Usually distillation of wine for moonshine is needed in two cases. The first is to obtain a fruit distillate, followed by aging in barrels (optional), this is how cognac and calvados are made. The second is for the disposal of expired store-bought or bad (failed) homemade wine. There is a universal method that is suitable for the two listed situations. With the right approach and following the technology, moonshine from wine is much better than sugar.
Attention! Shop wines contain sulfur (sodium sulfate), which is used as a preservative. At a high concentration of this substance, an unpleasant odor may appear in the finished moonshine. The presence of preservatives and dyes also does not contribute to a good mild taste. Therefore, distillation of the cheapest expired wines, for example, in bags, is not always justified.
The situation is different with homemade wines (grape, apple, cherry, etc.), which do not contain chemical additives. From such drinks, a distillate of the highest quality is obtained, which can be drunk immediately or insisted for 6-12 months in barrels (an alternative is oak chips) to obtain home-made cognac or calvados. Exposure significantly improves the taste, woody notes appear.
The only exception is sour wines, acetic acid makes moonshine sour. Partially, this disadvantage can be eliminated by carbon filtration and the addition of soda (quenching), but it is impossible to completely get rid of the specific aftertaste.
How to distill wine
1. Remove the wine from the sediment (if any), then pour into a distillation cube. The aging of the drink does not matter. You can make moonshine from young and aged wines, this does not affect the quality of the finished product.
2. Distill the wine for the first time without fractionation. Finish the selection of distillate when the output strength (in the jet) falls below 25-30 degrees.
If at first an unpleasant smell of sulfur appeared (typical for shop wines), collect the first 15-20 ml from each liter of wine separately and pour it out.
3. Measure the strength of the resulting moonshine (may be cloudy, this is normal). Determine the amount of absolute alcohol (multiply the volume by the percentage of the fortress and divide by 100). For example, if there are 3 liters of distillate with a strength of 43%, then the pure alcohol content is 1.29 liters (3 * 43/100).
4. Dilute moonshine with water up to 20%. To leave a fruity smell, do not clean with charcoal and other methods, but immediately after dilution, make a second distillation.
5. The first 12-15% of the yield from the amount of absolute alcohol (1.29 * 0.15 \u003d 0.194) is collected separately. This harmful fraction is called "head" and can only be used for technical purposes.
6. Select the main product (called the “body”) until the strength in the jet falls below 40%, then finish the distillation, or collect this distillate separately (“tail”).
7. Dilute the resulting moonshine from wine with water to the desired strength (usually 40-45 degrees), pour into glass containers and close tightly. Before use, let stand for 2-3 days to complete the chemical mixing reactions.
Theoretically, with a strength of 14% from 1 liter of wine, you can get about 260 ml of forty-degree distillate, in practice the yield will be lower due to fractional distillation.
The practice of distilling wine into moonshine is common in factories and at home. In an industrial way, they get it and, insisting the resulting alcohol in oak barrels for quite a long time. Home distillation is usually in demand if the quality of the wine product has decreased: the shelf life is coming to an end, the taste characteristics are not satisfied.
If you correctly expel moonshine from wine, you get soft, tasty alcohol with a pleasant aroma of fresh fruits or berries.
Rules for the manufacture of alcohol from wine products
It is impossible to distill sour wine, as the acetic acid contained in it will spoil the final product. It is not recommended to use cheap store-bought wines made from powder products, dyes, flavors.
It is necessary to carefully read the label of the drink, what the wine is made of. Dry grape wines from a reliable producer are best suited. It should be taken into account that from 10 liters of drink, about two liters of moonshine with a strength of up to 50 ° are obtained. When distilling alcohol at about 70 °, the famous Georgian chacha is obtained.
The rules for making moonshine from wine are as follows:
- carefully drain liquid from sediment, if available;
- the distillation process must go slowly, getting 2-3 liters of finished liquid per hour. Otherwise, there is a risk of burning wine particles, as a result of which all moonshine acquires;
- must be separated so that the resulting drink is tasty and aromatic;
- if the liquid is distilled, the aroma is practically not felt, but the fruity aftertaste stands out more.
Theoretically, you can use any wine made from berries and fruits, but in practice, not all fruits endow moonshine with their inherent aroma and taste. The best for distillation are considered to be ina from apples, grapes, plums.
