Homemade honey: ingredients, recipes, tips and tricks

Moonshade - an alcoholic beverage obtained at home using the appropriate product. It is common among beekeepers, but many home-brewers, far from working with bees, gladly make such a brag. There are several recipes, each of which gives the drink its own flavor and aroma.

True lovers share mead and moonshine from honey. Recipes for the preparation of both these drinks differ, and quite strongly. The main differences are in taste, astringency and production technology. The mead is more simple to prepare, it does not need distillation, so its degree is too small - it is 5-10 units.

Classic honey moonshine

Classical mead is made of 4 ingredients:

1. Honey - 3 kg.
2. Sugar - 3 kg.
3. Water - 20 liters.
4. Yeast - 300 g.

The preparation of moonshine from honey is to put all the products in a lime or oak barrel, then mix thoroughly. First, the future home-brew needs to stand for about a week in a warm and dark place, and then the drink is distilled. If you do not do the latter, you will get a mead, if you ennoble alcohol in this way, then the output will be classic honey moonshine. It is possible to get 6 liters of the finished product.

Mead without sugar

Why in the brew from the honey to add sugar? After all, the original raw materials and so pretty sweet. But even the best honey does not always start wandering, if you add only yeast to it. You can cook a brew without sugar, but only if you spend much more time cooking.

To do this, you need ingredients:

• Honey - 3 liters.
• Water - 10 liters.
• Yeast - 200 g.

First you need to mix the water with the honey in a saucepan and bring this mixture to a boil over high heat. Then reduce the heat supply, cook, stirring, for 20 minutes, removing the resulting foam. After removing the pot from the plate, you must cool the liquid to 30 degrees.

Yeast is mixed with warm water and added to the mixture. Then all the liquid is poured into another container, intended for fermentation. It's better if it's a lime or oak barrel. Here you should pay attention to the temperature, it should not fall below 25 and rise above 30 degrees. At the end of fermentation, the beverage is distilled using an appropriate apparatus.

Mead with sugar

If you do not report sugar to the mixture, it is much more difficult to make moonshine from honey. Recipes using both ingredients are much simpler, and you can get a ready-made drink faster. Therefore, this recipe is most common among manufacturers of home-made alcohol. To prepare it you will need:

• Honey and sugar - 3 kg each.
• Water - 20 liters.
• Alcoholic yeast - 200 g.

First you need to mix sugar and honey in warm water, then dilute the yeast and add them to the main mixture. Next, the container is covered with a blanket, if it will stand in a cool place. If its location is initially oriented at a high temperature, then you can do without coverlets. After 10 days, the drink is ready for distillation, as it is enough for this time to ferment.

Since sugar presupposes sediment, the liquid must first be drained into another container, so that no fine particles enter the brewing apparatus. It is desirable to carry out two distillations, and then to purify the drink with the help of manganese or carbon filters. This will save the brew from the fusel oils, increasing the quality of the obtained alcohol.

Sweetening moonshine

Sometimes moonshakers make common mistakes in the process of making bergs. As a result, the drink turns out to be strong, beautiful, but has a terrible taste. You can smooth it with honey.

To sweeten the brew, use sugar or honey (1 kg). Any of these products must be mixed with a liter of water and boiled until the foam ceases to form. Then the resulting mixture should be placed in a cold place for a couple of weeks to get rid of the sediment. Then you can add it to moonshine.

When adding, if the liquid has been welded correctly, gases will start to emit, and as a result of the chemical reaction the brag will heat up. To facilitate and accelerate the process, you need to add 2 tablets of activated charcoal.

In this case it turns out not a mead, but a tincture of moonshine on honey. The drink acquires a pleasant taste, but it will not be possible to completely get rid of the alcohol color, even if you add a lot of sweet mixture.

Mistakes of moonshakers

In spite of the fact that it's easy enough to make moonshine from honey, beginners, as well as experienced home distillers, admit several common mistakes. Firstly, they do not always withstand the temperature regime. If it jumps or is broken, the wort loses a lot of properties. To prevent this from happening, it is recommended to use only those heat holders that do not depend on electricity, gas level and the like. Better to cover the barrels with blankets, put them in warm wooden rooms, than to rely on appliances.

Secondly, moonshakers often add too much yeast. Of course, this will not spoil the strength of the drink, but it will strongly affect its taste. In addition, the abundance of yeast results in the wort roaming longer than anticipated.

And the last: often moonshine is spoiled directly during distillation. This happens only for one reason - uneven heating. Fire can jump on levels, as a result of which even honey can burn. Therefore, before proceeding to distillation, it is recommended to check the apparatus.

Recommendations

That moonshine from honey turned out ideal for strength, astringency and taste, it is necessary to observe several rules:

1. It is necessary to filter the wort before proceeding to distillation. Even the purest ingredients give a sediment that is poorly perceived by the moonshine, small particles burn, which gives a nasty taste.
2. It is desirable to carry out a double distillation in order to remove toxic oils. In this case, the first and last few grams need to be drained separately, because it is in them that garbage is collected from the apparatus and tanks.
3. After distillation, you need to clean the drink with charcoal or potassium permanganate.

If you comply with these rules, then the drink will be no worse than the most expensive elite alcohol.

Talking about how to make moonshine from honey, you can not ignore the capacity and appliances. It is advisable to insist the must in oak or lime barrels, use a copper alumbic as an apparatus, and pour the resulting beverage into glass bottles.