If you are confident enough to try to manufacture strong alcohols and spirits in your own home then you should surely learn to make a moonshine still to make heady spirits right at home. It is quite easy to make a still for your home, backyard, or garage but proper care needs to be taken while using your still due to the presence of volatile spirits and high heat during the distillation process.
You will first need to check if it is completely legal to make alcohol in your own home. Some countries allow home ethanol production for personal purposes while others have a limit on the alcohol strength that can be produced by anyone in that state or country. Once you have the required permission then you will need to assemble the required equipment and components to make your moonshine still. While readymade moonshine kits are available through the internet, you can save a neat packet by making your own still with just a few household parts.
You will need a plastic fermenting bucket along with an airlock for the ethanol fermentation process. You will also need a copper pot or at least a copper bottomed pot to distill your ethanol after the sugar fermentation process. You will also require a digital thermometer along with copper tubing as well as a jug containing ice or cold water along with a collector vessel, and voila your kit is complete. You can start out by mashing your key ingredients such as water, sugar and wheat, barley, potatoes, rye, etc depending on whether you wish to make whiskey, vodka, etc in your moonshine still. You will need to boil and cool down your mash before pouring it into your fermenting bucket. You can then add vodka yeast to start fermentation of sugar present in the mash in case you want to make vodka at home.
You should opt for extremely hardy yeast such as turbo yeast that is fortified with micro nutrients such as vital vitamins, minerals, amino acids and enzymes. This fortified variant of the saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast can result in faster and powerful yeast fermentation that will reward you with a strong alcohol base that is easy to distill. Turbo yeast has higher yeast temperature range as well as ferment continuously in stronger alcohol without any problems. Next, you can transfer your fermented ethanol into your distilling pot and heat it to around 175 degrees Fahrenheit until the ethanol in the liquid starts to evaporate.
If you have quickly learnt the right way to make a moonshine still then the ethanol vapors will now travel through the copper tubing where they will get condensed back to liquid form due to the presence of ice around the tube after a little distance from the pot. The resultant potent liquid will now drop into your collector vessel. You should discard the start and end run of the condensed vapor as it might contain methanol that is toxic before collecting the rest in your collector. You will need to repeat the distillation process at least 2 or more times to get strong and smooth vodka before you filter and flavor it to turn it into a wonderful drink that can be enjoyed by you and your friends.
If you are an avid enthusiast of alcohol that wants to try your hand at creating your own whiskey or vodka at home then you can certainly do so after examining all the legal and technical aspects of your actions. You can certainly make a moonshine still to make heady spirits right at home so as to sip on the best alcohol beverages with your loved ones.