But according to the reviews of moonshiners, after distillation it smells unpleasant, and the taste is almost not felt at all. Therefore, in order to give strong alcohol a characteristic color, taste and aroma, it is recommended to infuse ready-made alcohol on cherry berries.
You can get a pleasant cherry smell if you add fresh or frozen (for winter time) tree leaves to the forcing. It is advisable to fasten them with a thread so that they do not crumble throughout the cube.
It is not recommended to purify alcohol from wine or another type of filter, as the result is irretrievably lost inherent fruity aroma and aftertaste. If after the first distillation the quality of the drink is not satisfactory, it is better to overtake alcohol again, separating inedible parts ("tails" and "heads"). Before the process, it is necessary to dilute the "body" of moonshine with clean water to a strength of 16-20 °.
How to prepare wine for distillation?
There are a lot of methods on how to distill wine for moonshine, but the process always begins with the preparation of a wine product, the recipe of which is almost the same for various ingredients:
- fruits are recommended to be collected in sunny weather, sorted out, removed spoiled and rotten;
- it is not required to wash the raw materials so that colonies of wild yeasts remain on the surface, ensuring the processing of fruit raw materials;
- too dirty fruits should be wiped with a dry cloth;
- apples (plums, grapes) must be crushed and left for 3-4 days in order to better separate the resulting juice;
- pass the pulp through a press or squeeze the juice manually with gauze;
- for each liter of liquid, add 200-300 g of granulated sugar and stir until it is completely dissolved;
- if the fruits are acidic enough, then the amount of sugar is increased in accordance with personal taste;
- place the raw materials in glass, closing the neck m;
- the process continues for at least a month at an ambient air temperature of 18-24 ° C.
The signal that the wine is ready is the cessation of fermentation (gas bubbles cease to be released through the water seal). The liquid must be drained from the sediment, if it has formed, and poured into a cube.
For the distillation of wine, it is desirable to use a copper moonshine still. Copper actively absorbs harmful substances, toxins formed in the process of making wine moonshine, especially from store-bought raw materials.
Good quality moonshine from wine is not prepared quickly so as not to spoil the entire product. Ready alcohol should be infused in or with the addition of oak bark, chips for several months. Only then does the drink acquire a noble taste, aroma, color that distinguishes the elite.
Vodka made at home from natural products costs about 30 rubles per 0.5 liter. Good old taste, you will forget what a hangover is. Based on homemade grain, sugar or potato moonshine, you can prepare a wide variety of alcoholic beverages. Here you will find recipes for making homemade drinking alcohol, juniper gin, many varieties of vodka, strong absinthe, sambuca, grape chacha, malt whiskey, bread wine, and other homemade alcohol.
Moonshine from wine at home can be obtained by applying the following method of its manufacture:
- preliminary preparation of wine materials;
- fermentation of the resulting mixture;
- distillation into alcohol and purification.
To get a wine drink at home, the recipe suggests using juice. Fruit juice is best squeezed with a juicer. To make it, you need apples or grapes. You need to purchase the following ingredients:
- sugar sand - 2.5 - 3 kg;
- pure water - 9 - 10 l;
- yeast - 90 - 100 g;
- apples (clusters of grapes) -14 - 15 kg.
- Fruits do not need to be washed. The core is removed from the apples, and the grape berries are separated from the branches.
- Eliminate rot, dirt, damaged elements.
- Liquid from fruits can be obtained using a juicer. Those moonshiners who know a little about winemaking prefer to crush the berries with a press or with their feet. Apples can also be chopped on a grater. Some recipes suggest simply dicing the fruit, but in this case a lot of pulp is formed.
- After receiving the juice, it must be placed in an enamel bowl. There he will begin to wander. Get the pulp and liquid fraction. This process takes 3 days. After that, the pulp is removed, and granulated sugar is added to the juice. For 1 liter of liquid, 0.2 kg of the substance is needed. Stir the solution thoroughly so that it dissolves completely. For more information on making moonshine from wine, see this video:
- The resulting wine blank is seasoned with water and yeast, after which it is poured into a glass container. A water seal is installed on top. The vessel must be taken out to a room where the temperature is maintained at + 18 ... + 24 ° С. If apples were used, then the fermentation process lasts 40-45 days.
