I can not find any information on making Whiskey. I need to freeze distil it. As I have limited funds.

[RSIciTC]

I can not find any information on making Whiskey. I need to freeze distil it. As I have limited funds.

 

[jtratcliff]

Look up "Apple Jack"...

That should get you started on freeze distillation...

You can jack other wines, too, but jacking apple cider is the most common and probably has the most info online ..

You can also find an easy high ABV apfelwien ( German style hard cider) recipe here on HBT...

Look for EdWort's apfelwien

Good luck

 

[madscientist451]

https://boozemakers.com/freeze-distillation-make-liquor-without-still/
Read the part about the health risks.....

The great thing about beer is you often will get full before you've had too much alcohol, and there are still health risks associated with too much beer, its not the same as concentrated amounts of the freeze distilled alcohol.

 

[Toxxyc]

Buy cheap vodka. It's not cheap or easy to make a good whisky. It takes a long time and it works out to pretty damn expensive.

 

[jtratcliff]

Buy cheap vodka. It's not cheap or easy to make a good whisky. It takes a long time and it works out to pretty damn expensive.

This...


Trader Joe's "vodka of the gods". $10 for 1.75 liters
https://offbrandguy.com/best-cheap-vodka-trader-joes-vodka-of-the-gods/

 

[Qhrumphf]

Freeze concentration of malt-based alcohol fluids can certainly be done (though may or may not be legal depending on where you live- in the US it's legal to do at home but not legal to do commercially beyond the most minute level).

But it won't do the same thing as proper distillation and it won't have the same character as whiskey.

In proper distillation you isolate off ethanol, leaving proteins, carbohydrates, and other dissolved solids behind, and by discarding heads and tails can remove methanol and other unwanted higher alcohols than just ethanol. In freeze concentration you remove the water, concentrating the proteins and residual carbohydrates, as well as the unwanted (and in the case of methanol, dangerous) higher alcohols. Basically it can make hangover fuel while also being VERY sweet and syrupy.

If you're looking to get smashed cheap and easy (which is my assumption), that's not the right path.

 

[tracer bullet]

If he / she is truly in Thailand, probably can't go down to Trader Joe's. Also guessing anything that can be bought is probably taxed like mad, like doubling the price or something.

As for making high proof stuff that tastes OK and won't hurt you - no idea.

 

[Qhrumphf]

(also, freeze concentration to the level of hard liquor also would be exceedingly difficult to do at home)

 

[Falstaff]

Also, look up apple palsy. Not something you want to drink regularly. I have some apple jack in the freezer and two shots give me a noticable grogginess in the AM.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Also, if you want whiskey character, that's proper distillation followed by YEARS aging in an oak barrel.

Again, assuming "smashed cheap fast" is your goal, also not in the cards.

Making a "maple wine" that's more or less mead using maple syrup instead of honey, was rather bourbon-esque the one time I tried it (though at 15% ABV instead of ~40% ABV it was more like watered down bourbon), requiring no concentration/distillation, and a lot less aging. Though the maple syrup isn't cheap.

 

[bracconiere]

can you afford something like this?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/264900113023?hash=item3dad46f27f:g:HR4AAOSwMghe6x26
or get it? just don't use plastic for the reciever....

edit: and....

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forums/distilling.281/

 

[jtratcliff]

can you afford something like this?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/264900113023?hash=item3dad46f27f:g:HR4AAOSwMghe6x26

Yes... This works...

Someone I may *or may not* know, may *or may not* use one of these to produce a distilled liquid that may *or may not* have started off as homemade fruit wine...

The less expensive ones have no temp control or thermometer, so you'll not get vodka levels of clean flavor. You can't make cuts based temperature... You have to do it by taste and ABV coming out of the still

But German-style schnapps (not sickly sweet American style) in the 30-40% ABV range are well within reach using one of these...

 

[Toxxyc]

You're not supposed to make cuts based on temperature anyway, you're supposed to do it by taste and smell. ABV is only applicable to determining how long you should run it for into the tails. I'm a cheapskate, I run DEEP.

EDIT: The biggest downside of those Airstills is the volume you can do. 1 Gallon of total capacity, and you don't fill it to the top, you typically fill your still 2/3 of the way max. So if you do that, you have around 2.5 litres of wash in the still, typically at 8% ABV, which will probably produce around 800ml of alcohol from the stripping run. You'll have to run it several times before you can get to the spirit run (which you can run a bit fuller), after which you'll get maybe 1 bottle or so of good alcohol to age, depending on how you cut.

