Pearl barley is obtained from barley by grinding grains, sometimes the procedure is repeated up to 6 times. Thanks to grinding, cereals boil faster and better. Barley is mainly used to make porridge and soups, but it is also an excellent raw material for strong distillates. In terms of taste and aroma, properly made moonshine from pearl barley is not inferior to barley. The finished drink can be poured into barrels or insisted on pegs (oak chips), resulting in homemade whiskey.
Theory
Alcoholic yeast can only process simple sugars, therefore, before fermentation, the starch in barley must be broken down to simple sugars using enzymes found in sprouted grains (malt), the process is called saccharification.
It is advisable to use rye or barley malt, not necessarily fermented, which you can buy in specialized stores or germinate yourself. For normal saccharification, 4-5 kg of pearl barley requires 1 kg of malt (dried white or green, there is no fundamental difference).
Theoretically, from 1 kg of raw barley (groats and malt) you can get a little more than 800 ml of moonshine with a strength of 40%, but in practice the yield will be lower by 5-20%, since the grain does not always contain the maximum possible amount of starch, and part of the distillate is lost during distillation. To increase the yield, you can add sugar – 1 kg will increase the amount of drink by 1,1-1,2 liters (40%), but the quality of moonshine will deteriorate, so I do not recommend adding sugar to grain distillates, this is advisable only if there is very little cereal .
Attention! The presence of a thermometer to measure the temperature of the wort is a prerequisite for the preparation of mash. To produce saccharification, a maximum error of 2-3°C from the values specified in the recipe is allowed.
Ingredients:
- pearl barley – 5 kg;
- malt (not fermented green or white) – 1 kg;
- water – 27-30 liters;
- sugar – 1 kg (optional);
- yeast – 100 grams pressed or 20 grams dry.
Pearl barley mash recipe
1. Pour the grits into a large cooking container – an enameled pan or bucket.
2. In a separate container, heat 20 liters of water to 50°C (4 liters of water per 1 kg of barley).
3. Pour hot water into the cereal in a thin stream, stirring constantly so that lumps do not form.
4. Heat the mixture to 55-60°C, boil for 15 minutes, then increase the temperature to 62-64°C and cook for another 15 minutes.
5. Bring the porridge to a boil and cook over medium heat for 90 minutes, stirring occasionally so that the barley does not burn near the bottom. The mixture ready for making malt should be of a homogeneous consistency.
6. Cool barley to 65°C.
7. During the cooling of the porridge, grind the malt (if not crushed in advance) and pour it into a separate container with 3 liters of water at a temperature of 26-28 ° C (the proportion is 3 liters per 1 kg of malt). Mix until a homogeneous consistency is obtained.
8. Pour the malt milk obtained at the previous stage in a thin stream into the barley cooled to 65 ° C, constantly stirring.
9. Cover the container with a lid, heat up to 63°C. Maintain the temperature in the range of 55-65°C for the next 2 hours, stirring the porridge every 20 minutes.
At the end of cooking, the barley should be sweet, which means that the saccharification was successful – the starch is split into simple sugars that the yeast can process.
10. Heat the finished wort to 70 ° C, add beet sugar (optional) and 3 liters of water (if sugar was added – 7 liters). Mix.
11. To prevent infection with pathogens, cool the wort to 28-29°C as soon as possible. The easiest option is to lower the container into a bath of cold water or ice.
12. Pour the cooled wort into a fermentation tank, preferably 25% of the volume remains free for foam and carbon dioxide, which will appear during fermentation. Add pre-diluted yeast according to package instructions. Mix.
13. Install a water seal on the neck of the fermentation tank, you can use a medical glove with a hole in one of the fingers (pierce with a needle).
14. Transfer the mash from barley to a dark room (or cover with a thick cloth) with a stable temperature of 18-27°C.
Depending on the yeast and temperature, fermentation lasts 4-12 days, then the water seal stops gurgling (the glove deflates), the mash becomes bitter in taste without sweetness and lighter, and a layer of sediment appears at the bottom. If these signs are present, you can start distillation.
Obtaining moonshine from pearl barley
15. Filter the mash that has won back through several layers of gauze so that the remnants of the cereal do not burn when heated and do not spoil the taste of moonshine with bitterness. Owners of steam generators can skip this step.
16. Overtake the mash for the first time without crushing into fractions. Stop product selection when the strength in the stream falls below 25%. The distillate may turn cloudy, this is normal.
17. Measure the total strength of the output. To determine the amount of absolute alcohol, for this, multiply the volume in liters by the strength in percent and divide by 100.
18. Dilute moonshine of the first distillation with water up to 18-20%. If desired, clean with charcoal or in any other way.
19. Make a second distillation with separation into fractions. The first 8-14% of the yield from the amount of pure alcohol (as long as the unpleasant smell persists) is collected separately, this is the “head” – a harmful fraction that cannot be drunk.
20. Withdraw the main product (“body”) until the ABV falls below 45%. After that, finish the distillation or select the “tails” in another container.
21. Dilute the resulting barley moonshine (middle fraction) with water to the desired strength, pour into glass storage containers and seal tightly. Refrigerate for at least 2-3 days to stabilize the taste after mixing with water.
22. To obtain whiskey from barley, pour the distillate into barrels or soak for several months on oak pegs (chips).
