When processing apples and grapes into juice or wine, pomace remains, which are thrown away or given to livestock feed. For lovers of strong homemade alcohol, I suggest doing otherwise – making moonshine from cake according to a simple recipe. The set of ingredients depends on your understanding of the right fruit mash. You will get a drink with a characteristic aroma of raw materials, since in the process of preparation we will use one trick.
Ingredients:
- pomace (apple or grape) – 10 kg;
- water – 15 liters and another 4 liters for each kilogram of sugar;
- sugar (optional) – 2-5 kg;
- yeast (optional) – 100 grams dry or 500 grams pressed.
Real moonshine from cake is prepared without yeast and sugar, but in the northern regions this is not always possible. In the case of sour grapes (apples), fermentation will be sluggish, and the yield of the finished product is very low, since often there is little fructose left in the pomace. Therefore, I advise you to stick to the golden mean – still add at least a couple of kilograms of sugar. Then moonshine will retain the smell of raw materials, and the yield will be sufficient. 1 kg of sugar additionally gives 1,1-1,2 liters of moonshine (40%), but slightly levels the organoleptic properties.
The disadvantage of wild and wine yeasts is that they ferment many times longer than alcohol and bakery yeasts. If you are willing to wait 30-50 days instead of 7-10, then there is no point in artificial yeast (dry and pressed bakery or alcohol), as these strains slightly worsen the smell of the distillate. Next, we will consider a universal technology that is suitable in both cases.
Attention! For those who decide to make mash without sugar, I advise you not to squeeze the cake dry, leaving a little juice to increase the concentration of fructose.
Cake mash recipe
1. Place the pomace in a fermentation tank.
2. Pour warm (25-30°C) water, mix. At least 10-15% of the container volume should be left free to make room for foam and carbon dioxide.
3. Add yeast and (or) sugar diluted according to the instructions on the label, then mix again (lovers of natural fruit moonshine skip this step).
4. Install a water seal or a rubber medical glove with a small hole in the finger on the fermentation tank.
5. Move the mash to a dark warm (18-28°C) place. Once every 1-2 days, open the container and mix the contents so that pieces of pomace do not accumulate near the surface. When the cake stops floating, it is not necessary to mix.
Depending on the chosen yeast (wild or artificial), sugar content and temperature, the fermentation of mash on cake lasts from 7 to 50 days. To get a good yield, you must definitely wait for the end of this process (the mash will become bitter in taste without sweetness, the water seal will stop emitting gas or the glove will deflate).
6. Won back mash contains solid particles that can burn during distillation, ruining the taste of moonshine. This problem is solved in two ways. The first is to drain the mash from the sediment before distillation. The disadvantage of the method is that part of the aroma of the feedstock is lost.
The second way is to filter the mash through 3-4 layers of gauze, and hang the squeezed cake (or only part) in a distillation cube. The problem is that not all designs of moonshine stills are possible. But if your device allows you to implement such a trick, I advise you to use the second method.
Obtaining moonshine from cake
7. Distill the filtered mash in the traditional way. Take the distillate before the drop of the strength in the jet below 25%.
8. Measure the strength of the resulting moonshine. Determine the amount of pure alcohol (multiply the volume by the fortress and divide by 100).
9. Dilute the distillate with water to 20%, then distill again. The first 10-15% of the amount of pure alcohol (as long as the unpleasant smell persists) is taken into a separate container. This is a harmful fraction called “heads” and can only be used for technical purposes.
10. Select the main product (“body”) until the strength in the jet drops below 45%, then finish the distillation or collect the “tails” separately.
11. The resulting moonshine from the pomace of double distillation (only the middle fraction) is diluted with water to 40-45 degrees. Pour into a glass container and seal tightly. Leave for 2-3 days to stabilize the taste after mixing with water. You can start tasting!
