paste that into google at the expense of your liver.

https://homedistiller.org/forum/

Dago red, what you just posted. I make several decent wines with juice, sugar and champagne yeast. You can freeze out the water 2 or 3 times to concentrate the kick.

I did make some peach wine once. First two primaries blew off the airlocks and painted my pantry ceiling with peach-barf.

The surving batches tasted like that crap the romans gave Jesus on a sponge while he was on the cross

MFM,

I make both beer and wine, but mostly wine. It's hard to save much money making beer, but you can make very good wine for a fraction of what you pay at the liquor store.

For a simple book on making berry wines etc. I recommend "The Winemaker's recipe handbook" by Raymond Massaccesi. Great simple recipe's for fruit wines.

If you want to try a simple way to make grape wines, there's some very good kits available. They will have all the ingredients you need along with clear instructions. The one warning I'll give on these is they generally have sub par yeast included. Pick something in line with your chosen grape varietal.

I will warn you, it can be addicting. I started with a food safe plastic bucket and a couple of carboy, but have since graduated to a 14 gallon stainless steel fer menter.

Star San Sanitizer

Rubber Maid makes some really nice trash cans

Easiest would be wine.

Ale pail, lid and bottling spigot: https://www.northernbrewer.com/brew...ing-equipment/brewing-fermenting-buckets

$21 or there abouts.

Airlock if ya wanna get fancy: https://www.northernbrewer.com/brewing/brewing-equipment/fermenting-equipment/fermentation-locs

Cheapest concentrated grape juice ya can find, and bout 8-12 pounds a sugar, dependin on how much ya wanna get kicked.

Ya gotta be able ta boil water, tho.

Cool it off and add yeast. Yeast can be picky about how much alky they'll make for ya, some make more than others, but then flavor comes into play.

Let it bubble down, and drink it right outta the bucket.

Blackberries and natural fruits sound like a good idea, but they're much more likely to introduce a bug you don't want in your mash, which if you're lucky, will only cause it ta taste like shat.

Sometimes, it'll cost ya the whole run.

We're on the same page....thanks.

Just add you sulfides, and pitch your yeast 24 hours later.

Been my experience that eve if the wine tastes like shat the still can salvage the alcohol.

I don’t think MM is looking for Spanokpitas quality wine, just something slightly above prison toilet hooch. 😁

First thing that popped into my mind is "I wonder what blackberry brandy would taste like?"

I bet MM could choke down Spankers relabeled, repackaged, box wine.

Anyone ever use one of these?

https://www.homebrewing.org/Still-S...EAIaIQobChMI2PLhq86k2QIV1o1-Ch1PCAZwEAYY

When you make beer are you brewing from grain or extracts? I got the homebrewing bug a few years back and made a few batches of ale in my garage/fermented in the basement. I was using extract kits. Results were decent but like you said you don't save much money. I think going all grain is cheaper but then you have a longer process/more equipment.

I'd guess that making liquor is kinda like handloading ammo.

You spend just as much, but you take more shots.

Jonny,

So far I've only worked with extract kits. Generally they would include some grains to steep for added flavor, but be discarded before fermentation. My local brew store stocks an incredible array of grains, and they will even grind them for you. Perhaps someday I'll make that leap.

Yeah that's what I had too the first kit I did was just extract an hour boil and 1 hop addition. I did some other more complicated stuff later with the specialty grains like you said. I'm sure I'll get back into it at some point but right now it's just easier to buy beer. When I was buying my kits I was buying from Northern Brewer but I don't know that I'd use them again since Inbev bought them. Kinda defeats the homebrewing spirit if you're buying your malts from Budweiser.

Nothing quite like a Bristle distillation!

You can also be blinded if you screw up either bad enough.

The #1 barter for when the SHTF.

It’s too cheap to spend the time making it.

I recall several years back a younger guy on my roofing crew, his wife was on WIC. She would get several quart cans of Juicy-Juice a week for her 'allotment' to be given to thier child.

He would use that as concentrate to make his home made wine.

The things people do with govt benefits...have to shake my head.