It'll work, it'll just take a lot of time and effort.

 

[jtratcliff]

You're not supposed to make cuts based on temperature anyway, you're supposed to do it by taste and smell. ABV is only applicable to determining how long you should run it for into the tails. I'm a cheapskate, I run DEEP.

If your temp control and thermometer are good, you can see when the foreshots are done... Methanol comes off at a slightly lower temp than ethanol... Mine aren't that good ... My wife's cousin in Germany, however, watches his thermometer ...

But I agree... heads/hearts/tails by taste... and ABV for when to stop collecting tails....
I'm a cheap-ass, too! I save heads and tails for the next run... There's still ethanol in there, dammit!

 

[madscientist451]

The OP is from Thailand, so I went on google looking for local alcoholic beverages and found this:


What is the local alcoholic drink in Thailand?





Hard Spirits

The local spirit of choice is Sangsom, a popular rum, with an ABV of 40 percent. Although Sangsom is often referred to as a whiskey, it's brewed from sugarcane and aged in oak barrels, categorizing it as a rum.Nov 12, 2019

So is the OP asking about what we call whiskey or rum?
There are several you tube videos where freeze distilled rum is made, this one shows that the liquid can be ignited and it burns with a blue flame and he states that the ABV is around 40%.


As already mentioned there are some health risks associated with drinking freeze distilled alcohol, and I would think the risk could be reduced with a lower ABV target like a wine strength beverage.

 

[RufusBrewer]

can you afford something like this?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/264900113023?hash=item3dad46f27f:g:HR4AAOSwMghe6x26
or get it? just don't use plastic for the reciever....

edit: and....

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forums/distilling.281/

Water distillation and alcohol distillation are not the same process.

Water distillation, you want to get it up to a rolling boil and as hot as you can.

Alcohol distillation you need temp control to get the temp at the sweet spot above alcohol boil temp and below water boil temp.

Not everything marked still will make whiskey.

 

[jtratcliff]

Water distillation and alcohol distillation are not the same process.

Water distillation, you want to get it up to a rolling boil and as hot as you can.

Alcohol distillation you need temp control to get the temp at the sweet spot above alcohol boil temp and below water boil temp.

Not everything marked still will make whiskey.

Oh, I can assure you that those water distillers can produce drinkable (and tasty) products containing ethanol...

 

[bracconiere]

Water distillation and alcohol distillation are not the same process.

Water distillation, you want to get it up to a rolling boil and as hot as you can.

Alcohol distillation you need temp control to get the temp at the sweet spot above alcohol boil temp and below water boil temp.

Not everything marked still will make whiskey.

actually the boiling point of an ethanol/water mixture will be lower then pure water..and mostly just the ethanol will come over at first. i'd imagine at first, you'd be getting 80% ABV with the thing, then it'll start to drop off...if you are using something like that, i'd recomend a gadget i just found out about a ABV refractometer, because it would be hard to get a sample big enough to use a proof trales hydro...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/383676745535?hash=item5954ea873f:g:CYQAAOSwdWhg57-P
not sure any of this is available in thailand though?


if you're using something like the 4 liter water distiller, just keep it running and keep pouring off the run off as it's going checking the ABV with each draw. start at like 80%, then stop it at about 45%-50%? not sure on the end point, i think that would be how good you want it to be, last runnings get pretty nasty...


edit: i think the word for this is azeotrope? or something like that.....

 

[jtratcliff]

Hard core DIY...

https://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=59154
I've tried it... Took a lot of work for very little product, but it worked.

I only tried once, so it wasn't something that spoke to me...

The water distiller on the other hand has been employed several times... Hypothetically..

 

[bernardsmith]

Whisky is distilled barley wine (beer without hops). So unless the OP is working with ale or beer he is not going to be making whisky. Whisky is also flavored with oak and so unless the OP has access to toasted oak all he will be making is alcohol. If the OP takes some wine or cider or beer and allows it to sit in a freezer or if he places the containers outside when the outdoor temperatures are at freezing or thereabouts then he will be jacking his cider, beer or wine.

