How to dilute moonshine to the desired strength?

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

All people who make moonshine at home know the recipe for how and with what to dilute moonshine so that its strength becomes necessary. And those who first encountered this production often make mistakes, and their product can be safely poured, because it will be unsuitable for use. Most often, homemade alcohol is diluted to forty degrees, but this is a matter of taste. In this article we will tell you how to dilute moonshine to the desired strength and how to do it right.

Why dilute moonshine?

Before we start talking about the correctness of the technology, consider the cases when moonshine needs to be diluted.

Firstly, it needs to be diluted with water for those people who will do the re-distillation. Raw alcohol, or, as it is also called, pervach, after the first distillation is simplymust be diluted for re-run to 20-25 degrees. Only after such a dilution can one proceed to the second distillation.

Secondly, moonshine at 85 degrees is very difficult to use in its pure form, unless, of course, a person is not used to such alcohol. In this case, you need to dilute the moonshine so that after the first glass you do not fall into unconsciousness and do not burn the mucous membrane of the esophagus.

Fertman's table will help

I would like to say that you should not be afraid of so many numbers. Everything is simple here: the top line is the required strength of moonshine after dilution, the vertical column is the strength of moonshine before dilution. At the intersection of the moonshine fortress before dilution and the required number of degrees after, there is the amount of water needed.

	90	85	80	75	70	65	60	55	50	45	40	35	30
95	64	133	209	295	391	501	629	779	957	1174	1443	1785	2239
90		65	138	218	310	414	535	677	847	1052	1306	1630	2061
85			68	144	231	329	443	578	738	932	1172	1478	1884
80				72	153	246	353	480	630	812	1039	1327	1709
75					76	163	264	382	523	694	906	1177	1535
70						81	175	285	417	577	774	1027	1360
65							88	190	311	460	644	878	1189
60								95	207	344	514	730	1017
55									103	229	384	583	845
50										114	255	436	674
45											127	290	505
40												144	335
35													167

Counting example

To make it easier for beginners, let's look at an example of breeding. How to dilute moonshine to 40 degrees if the feedstock contains 60 degrees? To begin with, you will need clean bottled or spring water, once again purified with a filter, an alcohol meter to make sure of the original strength.

In our example, to make a forty-degree moonshine from a sixty-degree moonshine, take a liter of raw material and add 514 milliliters of water to it. This is the number indicated in the table. Try to do it yourself and you will see that there is nothing complicated in the table. We increase the amount of water exactly as much as liters of moonshine will need to be diluted.

What kind of water should be diluted with moonshine?

So that your labors are not in vain, you should take seriously the quality of the water, which will be diluted with alcohol. How to dilute moonshine to 40 degrees or to another fortress? Pure water.

Ideally use distilled water, available at any hardware store or car battery store. Such water is quite inexpensive and will not reduceyour budget.

There is an option to dilute moonshine with well or spring water. Only in this case, we advise you to run it through the filter again to completely clean it.

If you are thinking about the question of how to dilute moonshine to 40 degrees without clouding, and use the collected tap water, then you can not try. Even by boiling such water, you will not rid it of heavy metals and impurities that will make the original drink cloudy.

Worth remembering! It is also important how to dilute the moonshine, and how to do it correctly. To dilute, you need to pour moonshine into water and in no case vice versa.

Lemon tincture with moonshine

Many people think that there is nothing easier than diluting moonshine to 40 degrees with lemonade, and they don’t use any method: they add lemon juice to already diluted moonshine, they even dilute it with a carbonated drink! In no case should you dilute it with soda, because the bubbles, coupled with alcohol, can give an unforeseen reaction of the body: nausea, colic, severe intoxication. It also has a detrimental effect on the stomach.

It is best to make a tincture of moonshine on lemon than to dilute moonshine with lemonade: both vitamins and taste are more noble, no harm from natural fruit. You need to take five ripe lemons, remove the peel from them. Use the pulp to prepare some dishes, and only the peel is useful for tincture. Place the crusts in a container, fill with a liter of moonshine. Cover with a lid, put in a cool place. Duringshake the jar daily for a week and after this time bottle the drink. Naturally, you need to strain, dilute to the required strength with water. How to dilute moonshine to 40 degrees so that it does not become cloudy, and how to do it correctly, we wrote above.

Why does moonshine get cloudy?

How to dilute moonshine to 40 degrees, we considered. It becomes clear that for the correct preparation of a weaker drink, only crystal clear water is needed. The question remains: why does moonshine get cloudy at all? There are several reasons for this:

1. Splash is the main reason. This is when, with strong heating, the mash begins to boil and a milky foam appears on it. It enters the moonshine coil (refrigerator) and begins to condense together with the distillate. In this case, the turbidity will appear in the drink immediately. To prevent foam from entering the rest of the moonshine, you need to reduce the heat, or it is better to stop distillation altogether, after cooling the apparatus, completely clean the system. It is advisable to install a dry steamer on the apparatus after such a manifestation, it will prevent foam from entering the coil, and it will go into the jar.
2. The presence of essential (fusel) oils in Braga. These are by-products of fermentation, there are more than forty types, and they are toxic. These oils have either a lower or higher boiling point than ethyl alcohol, and after distillation, they precipitate and give an unpleasant haze.
3. Poor-quality moonshine still. This is the mosta common case, because every person tries to save money, and beginner "winemakers" do not understand the difference between an expensive and a cheap device. Cheap parts are made from poor materials, where the material oxidizes. The body, coil, various tubes are subject to oxidation.
4. Wrong water. Again, back to the question of how to dilute the moonshine to 40 degrees so that it does not become cloudy. Bottled, spring or distilled water only!
5. Unwashed construction details. There is only one prevention here: after each haul, it is necessary to thoroughly rinse all parts of the apparatus.

If the moonshine is still cloudy

Two hundred years ago there was only cloudy moonshine, and until now, many believe that high-quality home-made alcohol of this type should have a milky tint. In films, huge bottles are shown on the tables, in which a cloudy liquid is poured, this is done so that the viewer immediately understands what is there. In fact, high-quality moonshine is a pure transparent liquid, which sometimes cannot be obtained. A completely unbearable swill comes out with the sediment, which smells terribly, and it harms he alth terribly. That is why cloudy moonshine needs to be cleaned.

1. Re-distillation. Initially, we dilute the "pervach" to 20-25 degrees. How to dilute moonshine, we already wrote. After that, overtake again, dilute to the desired strength, leave for three days in a cool dark place.
2. Charcoal cleaning. cloudyMoonshine is good to drive through such a filter plan. Helps in most cases.
3. Heating. This is a last resort and doesn't always work. Moonshine must be heated to 70-80 degrees, and then cooled sharply. After a couple of hours, sediment should appear at the bottom. Carefully drain the pure alcohol into another container.

Using tips on how to dilute moonshine and how to do it correctly, you will save yourself unnecessary pain when cleaning. In most cases, a drink properly diluted to the desired strength will not become cloudy.