Ive been brewing my own beers for three years now. To say that you will save monies is like getting married so that you can have sex all the time. I started with extracts and quickly migrated to "all-grain" beers. I only brew the darker, stronger (stout) beers, as I can purchase the lights and medium beers cheaply enough. It costs me about $85 to brew 10 gallons of beer, or a bit over 4 cases. In the stout beer world, many 4 packs run $15-$20 per. I can also change the recipe to change to my liking on any given day. The beers I brew typically end up in the 8.5-10% range once fermented and kegged.

https://www.whiskeystill.net/ get the 10 gallon unit

I've made both beer and wine. Frankly, by the time you invest in the equipment, bottles, caps, corks, and miscellaneous stuff besides the actual ingredients, you don't save much. Less if you have to toss the occasional batch. And unless you surgically clean everything from vats and hoses to the bottles, you WILL have to toss batches. Bottles can be the hardest thing to come by as well as to clean, btw. I finally realized that I was making the stuff much faster than I drink it. I quit.

I get Shiner Bock for a buck a bottle. Whyinhell would I bother making stuff that isn't as consistently good?

i wouldn't buy a stillfrom a vendor. they have to report everyone sold to the feds, its simple to make your own.

How does that happen?

You have to throw away the bad stuff that comes out of the still before the good stuff starts running.

There's a learning curve to everything... sometimes the lessons are harsh.

One of our customers brought me a (supposedly) good bottle of wine for Christmas...It tasted like fermented, half rotten, sour grapes...I've had other wines and IMHO, most tasted like schitt...I guess I'll never be a "connoisseur" of fine wines...I had home made blackberry brandy years ago, and it was quite tasty....

if you are fermenting fruits, find a way to measure pectin and other wonderful stuff in it.
fermented pectin ( found in apples and other fruits ) generates nasty stuff ( wood alcohol , formaldehyde ,etc .. )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pectin

P.

There was a place that sold fresh apple cider from their own press, back when I was in high school.

We put it in 1 gallon glass jugs. Those jugs had screw on steel lids. We'd put them up in the top of our closet and just let them sit there until you could see the lid bulging a bit... We knew it was "done" then.

Hard cider!

This right here.

You guys making Silage should look into Corn Squeezins.

That's pretty smart. Australia?

8 or 16 gallon kegs are the way to go. Look for tri clover fittings and building a lieblong condenser. Pro tip, Soft copper bends really easy packed full of salt.

I would never buy one to use but if you want to see some art check this out

http://www.coppermoonshinestills.com/id5.html

Gotta distill to make brandy.

A couple of guys I have worked with made their own. One had a still and made whiskey.His Grandfather was a moonshiner in east Texas and he used his old recipe. Had a pony beer keg with an electronically controlled heater that was a precise means of boiling off the alcohol and not the other liquids. It was very strong and tasted awful. He gave me a couple of bottles and I regifted them. I told him it was good stuff.
The other guy made country wines. He used any and everything you could ferment. Mostly fruits. He gave me a couple of bottles and his was pretty good. He thought it was worthwhile and experimented a lot., It wasn't as good as some 4 dollar bottles you could buy.
I have tasted other homebrew and moonshines. The reason for doing it from what I have tasted would be simply for the satisfaction of making your own.

Hobby when a person retires???

You can make 200 gallons of wine or beer in Texas each year for personal consumption, but distilling even an ounce is illegal. Some of the pictures in this thread could be considered "evidence" if you catch my drift.

I made it while I was in the navy. Up until the time I had an over pressure and blew up several gallons of raspberries in the back of an AC unit. Wine is easy and not too difficult to make excellent wine. My mother made persimmon wine that was really good.

Buy the cheapest vodka you can find in a 1.75l jug, and run it through a good charcoal filter. Then add in your fruit. That will save you $.

Now if you just need another hobby, I full understand.

I can't understand why every manufacturer can't make vodka as smooth as Ketel 1. That low end vodka tastes like something that should be run through a bunsen burner,...while the good stuff is so smooth that you have to pay special attention to moderate it or you'll get yourself hammered in short order.

Seems to me like, if somebody is going to go to the trouble to distill spirits, they should learn to do it right. How much extra trouble and expense can it be?

