adding Ethanol from white sugar fermentation to your drinks

[Apisal]

have you ever done the following?

if i obtained pure ethanol from white sugar fermentation then distillation and added it to my drinks... would it taste good? if no then why is that?

 

[Yooper]

No, it wouldn't taste "good". Most good whiskeys, etc, are made with grain or something higher quality. It might not taste horrible, though.
What doesn't taste too bad is making some beer wort without hops, throwing some cheap yeast in there and then distilling that. It could be done with malt extract, too.

 

[Apisal]

@Yooper
i don't get it, why wouldn't it taste good? in the end ethanol is present in beer and other types of alcohol, why would it be a lot different than just adding it?

 

[JJinMD]

If I am following your logic correctly, then here is my two cents.

Unless you have a ridiculous lab setup, you will never be able to process sugar into 100% (aka "pure") ethanol. It is the other components of that non-pure distillation that would make it not taste good.

 

[Apisal]

If I am following your logic correctly, then here is my two cents.

Unless you have a ridiculous lab setup, you will never be able to process sugar into 100% (aka "pure") ethanol. It is the other components of that non-pure distillation that would make it not taste good.

i never tried it (i would if i have the setup), but from the guy i am following he seems to reach almost 100%, maybe +99.6%

but when i think about it, the fermentation is just water + white sugar + yeast
so the leftover component of that none pure ethanol is just water, which should be fine, right?

unlike ethanol from petrol and oil, the leftovers would contain highly toxic materials

 

[JJinMD]

i never tried it (i would if i have the setup), but from the guy i am following he seems to reach almost 100%, maybe +99.6%

but when i think about it, the fermentation is just water + white sugar + yeast
so the leftover component of that none pure ethanol is just water, which should be fine, right?

unlike ethanol from petrol and oil, the leftovers would contain highly toxic materials

Sorry, but no, he very likely doesn't. Water + white sugar + yeast = ethanol and many, many other chemicals.

I would suggest you do a bit more reading and research into the subject if this is something you are interested in doing. There is a distillation forum on this site and many other sources of good info on the web.

 

[day_trippr]

The OP did mention including distillation in the process of creating his ethanol.

Now, he won't get pure alcohol - nobody does - and if one includes boiling out the methanol at the beginning of the run, there's more loss as well. But let's say he gets some fairly high octane 'shine, I don't see using it as fortification to be problematic - and "taste good" is up to the beholder. Probably not going to be any worse than an Everclear boilermaker...

Cheers!

 

[Apisal]

@day_trippr
i am hoping that someone tried that so i can check his results
because it would be way more convenient to just add small amounts of ethanol to my favorite drink or something like that

 

[Apisal]

@JJinMD

hmmm, not sure, i think i need to do more research

from what i know, yeast has 2 types of reaction with sugar


with oxygen

and without oxygen (hence fermentation)

both of them does not produce toxic materials, so it might be from other components that i am not aware of
or it might have something to do with the sugar type
well it needs more research

 

[Twinkeelfool]

I can’t imagine ethanol would improve the taste of anything, and trying to make it yourself to drink sounds reckless to me. Just my opinion

 

[bracconiere]

well the sugar+water+yeast=ethanol, is false...the yeast need vitamins and stuff, but i've done plenty of wheat germ sugar washes, watered them back down to about 8% ABV, with some lemon conc & sugar for hard lemonaid, tastes great....but i watch my waist and the sweetness f's up my calories....

i have fermented wheat germ sugar washes while away from my brewing equip on vacation, in a bucket to ~16% with bread yeast....mixed it with coke, wasn't really saving me money....but damn i felt free on the run! and it tasted passable!

 

[Apisal]

I can’t imagine ethanol would improve the taste of anything, and trying to make it yourself to drink sounds reckless to me. Just my opinion

i am not sure if you know this, but Ethanol is the thing that makes you drunk, it's the essence of alcoholic drinks, without it beer would just be a juice

 

[hotbeer]

Maybe you ought to try some Everclear or Rum Puncheon in your drinks and see if that is really the flavor you want to add.

Probably cheaper to buy a bottle. And will last a long time if you are only using on yourself.

 

[NotSure]

This has been tried before. It's called "Zima."

 

[Yooper]

That is soooooo overly simplistic that it doesn't even make sense. No fermentation will ever be that simple.

Maybe you're too young or have not heard the old stories of "bathtub gin" and illegal stills. Methanol will give you a roaring headache. It won't kill you, but you'd wish it would.

Please do a little bit of research on distilling. Our forum is for quality beverages, not hooch or crap that tastes bad but will make you drunk.

This is not the place for this type of discussion, but there are many sites that would help with this. Also, google would be great as well as youtube.

 

[Yooper]

i am not sure if you know this, but Ethanol is the thing that makes you drunk, it's the essence of alcoholic drinks, without it beer would just be a juice

No, you obviously know so much more about alcohol and chemistry than we ever could. Never mind that some of us have been doing this for 35 years!
You're not a good fit here.

 

[bracconiere]

wait....i liked him? when the dope addict at the brew pub cut me off from affordable malt, i had to resort to this sorta thing? ended up deciding aging on wood chips was cheaper then making alco-pop though....

 

[Snark_Wolf_Brewing]

Ight imma head out...

 

[Yooper]

wait....i liked him? when the dope addict at the brew pub cut me off from affordable malt, i had to resort to this sorta thing? ended up deciding aging on wood chips was cheaper then making alco-pop though....

We have a list of rules, and abiding by them is important. One of the rules is "no discussion of hooch". We let some of it go for a long while, but he is better off on a beginning distilling/hooch forum or using google, rather than taking the focus off of quality beverages and foods in our forum.