Cleaning moonshine with charcoal: ways and methods, tips from practice

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

Moonshine is a fairly popular homemade drink containing alcohol. It can be made with or without yeast, or with honey, corn, or potatoes. An experienced moonshiner pays the most attention to the purification process. After all, the taste, color and aroma of the product will depend on this. In addition, after high-quality cleaning of moonshine with charcoal, vegetable oil, violet root, soda, and so on, you can forget about a hangover forever.

Raw materials for mash

Baker's or distiller's yeast? It is best to take the second option, as it will provide a very quick preparation of the mash with a minimum amount of foam and the absence of an unpleasant yeast odor. If you use ordinary baker's yeast, then the color of the mash will be cloudy, and the drink itself will acquire a sour smell of fungus. Alcoholic yeast is bought in specialized stores.

Water must be clean. The best option would be the key from the well. You can use tap water, but then it will have to be defended for threedays.

Sugar is sometimes used brown, but most often just the usual white. Sometimes sweets or jam are put in moonshine instead of sugar. Please note that caramel sweets should only be with the same filling.

For cleansing, most often they take activated charcoal, which is purchased at a pharmacy. Cleaning moonshine with charcoal at home is the best option.

Cooking recipe

In order to make high-quality moonshine, you should acquire the necessary tools. You will need a container in which the mash will ferment, a distiller, an electric stove, a hydrometer and a bottle dryer.

The easiest and most popular way to make a drink is to mix mash with sugar and alcohol yeast. Usually, for ten liters of heated and purified water, two kilograms of granulated sugar and two hundred grams of yeast are taken. First, the sugar is dissolved, and only then the yeast is added. They are preliminarily diluted in water and poured into an already prepared liquid. The container in which the mash will be prepared must have a neck. A water seal in the form of a rubber glove is put on it. It is by it that it will be possible to determine the readiness of the mash. First, the glove is inflated and remains in this form for several days. As soon as it falls, it will mean that the mash is ready.

After a week, the rest is drained from the container and the top of the drink is removed. The rest is called the body, which will be used in the future for the preparation of an alcoholic drink. If the mash starts to produce too much foam, then itthrows a piece of rye bread crust. Instead, you can try pouring a small amount of vegetable oil.

Very often novice moonshiners ask: how much alcohol can you get from one kilogram of sugar? It's easy to calculate. Usually, three liters of fairly strong moonshine are obtained from three kilograms of granulated sugar and ten liters of ready-made mash. Then it is slightly diluted with water to achieve an acceptable strength of forty degrees, and then the moonshine becomes even more.

How to make a charcoal filter

You will need a regular plastic bottle. It should be absolutely clean and not too big. An ideal option would be a one and a half liter container. Carefully cut off the bottom with a sharp knife and drill a small hole in the lid. The cap is screwed back onto the bottle. After that, a sufficient amount of cotton wool is taken and tightly packed in the neck. Double gauze is laid on top and coal is placed. Thus, when the liquid passes through the gauze with cotton, all the fusel oils will remain on the compress.

Cleaning without filter

Some moonshiners prefer not to waste time on the filter, but simply add charcoal to the drink. Usually, no more than fifty grams of sorbent is used for each liter of liquid. Within two weeks, the container is occasionally taken out and shaken. On the fifteenth day, the composition can be passed through a piece of cotton, packed in gauze. Cleaning moonshine with charcoal has proven itself well forbrazier, which is also often added directly to the alcoholic liquid.

There is an opinion that this method does not provide good cleaning, since the sorbent, after absorbing waste, after a while gives it back to the liquid.

Composition of activated carbon

Using this sorbent is not the best option for moonshine. It contains excess impurities in the form of starch or talc. But it can be purchased at any pharmacy, which is important for a city dweller. Not every person is able to prepare charcoal on their own so that it is enough for a sufficient amount of moonshine.

In addition to pharmacy coal, you can use the product used for distillation. And also a regular filter, located in a water purification device, has proven itself well. Some people clean moonshine as follows: they pass the liquid several times through a plastic container designed for water. Such devices can be found in every kitchen.

The charcoal contained in the filters comes from coconut. Unfortunately, it sometimes contains ion exchange resins. Beginning winemakers tend to be confused about which charcoal is best for clearing moonshine. In the literature on home brewing, it is very often advised to use a sorbent from coconut. And the worst option is coal from a respirator.

Birch or coconut

Onyu are considered one of the best charcoal for making moonshine. You can get birch charcoal by burning branches.in the fire. Then the coals are sent to a metal container and tightly closed with a lid. Without access to oxygen, the coals cease to smolder and quickly go out. Similarly, material is obtained from walnuts or coconut.

The last product has fine pores and very little consumption. Therefore, it is quite beneficial to use it. The only drawback is that buying coconuts and making sorbent from them is quite expensive.

Cleaning with birch charcoal

Large pieces of burnt birch must be crushed into smaller ones. Further, they are used, like activated carbon, to clean moonshine with charcoal at home or added to a column to filter the drink.

The finished device can be purchased at a specialized store. This equipment is quite inexpensive and affordable for any moonshiner. Approximately one liter of drink per hour passes through this column.

Quick way

As soon as the time is right for the purification of the drink, a stump of trees such as beech, cedar or birch is found. Making charcoal for cleaning moonshine with your own hands is quite easy. Parts of the tree should be cleaned of bark and cut off unnecessary branches. Next, the wood is set on fire and, as soon as coals are formed, they are pulled out of the fire. Burnt wood should be very quickly put into a container and closed with a lid. Thus, there will be no access to oxygen, and the coals will cool down rather quickly. After that, they are kneaded to a powdery state and poured into an alcoholicdrink. Charcoal powder must be in the moonshine for at least seventy hours. After that, the liquid is filtered through gauze with cotton.

Other methods

In addition to cleaning moonshine with charcoal, you can use other fairly popular methods.

• Sometimes moonshiners use powdered milk. It perfectly removes the smell and gives softness to the drink.
• Baking soda and s alt effectively remove fusel oils.
• A beaten egg works just as well as powdered milk. It also softens the liquid and brightens it well.
• Rye bread crusts can slightly color moonshine and give it a pleasant aroma.

Nevertheless, cleaning moonshine with charcoal at home is still considered the best way.

Terms of Use

Before you start cleaning with a wood sorbent, you should consider some features of this method:

• It should be limited. If you overdo it with coal, it will not affect the taste of moonshine for the better.
• This type of cleaning is very well suited for grain moonshine made with ordinary baker's yeast. As a rule, such a drink has a rather specific smell and cloudy color. Thanks to wood and activated charcoal, its quality is noticeably improved.
• It is extremely important to use a high-quality sorbent for cleaning moonshine with charcoal. For example, in a pharmacy you can buy a product that is of animal origin. In this case, the drink is obtained withspecific taste and smell. To prevent this from happening, the sorbent should be tested on a small amount of moonshine.
• Don't keep the charcoal in the drink too long. It has the ability to bring back all the pitches it previously filtered out.
• Before using charcoal, it should be rinsed under running water to wash away dirt and dust.
• When placing whole, poorly crushed tablets in a liquid, it should be borne in mind that the composition will have to be constantly taken out and shaken, otherwise it will not work well.
• If for some reason the sorbent did not help, then a second distillation should be done.
• Cleaning of moonshine with charcoal for shish kebab has proved to be excellent. The resulting drink will have a slight smoky aroma and a campfire smell.

Thus, you can use any coal that is on hand. In addition, there are other ways, in addition to cleaning moonshine with charcoal, which have also proven themselves well among fans of home brewing.