Which yeast for moonshine to choose?

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

Alcohol is an integral part of our culture today. On the shelves of stores, it is exhibited in all its diversity, as they say, for every taste and color. However, many prefer to make it on their own. And to prepare, for example, moonshine, you need some components. One of the main participants in the fermentation process is yeast, which is an essential fungus that converts sugar into alcohol under the influence of enzymes. Today, moonshine yeast also has many varieties that differ in resistance to the external environment, breeding temperature, habitat, and so on.

Let's consider them in more detail.

Baker's yeast

This product is usually used for baking bakery products, for moonshine it is a bad option, because the quality of the drink is very low. However, in the old days, bread moonshine was in great demand. It was prepared from barley, millet, wheat and other things. Consider what yeast for moonshine was used in ancient times.

Homemade Bread Yeast

Ingredients: rye, barley, wheat, peas,corn, millet, water.

Cooking

All ingredients are germinated. To do this, soak them in warm water and spread out a two-centimeter layer. In this case, you need to ensure that the grain does not sour. When it sprouts, it is dried and ground into flour. Then the water is boiled and flour is added, stirring constantly. The mixture should be the consistency of liquid jelly. She is covered and insisted for twelve hours. Then the mass is poured into bowls and cooled, peas are added at the rate of a kilogram per twelve buckets of sourdough. Left to ferment for ten days, after which moonshine can be brewed.

Wine yeast

Special yeast for winemaking, called wine yeast, is not used in home brewing, as it is very expensive. However, they are sometimes used to enhance the fermentation of moonshine.

To cook them yourself, you need to take five kilograms of fermented grape pomace, add two kilograms of sugar and ten liters of water. This mixture is left to ferment, then they proceed to distillation.

Let's look at another recipe for how to make your own wine yeast for making moonshine.

Yeast from raisins

Ingredients: one spoonful of sugar, four hundred grams of water, one spoonful of raisins.

Cooking

Put sugar into a half-liter bottle, pour boiling water over it, close it with a cotton plug and cool to room temperature. Then raisins are placed in the container and again closed with a cork, left to ferment for seven days. It must be said thatthis yeast must be used immediately as it does not keep for a long time.

"Wild" yeast for making moonshine

Ingredients: two cups of pureed cherries or grapes, half a cup of sugar, one cup of water.

Cooking

To prepare yeast for moonshine, all the ingredients are mixed, placed in a glass container, corked and placed in a warm, dark place for four days. After a while, the mixture is filtered through cheesecloth and used instead of yeast. For ten liters of home brew, three hundred grams of such a starter is taken. This product is stored for no more than ten days.

Beer yeast

Such a product can be purchased as vitamin supplements, but it is not suitable for making moonshine, because it can withstand a small concentration of alcohol in mash. However, sometimes they are used in moonshine brewing. How to make them yourself, we will now consider.

Beer yeast at home

Ingredients: one glass of flour, one glass of water, one glass of sugar, one glass of beer.

Cooking

Considering which yeast is best for moonshine, we note that if alcohol is not available, then beer yeast is used. Of course, the alcoholic drink will turn out to be less strong.

So, warm water is poured into a bowl, flour is added and stirred so that there are no lumps, you can use a mixer for this. The bowl is put in a warm place, covered with a lid, for six hours. Then unsterilized beer and sugar are added to the dough, stirred well and put back into heat. After a while, homemade yeast is poured into a glass container and placed in a cold place for storage.

Homemade fresh hop yeast

To make yeast for moonshine at home, you need to fill the pot with hops, pour hot water over it, cover with a lid and boil for one hour. Then the broth is filtered, one glass of flour and sugar is added to two liters of it, stirred and put in a warm place for thirty-six hours. After a while, two grated potatoes are put into the mixture, mixed and again put in heat for one day. The finished product is poured into glass bottles and used for its intended purpose.

Thick liquid yeast

Ingredients: two hundred and fifty grams of hops, two liters of warm water, five hundred grams of m alt, one hundred and twenty grams of honey, fifty grams of old yeast (dry).