I'll make beer or wine. Not interested in making hard stuff. Penalties are pretty stiff.

all in the cuts, lots of lower end stuff leaves in more heads and tails to get more product. thats why good shine cut right will not give you a hangover.

More like canning green beans than handloading. As for a reason to do it? Because it's been in the family for generations and the stupid [bleep] have the nerve to tell me I cant! Only reason I've ever needed to do something.

beer is pretty easy to make but you really won't save any money if you're like most of us homebrewers. you better have a schitload of berries to get much volume. wine takes a lot longer than beer. might wanna look into corn liquor. a mechanically inclined guy can make lots of cheap, decent booze and it ain't hard at all or very time consuming. not that i would know anyone who does it or anything,

I knew guy that made his own wine, aged 30 days in a plastic water jug. I drank some once, it was pretty rough. The story goes that they took a bunch to the hunting camp one weekend, and wound up taking a kid to the emergency room when his kidneys failed after overindulging in my friend's product.

How so?

If I wanted to make my own hooch I would study under stxhunter. I would be willing to go to Texas only if moonshine and fishing w/ Roger and Ltpowell were guaranteed....w/ a sidetrip to show Bludreaux how to shoot.


mike r

I made over 50 gallons of beer last year and so far 20 gallons this year . One way I save money is by not buy "kits " I made one batch with a POS mr. beer kit and then started doing all grain . 5 gallons of stout will cost me about 30/35 bucks . 5 gallons = 8 six packs. At the package store one sixer of good beer is 13.00 plus tax . 8 x 13 = 104.00 . So I figure I have paid for my equipment . Any way I look at I'm saving money . That's what I tell my wife for dang sure !

I have never had to make my own . I like the clear and ran across some good smooth 130 proof so I got 4 jars .

When i was growing up I worked at a feed store . The old man that owned the store made beer and wine in the back . I helped the old guy pour it up and we had a lot of customers. Some of the wine was great but I never liked the beer although we drank a ton .

An acquaintance of mine distills his own personal use spirits made from what we used to call sweet feed and he calls COB or COB-M (corn, oats barley, molasses). I haven't tried it, but he and others say it's good schitt.

He has a still from Vengeance Stills. They also offer recipes on their site.

Vengeance Stills

That's prime sigline material right there.

I had a bit of homemade wine last night!!!

I've heard that before...always figured it was part bullschitt and part true...the key for me seems to be to eat something and drink a few glasses of water before going to bed.

If the local sheriff or his deputies haven't got anything better to do than to bust a half gimpy, broke ass, old man for trying to save a few dollars by brewing and/or distilling some hooch for his personal consumption, they can have at it....

Can't remember where I bought my still from, but it turns out 190+ fuel with a simple sugar wash. I can get 2 runs out of a 25lb bag, ends up being about $20 gallon of high test.

you can get a license to distill fuel.

Fraid that is pretty much inviting them to your home to see that it is denatured. ;-{>8

true, but if you had a use for it, it can be done.

the heads is what will give you the hangover and make it harsh, people will mix some in for more volume. the tails are what can give that wet dog smell taste. though you can add a little tails . making cuts take practice i use proof, smell, taste and touch to do it.

Lolol....I damn sure ain’t no wine connoisseur. I go over to a buddies ranch for a “wine tasting and music jam”. I finally told them to quit wasting the $300 bottle swill on me and just fill my glass with Pendleton and a Budweiser chaser. 😁

Listen to Roger. The foreshots are more volatile organic compounds and truly toxic.

How many still passes do you do?

Scotch malt whisky is usually distilled (in pot stills) twice, sometimes three times. Not necessarily in the same still either.

we run some twice or three times. have 3 stills, will my buddy does does.

In some distillations, whisky, for instance, the cuts are actually made to include some cogeners so particular flavor profiles are maintained. It is no real secret that very pure liquor can be obtained in one pass through a good reflux column still. Whisky is, by law, distilled at a lower temperature than Vodka, for this very reason.

Primers... powder.... oops... BOOM.... where’d everybody go?

Hey, the still is starting to run..... well daaaaang.... lets get us a couple shots a that clear.... where’d everybody go?

Dumb people win dumb prizes....