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Potato moonshine is a controversial matter. Some complain about its economic inexpediency, others about its rough, harsh taste, and others about its unpleasant, aggressive intoxication. However, the world experience – Poles, Scandinavians, Americans, Irish – shows that good potato vodka can be prepared. In general, to drive or not is up to you. And ours is to tell you how to do it in the best way.
Potatoes are definitely not the best raw material for home brewing. Made at home, using the usual technology of double (or even single) distillation, moonshine from potatoes is a rough, heavy drink. But this issue can be solved a) through the rectification of raw alcohol, b) competent intermediate purification and double-triple distillation with careful separation of heads / tails. Yes, the drink is not the cheapest. Yes, it is no easier to prepare than grain distillates. Yes, in terms of taste, it is inferior even to sugar moonshine. But if you have either – a lot of ownerless potatoes, or – an irrepressible thirst for experiments, then go ahead!
A few words about the aggression that potato alcohol allegedly provokes. This version, most likely, was taken from the work of William Pokhlebkin “The History of Vodka”. He describes whole riots after drinking vodka from potato alcohol. The man, of course, is authoritative. But think for yourself – what can be contained in moonshine from potatoes? Methylene? He, of course, can cause rage, but only (sarcasm!) blind. Besides, by generously selecting the heads, we will get rid of him. Sivukha? Again, crushing, only tailings. What else? Testosterone? Opioid analgesics? Tramadol? Unlikely.
We are most likely talking about a low-quality drink made handicraft or semi-handicraft, do not understand where and by whom. About immoderate, thoughtless drinking – from fair amounts of ordinary grain vodka, don’t people “tears attic”? On the general aggressive mood of the peasantry and the urban poor at the turn of the XNUMXth-XNUMXth centuries. In short, if potato moonshine caused tangible negative mood swings for anyone, write in the comments, warn others.
How to make potato moonshine? Drafting mash
Further narration will be based on the principle of either / or. There are many recipes for moonshine potato mash, as well as distillation recipes, and it all depends on your capabilities and preferences. Potato distillate, to put it mildly, does not have an outstanding flavor. Therefore, according to the principle of brandy / whiskey, it makes no sense to prepare such a drink. On the contrary, in good potato moonshine there should be a minimum of extraneous tastes. At best, only alcohol. Therefore, the best way is rectification. For those who do not have a recolonna, it is worth focusing on the intermediate purification of the product. But more on that below.
The second question is the choice of yeast. Naturally, we do not need wine or beer CKDs, since moonshine will be purified and / or rectified. It’s worth stopping either at alcoholic turbo yeast, or even at primitive bakery a la Saf-Levure and others. They will not spoil the aromatics for us, the product yield will be at least a little more, and the fermentation time will be less.
So, the classic proportions for potato mash are as follows:
- potatoes (preferably old, winter) – 10 kg;
- malt – barley is best – 2,2-2,5 kg;
or
- enzymes alphaamylase and glucoamylase – according to the instructions;
- water – 15 (enzymes) – 25 (malt) liters;
- bread yeast – 40 g – or alcohol – according to the instructions.
The first option – with malt – is better suited for distillation, since the malt not only saccharifies the starch from the potatoes, but also enriches the brew with grain aromas. The second option is preferable for rectification, the preparation of alcohol, it is simpler, faster and cheaper – enzymes are now available everywhere and are inexpensive.
On the network you can also find a recipe for moonshine on potatoes with sugar. The purpose of adding sugar is clear – to increase the yield of alcohol. But why then use potatoes at all is not at all clear. Cheaper, faster and easier to make regular sugar moonshine. And if the goal is an experiment, then it is better to use only potatoes. In general, it’s up to you. Just do not forget to add 4 liters of water to the mash for every kilogram of sugar.
Remember that starchy substances in potatoes are a maximum of 20-25%, so the product yield is very small. Another thing is if you have a bag of pure starch – the carbohydrate content in it is almost 100%, the yield of moonshine from potato starch is almost the same as from sugar. For such a drink, you only need raw materials, water – 5 liters per kilogram of starch, enzymes according to the instructions and yeast.
Preparation and saccharification of potato mash for moonshine – 2 recipes
To begin with, the potatoes need to be washed, cleaned of large eyes, rotten and spoiled parts. Now there are several options:
- Cut the potatoes into quarters and boil well, then crush or chop with a blender;
- Finely chop, grate or mince a raw vegetable, after which – immediately saccharify.
The first method is more reliable, but longer and requires a lot of energy – gas, electricity. The second is more economical. In any case, our goal is to somehow get a thick puree that can be diluted with water.
Sugaring of braga by enzymes
Enzymes are a synthetic or semi-synthetic analogue of malt, used by moonshiners around the world to saccharify starchy raw materials – grains, potatoes, pumpkins. With their help, even banana wine is made, tasty and drinkable without distillation. There is no need to be afraid of enzymes – they are good. And they are good just because they don’t tell any new aromas and tastes to the wort, they only break down starch to sugars that yeast can burst. Two enzymes are used – alpha-amylase (amylosubtilin or simply “Enzyme A”) and glucoamylase (Enzyme G, glucavamorin), they are introduced into the wort in turn, each at its own temperature. Sold in liquid and bulk form.