Cooking

Hops and m alt are poured with boiling water and boiled for half an hour, covered with a lid and stirring occasionally. The mixture is then filtered through gauze or a sieve, honey is added and heated to a boil, after which it is cooled, covered with a towel. When the mass has cooled, old dry yeast for moonshine is added to it, after diluting it with warm water. The mixture is left for two and a half hours. During this time, the mass should rise. But when it begins to fall off, this will be a signal that the yeast is ready and can be used for its intended purpose, putting the leftovers in a cold place for storage.

Alcohol yeast (upper and lowerfermentation)

This product contributes to the production of alcohol. For this, alcohol yeast for moonshine is best suited. This is due to the fact that their vital activity takes place at the same temperature at which the mash is prepared. Moreover, they are highly resistant to high alcohol content.

Alcohol supports all the functions of yeast, but when the strength of the mash reaches more than fifteen percent, many of them die. Alcoholic yeast is obtained from a single cell, only it is capable of producing a pure race of yeast, on which the quality of fermentation and the quality and quantity of the final product depend. It is interesting that you can not only buy a pure culture, but also breed it yourself. However, many today purchase such a product in specialized stores, trusting professionals. At the same time, yeast for moonshine "Saf Levure" is in great demand.

Preparation of yeast based on "Saf Levure"

Ingredients: four hundred and fifty grams of water, fifty grams of vodka at forty degrees, one spoonful of flour, one spoonful of sugar and one spoonful of Saf Levure.

Cooking

To get high-quality yeast for moonshine, it is recommended to put "Saf Levure" in warm water for twenty-five minutes. Then add sugar and alcohol (so much so that the total strength of the mixture is five percent). This mixture is left for one day, covered with a lid and shaking occasionally.

What is the benefit of alcohol yeast?

Alcohol yeast for moonshine is an indispensable component in the creation of high-quality alcohol. The alcohol immediately kills the weaker strains, leaving the stronger ones with high alcohol tolerance, so the yeast flavors will be eliminated. In addition, the mash will ferment evenly, the yield of alcohol will increase slightly. Fractional introduction of sugar contributes to the achievement of sixteen degrees in the wort. Braga itself will be ready for distillation in six days. Moonshine is obtained without harmful impurities, so its additional purification with potassium permanganate or other methods is not required.

It often happens that there is no yeast at hand, but the plans still remain to brew high-quality moonshine. In this case, brew for moonshine without yeast can be prepared.

Wheat moonshine

Ingredients: five kilograms of wheat grains, fifteen liters of water, six and a half kilograms of sugar.

Cooking

Wheat grains are washed and poured with a small amount of water. After a while, add one and a half kilograms of sugar and wait for the wheat to germinate. When this happens, add fifteen liters of water and the rest of the sugar, put the mass in a warm place for ten days, fixing a water seal on the container. As time passes, the mash is passed through a moonshine still.

Braga on rice

Ingredients: two cups of refined rice, three cups of sugar, half a liter of beer.

Cooking

We already know how to make moonshine yeast. Butwhen it is not possible to cook them, you can make mash based on rice. To do this, all components are placed in a three-liter jar, closed with a lid with a water seal and left in a warm place for twelve days, periodically shaking the container. If desired, dried apricots, raisins or prunes are added to the mash.

To obtain high-quality alcohol, the latter is purified during distillation, after the first pass through the apparatus. Many people use activated charcoal for this. So, charcoal tablets are ground into powder (fifty grams of powder are taken per liter of moonshine), combined with alcohol and put in a warm place for seven days. Then the liquid is filtered and passed through the apparatus again.

Finally…

It should be noted that yeast is the most important component of the fermentation process. They are fungi that, under the influence of enzymes, convert sugar into carbon dioxide and ethyl alcohol. There are a lot of varieties of them, which differ among themselves in the temperature of reproduction, resistance to environmental influences, and so on. Speaking about which yeast is better for moonshine, it must be said that it is alcohol, since their vital activity takes place in the same temperature range in which the mash is prepared, therefore they are more resistant to the high content of alcohol in it. If alcohol yeast is not available, beer or bread yeast can be used, rarely wine.

The ability to brew moonshine has come to us since ancient times. Then people used the gifts of nature to make mash. Some recipes have survived to this day and are widely used.are used among lovers of home-made high-quality alcohol. Be that as it may, every moonshiner has in his arsenal his own recipe for making a drink, which has already been tested. And what kind of yeast he uses for this depends on his personal preference.