Distillation of wine at home is carried out if it is necessary to obtain fruit vodka (subsequently it is infused in oak barrels in order to obtain a quality drink that is not inferior in value to cognac and calvados), as well as in the case when a batch of wine has become unusable and must be disposed of. In order to get excellent moonshine from homemade wine in both the first and second cases, a recipe is used that provides for the preparation technology, thanks to which the drink is surprisingly beautiful.
Attention! It is undesirable to distill shop wines, since they contain sulfur dioxide, which in large quantities adversely affects human health. But distilling homemade wine is very useful, because they do not contain any chemicals. Moonshine turns out to be pleasant to the taste, when it is aged in barrels, it becomes quite similar to cognac. The longer the exposure, the better the drink. Distillation of sour wines will not allow you to get such a result, moonshine from them is also obtained with sourness, which can only be removed by a carbon filter or the use of soda.
How to distill house wine
- Wine is taken of any quality and any aging period, it is necessary to remove it from the sediment, only after that it is poured into a distillation cube.
- The distillation process should be slow (approximately 3 liters should come out per hour). The first fraction of 20 ml per liter (“head”) is poured into a separate container and used only for technical purposes, because it contains a lot of harmful impurities.
- The next fraction (“body”) is collected in the main tank, the selection is completed after the strength is lowered by less than 40 degrees.
- The next dose of the fraction ("tail") is collected to be used for a new mash. This helps to increase the strength of the future drink.
- Some people use ready-made moonshine from wine right away, but the quality of the product will not be excellent. In this regard, moonshine is pre-cleaned with coal or soda, but in these cases, the fruity aroma disappears. To eliminate such a precious loss, a second distillation is carried out.
- Moonshine is diluted with water until a fortress of 20 degrees is obtained and distillation is carried out according to the same scheme as for the first time.
- The resulting moonshine is diluted with water to 45 degrees, poured into a container, which is immediately closed. To improve the quality of moonshine from wine, they give the opportunity to settle for two days.
Alcoholic strong drinks are a symbol of all holidays. Since ancient times, there has been a tradition to put vodka, mead, wine, moonshine on the table. Many prepare homemade strong alcohol. For a change, you can distill moonshine from wine. It is possible to prepare it both from homemade and from purchased wine.
In industry, it is distilled for further infusion and obtaining Calvados or cognac. Usually at home they distill wine that failed in taste, as well as expired. Moonshine from wine turns out high-quality and soft. One question remains, how to make it at home.
Raw materials for homemade alcohol
Store-bought inexpensive wine that is sold in boxes is not very suitable for distillation. They are often of low quality and contain a large amount of preservatives and dyes. If you overtake wine for moonshine, then it will turn out to be of not very high quality with a heavy smell.
But homemade drink is perfect. And the wine can be absolutely anything: grape, plum, cherry, apple. A drink prepared at home from such a drink will turn out delicious and soft.
If you insist on it for about a year or so, then you get a real cognac. And in terms of quality, it will not be inferior to elite store varieties.
For distillation, you can take old or tasteless wine. But if the drink is sour, then it does not need to be used.
wine distillation process
It's time to learn how to distill wine:
Making moonshine from scratch from apple wine
There are all sorts of recipes for making strong alcohol from wine from scratch. Technology can be disassembled based on apple. For its manufacture you will need:
- peeled apples - 15 kg;
- clean water - 10 l;
- pressed yeast - 110 g
Apples must be passed through a juicer or meat grinder. To make moonshine, you need juice.
Pour the resulting juice into a saucepan, preferably enameled, and leave for three days. After the lapse of time, remove the pulp. Measure the amount of liquid and add 200 grams of sugar for each liter. Mix, add water and yeast.
Pour the liquid into the bottle and install a water seal. Leave for about 6 weeks.
The most important stage is distillation. You need to drive on a slow fire. In this case, the head and tail fractions should be separated. The head ones include the first 200-300 ml of finished moonshine. Tail fractions begin when the fortress drops to 40 degrees. It needs to be run twice. The output should be about 3 liters of quality drink.
Final stage - . It works with regular activated charcoal. It must be placed between gauze folded in several layers or cotton wool. Strain the resulting liquid through this structure.
The drink is ready. But in order for the taste to be more saturated, you can insist on dried apples. It will be enough to insist 2 weeks.
Using the same technology, you can prepare strong homemade alcohol from any fruits and berries.
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