How do you make moonshine?

Question

just wondering, not an alcoholic :)

Answer 1

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Ferment some stuff and then distill it

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brilliant

Answer 2

The Irish make Poteen (moonshine) and the ingredients are what you can source.
The Irish use mainly potatoes.I think USA use wheat products.
You make a mash from the ingredients and boil them up( this usually gives your location away .The Irish build Stills near a farmyard to mask the smell) and then you ferment the mash. When fermented , you need a still to distill the alcohol from the liquid.
It is raw alcohol (%age unknown) and blindness is not uncommon after drinking it.
They then feed the remainders to the animals, evidence destroyed but, occasionally, drunk animals is not uncommon

Answer 3

Moonshine is sugar that's been mashed, fermented and distilled. Fermentation is just yeast + food, the yeast produce alcohol when they consume starches and sugars. In beer the food is hops, barley and other grains. In wine it's grapes. In typical American moonshine it's either fruit (peaches, usually) or tons of pure cane sugar.

Fermentation isn't difficult, but you have to be careful of bacteria. You normally control the process so that air gets out but not in using a simple water valve.

After fermentation you'll have a wort of about 5-15% alcohol, depending on how you set up your operation and what yeast you use. To get a higher alcohol level you need to distill it, which is the part where moonshine becomes illegal. After you cut the wort (remove the very top and bottom layers) the process is pretty simple: heat it and seperate the water vapor, which concentrates the remaining liquid and pushes the alcohol level up. If you've ever seen a 'still, that's what all that copper tubing and heating is for.

The reason 'shine is illegal depends on who you ask. The bootleggers claim it's old Victorian morals and the tax man wanting his cut. The tax man says it's a safety issue. There are some risks with 'shine. You can create methanol (the old "make you blind" excuse) but you have to be really unsafe/dumb to end up making much of it. Lots of 'shine makers who are out to make money cut a lot of corners and have poor sanitation and shoddy still construction (lead solder in the tubes, old radiators). Craft moonshiners dismiss all that as being a small sector of greedy miscreants who drag down the image of people who are just making it for friends and family.

Answer 4

I make it surreptitiously.