Any wine (no matter the ABV) made from fruit will contain methanol. Not much but some and when you distill that wine you collect and then remove the methanol. When you jack wine you don't create a single molecule more of that methanol but you do concentrate it, so if your bottle of wine (750 ml) is reduced to say 250 ml the TOTAL amount of methanol that was in the 750 ml is now in the 250 ml. This is why those who jack cider often suffer hangovers the next day: the more volatile alcohols that a) their poor wine making processes produce and b) which they then concentrate lead to headaches and the like as their bodies try to get rid of those poisons. Those who distill (by boiling and then collecting the ethanol (alcohol) are collecting less volatile alcohols and the alcohols they collect (because they know what they are doing) do not create hangovers.

Water distillers perform precisely the same work as alembic pot stills. They use air to cool the boiling alcohol and if they hold 4 liters of liquid you can fill them with 4 liters of liquid and if that liquid is cider , ale or wine they will produce about 400 ml of alcohol. The ABV (or proof) will depend on the ABV of the distillate. But at 10% ABV 400 ml will be close to about 70% ABV or 140 proof.

 

[bwible]

can you afford something like this?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/264900113023?hash=item3dad46f27f:g:HR4AAOSwMghe6x26
or get it? just don't use plastic for the reciever....

edit: and....

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forums/distilling.281/

They talk about these airstills in the distilling forums. They have plastic parts just about everywhere touching the vapor. Thats one of the big things they go over. Only stainless or copper should touch vapor and runoff. Most people prefer copper. People worry about what will leech out of plastic parts. They don’t even want you to use silicone.

 

[Jayjay1976]

If you want to experiment with distillation, you can get started for way under 50 bucks. All you need is a hot plate with adjustable output, an erlenmeyer flask or some other vessel that is heat resistant and has a lid or stopper of some sort, a coil of refrigerator copper tubing and a computer fan. A digital thermometer is optional but helpful in determining when to stop collecting. This shot shows a 2L flask filled with neutral diluted down to 35% and gin botanicals. For initial runs I use a 5L flask, then use smaller 2 or 3L flasks for spirit runs. We made a lot of gin scented hand sanitizer to get us through the shortage last year.

 

[Spikybits]

If you want to experiment with distillation, you can get started for way under 50 bucks. All you need is a hot plate with adjustable output, an erlenmeyer flask or some other vessel that is heat resistant and has a lid or stopper of some sort, a coil of refrigerator copper tubing and a computer fan. A digital thermometer is optional but helpful in determining when to stop collecting. This shot shows a 2L flask filled with neutral diluted down to 35% and gin botanicals. For initial runs I use a 5L flask, then use smaller 2 or 3L flasks for spirit runs. We made a lot of gin scented hand sanitizer to get us through the shortage last year.

View attachment 742015

what ended up being your yield - prior to mixing to sanitizer if you did mix.

 

[Jayjay1976]

I don't keep a tally, just keep collecting until head temp reaches 206, but it's a lot more than we have use for.

IIRC, 12 gallons of wash @ 2lbs/gal white sugar yields about 3.5 gallons of ~70%; after another pass it's probably 2.75 gallons @ ~80-85%. In successive runs I get almost all of it back out and the result is really clean.

IME, simple sugar wash with bakers yeast produces a good yield of nice neutral, which can be aged on oak for a bourbon effect. I read some place that large scale commercial distilleries produce a very clean neutral, the whiskey flavor comes mostly from barrel aging.

It's so much easier to dabble than I thought it would be, and if you like to tinker and obsess over the details, the sky is the limit.

 

[Spikybits]

awesome thanks for the info!!

 

[Orval]

The OP is from Thailand, so I went on google looking for local alcoholic beverages and found this:





The local spirit of choice is Sangsom, a popular rum, with an ABV of 40 percent. Although Sangsom is often referred to as a whiskey, it's brewed from sugarcane and aged in oak barrels, categorizing it as a rum.Nov 12, 2019

As already mentioned there are some health risks associated with drinking freeze distilled alcohol, and I would think the risk could be reduced with a lower ABV target like a wine strength beverage.