- To begin with, mashed potatoes, diluted with water, are heated to a boil. You can additionally boil it for a few minutes to disinfect.
- Enzyme A is added to a slightly chilled (90-95⁰С) mash – liquid can be immediately thrown into a vat, dry – dissolved in a small amount of warm water. For 1 kg of starch, 0,33 ml of Alfamil is used, that is, 0,6-0,8 ml of enzyme is needed for our amount of potatoes.
- Stir the puree thoroughly, cover the pan with a lid and wait about 30 minutes – this time is necessary for the enzyme to liquefy the starch, break it down into smaller compounds.
- Now the wort needs to be cooled to a temperature of 55-62⁰С (it is important that the temperature does not exceed 64⁰С!). The turn of the enzyme G has come – it needs about 1,4 grams. Pour glucavamorin into the wort, mix thoroughly again.
- Glucoamylase will completely convert starch into sugars in about 1 hour. At this time, the wort must be well protected from temperature extremes – closed and wrapped in blankets, thick cloth or a special heat-resistant casing. Periodically it can be stirred, at the same time measuring the temperature.
- After an hour, you should take a little wort for an iodine test – drop a little iodine into it. If the iodine turns purple, there is still a lot of starch in the mash, you need to heat it again and add more enzyme G. If the color remains the same, brown, everything went well!
Sugaring malt with barley malt
Malt – seeds of barley, rye, buckwheat, wheat germinated using a special technology – has a wonderful ability to turn starch into sugar. There is no starch in it anymore – only monosugar, + natural analogues of enzymes A and G. Green malt is quite suitable for saccharification of potato mash, in addition it enriches the taste and aroma of moonshine, makes it more “flowery”, pleasant to drink. Therefore, this option is ideal for the preparation of a distillate – the distillation of potato mash in an ordinary apparatus.
- Malt should be crushed with a meat grinder or in another convenient way. For this recipe, we need a little more water – about 25 liters, since the malt also contains sugar, which must be diluted for normal fermentation.
- We cool the potato mash (or vice versa, heat it – depending on how you prepared the potatoes) to 70-72⁰С. Add malt, mix the wort thoroughly, close, wrap and leave for 1,5-2 hours. The optimum temperature for malting is 63-65⁰С, no more.
- After 2 hours, you can taste the mash – it should become sweet – or test for starch, as in the previous recipe. If the iodine has not changed color – there is no more starch in the mash, you can cool it and add yeast.
Fermentation, first distillation
Further, everything is much simpler – in the prepared, completely saccharified and cooled to 30 degrees, we add the mash, pre-diluted in warm water, to the yeast. We mix everything well and wait for the start of fermentation – it will come within a couple of hours. We put the mash under the water seal.
Potato mash roams rapidly and rather quickly – it will be possible to drive moonshine in 3-5 days. Before distillation, it is recommended to separate the liquid from the pulp – the remains of potatoes, malt and spent yeast – using gauze and decanting. In this case, the raw material will be cleaner, and the bard will not burn 100%. In order to finally get rid of the corpses of yeast, which give an unpleasant odor when boiled, the filtered mash can be kept cool for several days – for example, in the cellar. Yeast will fall to the bottom in a dense layer, the liquid can be easily separated with a siphon.
I’m starting the moonshine still. As soon as the first drops dripped, we slightly reduce the power. Potatoes contain pectins, which turn into methyl alcohol during fermentation. Therefore, already at the first run, you can cut off a few heads – about 5% of absolute alcohol, that is, about 40 ml. We drive until at least 10% alcohol remains in the stream. Raw potato alcohol is ready!
Re-distillation of potato moonshine
I am writing on the example of the simplest “village” apparatus – the owners of more complex machines, and even more convinced rectifiers, will figure out how to make potato moonshine in accordance with the capabilities of your unit. It is desirable to clean the SS intermediately. To do this, you can use any of the methods given in a special article.
Purified and diluted to 20 degrees, the raw material is again poured into the distillation cube. This time we heat slowly, and when the first drops appear, we switch to the minimum fire, 2-3 drops per second. We generously select the heads – at least 5, or even 10% of the AC. The selection is made until the distillate has unpleasant acetone notes – they should disappear completely. Now the power of the device can be slightly increased. We select the body up to 40⁰ in the stream or until the moonshine starts to smell unpleasant. If desired, you can also carry out a third – final – distillation, after diluting the distillate to 20⁰ and more carefully selecting the tails.
On this, in general, that’s all – homemade moonshine from potatoes is ready! Now you can make vodka out of it, diluting it to a well-known fortress and additionally cleaning it with activated carbon. It can be used as a raw material for tinctures – especially spicy, odorous, bright ingredients – coriander, for example, or build a real Dutch aquavit, which was traditionally made on potato distillate. Or you can get confused and make, for example, mint liqueur or even homemade gin – additional distillation will finally clear the distillate.