We will not have time to look back, as the new season of home twists and preparations for the winter will already begin. But what to do with last year’s stocks?
If you have a lot of jam left, then you can bake pies every day. But you can also cook something more interesting, for example, homemade moonshine from jam.
Of course, before driving out the moonshine, we need to prepare the mash from the very jam that we had lying around on the pantry shelves. There is nothing difficult in this process, and even a beginner will be able to handle it without any problems.
Three basic rules for successful jam mash
For the preparation of mash, jam from any fruits and berries, and even that has fermented, is suitable.
If you are making mash from already fermented jam, then use artificial yeast anyway. Otherwise, relying only on wild stamps, the fermentation process can drag on for a month or even more.
If your jam is very sweet, then the amount of sugar during the cooking process can be slightly reduced, and in some cases you can do without it at all.
jam recipe
In this recipe, pressed yeast can be replaced with 50 g of dry baker’s yeast.
Ingredients
Jam – 6 l
Water – 30 L
Pressed yeast – 300 g
Granulated sugar – 3 kg
Method of preparation
Water must be poured into a container of a suitable size and heated to a temperature of 50–60 degrees.
Then add the jam and mix well until the mass becomes homogeneous.
As soon as the future mash cools down to 30 degrees, we need to dilute the yeast according to the instructions on the package and then add them to the total mass.
At this stage, add sugar and mix everything well.
Now we install a water seal on the neck of the fermentation tank. You can also use a medical glove with a small hole in one of the fingers.
We transfer the container to a dark place with a temperature of 18–25 degrees for 5–9 days.
Braga is considered ready when fermentation has completely stopped – it has brightened, and sediment has fallen to the bottom. You can also try mash – it should be bitter in taste.
Making moonshine from jam
The finished mash must be carefully drained from the sediment, and then filtered through a gauze filter.
In the process of distillation, we select moonshine until the fortress in the stream drops below 30 degrees. Also, the resulting distillate may become cloudy, at this stage this is normal and no action needs to be taken.
Now you need to measure the total strength of the drink and then determine the amount of pure alcohol.
We dilute the moonshine with water to 20 degrees and distill it again.
Necessarily! The first 8–15% of the liquid must be collected in another container, since these “heads” are very unhealthy and should not be consumed.
As soon as the fortress drops below 42–45 degrees in the stream, we stop collecting moonshine.
The resulting moonshine from jam is diluted with water to the desired strength and left for 3-4 days until the mixing reaction is complete.
The drink is ready and you can start tasting or preparing other delicious homemade drinks.
If desired, the finished product can be filtered and bottled.
You can measure the fortress with a special tool called a hydrometer, also known as an alcoholometer.
Relevance: 02.04.2018
Tags: Vodka, mash, moonshine, Moonshine recipes, Braga recipes