What the Thai workers like to drink is their Lao Kao (white alcohol) 110 baht for one 0.625 L. bottle 40° ABV which is the maximum available in Thailand. It's made from molasses, so it's a rum, like Saeng Som, but much cheaper. If you want to mix alcohol with soda to have a whisky soda like beverage, there is a blend which is quite cheap, but I forgot the name as I never drink it. For a cheap whisky: 100 Pipers is acceptable. If you want to distil your own whiskey, you can find all or almost all ingredients on the net (Shopee, Lazada, Brewing Shop | Thailand | Craft Components ,…) as beer home brewing has become popular in Thailand too. For your still, people making stainless steel balustrades or gates can weld a couple of ferrules on a Ø 2" or 3” SS pipe which can be adjusted on a SS noodle pot plus some air conditioning copper tube for the condenser and you are good to go… A pressure cooker will also do the job. I'm attaching "Blue Flame" a text written for UK people living abroad. This is focused on risks linked with distilling alcohol. There are some additional comments in French I wrote for my son, but just stick to the original text. Cheers!

 

[kmmuellr]

If you want to experiment with distillation, you can get started for way under 50 bucks. All you need is a hot plate with adjustable output, an erlenmeyer flask or some other vessel that is heat resistant and has a lid or stopper of some sort, a coil of refrigerator copper tubing and a computer fan. A digital thermometer is optional but helpful in determining when to stop collecting. This shot shows a 2L flask filled with neutral diluted down to 35% and gin botanicals. For initial runs I use a 5L flask, then use smaller 2 or 3L flasks for spirit runs. We made a lot of gin scented hand sanitizer to get us through the shortage last year.

View attachment 742015

This is awesome! Exactly what I want to do for a little gin still.
What is the lid/stopper that you're using?
Any idea how much copper is there? No issues w/ vapor coming out of the condenser w/ just the air cooling w/ the fan?

I don't keep a tally, just keep collecting until head temp reaches 206, but it's a lot more than we have use for.

IIRC, 12 gallons of wash @ 2lbs/gal white sugar yields about 3.5 gallons of ~70%; after another pass it's probably 2.75 gallons @ ~80-85%. In successive runs I get almost all of it back out and the result is really clean.

You run 12 gal of wash through this? How long does that take you?

Thanks for the inspiration!!

 

[bwible]

I read some place that large scale commercial distilleries produce a very clean neutral, the whiskey flavor comes mostly from barrel aging.

Neutrals are vodka and gin and are usually made on a column still. A column still is the still of choice for neutrals. It has a number of plates inside the column that catch vapor at multiple steps along the way to the top and force it to re-condense so that only the purest spirit makes it to the top. Vodka and gin can be made of things like potatos or wheat.

Whiskey and rum are usually made in a pot still which doesn’t produce as pure a spirit so it doesn’t make as true of a neutral.

Rum is made from fermented molasses and water. Whiskeys are made from wheat, rye, corn and barley. A straight sugar wash is going to be more like vodka.

By law bourbon has to be at least 51% corn. Most commercial distilleries are more north of 80% corn. The remainder is either rye, wheat, or distiller’s malt barley. Rye lends a pretty distinctive taste. Wheat is smoother and many of the more upscale bourbons are “wheaters”. I don’t think whiskey would be described as neutral.

All liquor is clear and colorless when it exits the still. Brown spirits get color and some flavor from being aged in barrels. Bourbon again by law must be aged in new American oak barrels and the barrels are burned and charred with torches on the inside for additional flavor and color. All bourbon is whiskey, not all whiskey is bourbon.

Then there’s Irish whiskey, which is probably the closest thing to what you’d get if you made a beer without hops and distilled that.

Many people new to distilling start out with rum, because its supposedly the easiest to make.

[edit] I didn’t even go into Scotch whiskey because thats just not something most people will even try to make at home unless you live near a peat bog.

 

[abweatherley]

Any wine (no matter the ABV) made from fruit will contain methanol. Not much but some and when you distill that wine you collect and then remove the methanol.

No wine would contain ethanol, not methanol. Methanol will kill you or make you go blind even in small amounts. Methanol is the first alcohol that comes of a distillation column Becuase it has a lower boiling point than Ethanol. That's what the heads are. The middle of the distillation is your ethanol.

 

[marc1]

No wine would contain ethanol, not methanol. Methanol will kill you or make you go blind even in small amounts. Methanol is the first alcohol that comes of a distillation column Becuase it has a lower boiling point than Ethanol. That's what the heads are. The middle of the distillation is your ethanol.

Wine definitely contains some methanol. It's just a very small amount:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318287548_Methanol_in_wine