Sugar, fruit or grain: which mash is the best – my opinion

Braga is the progenitor of the future delicious drink, it depends on what aroma it will have, what properties it will have and how deeply its taste will open. I tried a lot of cooking options for one simple reason – curiosity.

Having studied all the classic recipes, I began to experiment and come up with my own. Sometimes I managed to achieve incredibly pleasant results, but it happened that the mash just went to the trash.

From my own experience, I can say that you can make everything ferment, as long as there is sugar or starch, and if there is none, you can always add it.

But which of these will be the result depends only on the entrepreneurial spirit of the moonshiner and the chosen product. For myself, I have identified the three most popular types of mash.

The story was shared by blog reader Vladislav.

Sugar classic as old as time

“Sugar, yeast and water are our best friends” – well, who hasn’t heard such a mini poem? This method was also used by our grandfathers, the grandfathers of our grandfathers, their grandfathers, and this can be listed for a very long time. Yeast actively converts sugar into something that interests us so much – alcohol.

This method has both strengths and weaknesses. I can highlight the following advantages:

1. Low cost.
2. Cooking speed.
3. Any yeast will do.
4. The output is pure alcohol (relatively pure, that is, as pure as possible from what we can prepare at home).

And these disadvantages:

1. The smell of alcohol and no sophisticated fragrances.
2. The taste of alcohol and no refined aftertaste.
3. It is easy to ruin the wash by choosing the wrong hydronic module.

Sugar mash can be made in 4-5 days without much cost and effort. I always keep in stock 5 liters of sugar moonshine, and this is not a drinking drink 30-50 °. This is a rectified 95°, which I use exclusively as alcohol: rubbing, for a car, for degreasing, etc.

Fruit or why moonshiners love the summer season

Sugar is found in almost all fruits, berries and vegetables, just its amount will be different. Take the same incredibly sweet pears and sour apples – and the result will be very different.

And here, many moonshiners make, in my opinion, a fatal mistake – they add sugar to fruit mash in order to save money. This is no longer fruit mash, which means that they simply spoiled the product with their greed.

Sometimes a really large amount of fruit is required, which is why they say that fruit mash is the business of summer residents, those who have their own and in abundance. If you buy the same berries, then the cost of mash will be simply cosmic.

For example, to make apple mash, I use 30 kg of apples in 20 liters of water. As for berries, it’s even more difficult. Sometimes it takes up to 50 kg per 20 liters of water, but try to calculate how much 50 kg of raspberries cost …

A feature of many berry and fruit brews is the presence of natural yeast, which independently digest sugar-containing fruits. This allows you to achieve a clean and fully opened bouquet of aromas!

Attention! Do not try to make mash from bananas! They will wander, but the result will unpleasantly surprise you!

Grain, malt and cereals

Malt mash is the most difficult, it does not forgive mistakes. But it is this type of mash that can be called a reference, it is from grain mash that the best whiskeys are obtained, because high-quality malt is able to convey to the drink such a smell that you will not achieve in any way and nothing.

It is best to use these grains:

1. Rye.
2. Barley.
3. Fig.
4. Oat.

You can use any cereal, each of them will give a different result. But it should be borne in mind that the preparation of this type of mash requires preliminary preparation (grinding) and special procedures (malting, proper cooling, etc.).

Which is better

This is the case when you need to answer the question with a question: “What for?” If the task is to get alcohol as easy, faster, cheaper as possible, no one has come up with anything better than the good old sugar mash.

If you want to get vodka or tincture with a pleasant fruity aroma, then the answer is also obvious.

Anyone who has tried my raspberry mash robin without the addition of artificial yeast will never again say anything good about a single purchased tincture or berry vodka.

Whiskey lovers will have the hardest time. It is one thing to simply pour sugar or fruit with water, another thing is to cook mash.

You will have to tinker a lot with grain, but homemade whiskey is a drink that knows how to appreciate the efforts of its creator and thank you with the result. What brags do you prefer and why?