Homemade "Barrel Solvent"

[Jim]

"Barrel Solvent"

5 gallon bucket of sweet feed (Sweet feed has several different grains and molasses making it a great tasting "solvent".)

one package of yeast (using distillers yeast will increase quality and quantity)

5 pounds sugar

Water

Put enough feed to cover bottom of 5 gallon bucket, a good 4 inches deep.

Add 5 pounds of sugar. Fill 1/2 full with boiling water. Mix until sugar is dissolved. Mix the rest and finish filling with warm water.

Add the yeast after it has cooled to the recomended temperture on the yeast label. Cover with lid--our lid has a little cap that screws on, leave it loose to breathe.

4-5 days later it's ready to run! This is an old-timer recipe and works quite well. My "solvent" is always 150-180 proof.

[SciFiJim]

Wouldn't adding water to a five gallon bucket full of feed cause it to swell and overflow the bucket?

[Jim]

Well, if you have your doubts,try it, right? For more info, check out the link below.

NOTICE: This information is for ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY!

http://www.whiskeywise.com/homemade-whiskey.html

[DLCTEX]

Reread the instructions and see that you only put in feed to 4 inches in depth, then add water to half full mark, which leaves half a bucket of expansion room. Never heard of this one.
By "run" do you mean to distill it, or use as is?
OK, I think I misunderstood which "barrel" you use this "solvent" in.

[454PB]

I've never made the hard stuff, but when I was making wine and beer, once the alcohol level reaches about 8%, it kills the yeast and stops fermentation.

[SciFiJim]

5 gallon bucket of sweet feed
Add 5 pounds of sugar. Fill 1/2 full with boiling water. Mix until sugar is dissolved. Mix the rest and finish filling with warm water.

"Finish filling" sounds like full to me! I was asking for clarification. I would assume that one would leave room for expansion but I am not sure.

[felix]

Different yeasts have different alcohol tolerances, as well as different after taste characteristics. In general, the lighter the alcohol tolerance, the cleaner the after taste. Lighter wines therefore are best made with low tolerance yeasts. During the last 20 years or so, UC Davis and OSU have isolated yeasts that can tolerate 20 percent ethyl alcohol without undue fermentation techniques. These yeasts can be used to make a fortified wine without the customary fortification method of adding pure alcohol at the end of a customary fermentation. The best Ports of the world are quite high in alcohol because of the acquired user tastes over the last couple of centuries. Low alcoholic wines do not travel well, in that they will not maintain a fresh taste because of the bumps and grinds. ... felix

[Jim]

I'll say one thing(among many!) for Felix: He don't speak unless he knows what he speaks of.

[Tn_River_Ratt]

"Barrel Solvent"

5 gallon bucket of sweet feed (Sweet feed has several different grains and molasses making it a great tasting "solvent".)

one package of yeast (using distillers yeast will increase quality and quantity)

5 pounds sugar

Water

Put enough feed to cover bottom of 5 gallon bucket, a good 4 inches deep.

Add 5 pounds of sugar. Fill 1/2 full with boiling water. Mix until sugar is dissolved. Mix the rest and finish filling with warm water.

Add the yeast after it has cooled to the recomended temperture on the yeast label. Cover with lid--our lid has a little cap that screws on, leave it loose to breathe.

4-5 days later it's ready to run! This is an old-timer recipe and works quite well. My "solvent" is always 150-180 proof.

You wouldn't by chance have a few extra gallons.....for testing purposes of course.

[jonk]

Sounds pretty rough. Why would I want to make that when I can make something GOOD out of most anything at the fruit stand or grainery?????

150-180 proof? No way. You might hit 40 proof with a high test yeast, but not much more. 16 proof with average yeast.

Now you distill that, that's another matter.

[jdgabbard]

I thought distilling was what he was talking about.

An oldtimer from my neck of the woods used to distill. Afterwards, he would dump the product into a white oak barrel, with about a quarter of the barrel taken up with ripe cherries. After sealing the barrel he would then stick it out in the barn for about 5 years. Well he had this ritual ever year. Pretty soon he had a barrel every year to crack open. After a while he started bottling.

Best part. The given name of said product: Cherry Bounce, otherwise known as "Rabbit Whip a Bear."

[jhrosier]

Got to keep them barrels clean...

Jack

[Jim]

Sounds pretty rough. Why would I want to make that when I can make something GOOD out of most anything at the fruit stand or grainery?????
150-180 proof? No way. You might hit 40 proof with a high test yeast, but not much more. 16 proof with average yeast.

Now you distill that, that's another matter.

Well, that's what they mean when they say "ready to run it". And as far as "no way", I done did it. It'll burn blue on a cotton ball.

[jonk]

Gotcha. As an on-again, off again home brewer and vintner, I've always wondered about distilling.

[tommag]

A decade or two ago, I used to make my own beer and wine. I made a "pumpkin pie wine" that tasted horrible. Not being one to waste stuff, I rigged up a condenser to my large pressure canner. The first part of the run was hotter than hades, but mellowed out as the process went on.
I had no mentoring, and thought I knew what I was doing. I think it was on this board, but it may have been elsewhere, that someone who was familiar with this posted that you could come up with wood alcohol if you didn't know what you were doing.
I hope it was just age and coincidence, but both my wife and I had vision problems about the same time. I've only done this once, with about 15 gallons of wine, but I have always wondered if I messed up our eyes with this "brandy".

[AlaskaMike]

Not so much danger of getting methanol (wood alcohol), but the old rule of thumb is to dump the first third of distillate which would contain the lightest compounds like methanol. You keep the middle third and save the final third to dump into the next run.

One of the problems with pressure cookers is that many are aluminum, and my experience with aluminum pots hasn't been good. Stainless and copper are much better metals for the pot.

Er... so I hear anyhow!

Mike

[Four Fingers of Death]

We don't call it 'solvent' down here in Australia, we call it 'neck oil!'

[Molly]

Ummm, I wonder why nobody recommends adding a thumper keg to the equipment. Dad and I used to run some for home consumption from time to time, and a thumper keg is a big help at keeping the octane ratings up. It's just a keg (copper, wood, whatever) between the boiler and the coil. The first distilates will condense in the thumper keg, which slowly fills with a mixture of mostly water and some alcohol. Then as the temperature goes up, the alcohol distills out and condenses in the coil, while the higher boiling water stays in the thumper keg and drains back into the boiler. It's called the thumper keg because the steam coming from the boiler makes a thump when it hits the water and condenses. Think about the clanking and banging of an old fashioned steam heating system, and you'll understand.

FWIW, it's my understanding - and I'm pretty sure I'm right - there is no law against making virtually any type of alcoholic beverage you want, and in any quantity you have a mind to make. The Government revenuers don't give a flip. Nor does the Government. They only get interested if you sell the same without paying the taxes on it. That's why they are called revenue-ers: They bring in revenue to the government.

You can make it, drink it, share it, give it away, or feed it to the pigs for entertainment, and nobody will bother you. But if cash or goods with some cash value changes hands, you'd better be able to show you've paid the taxes on it.

Now that said, Pap really wasn't a drinking man. He just liked to tweak the government's nose any time he had a chance. He went at his squeezings from a scientific perspective: He'd triple distill, catching the distillate in glass labware, and stopping a run when he saw the first diffraction lines from significant water in the drop. Then he'd repeat it twice. Generally, the second repeat would boil dry without any difraction lines. He liked to take a spoonful and set a match to it. You could see the heat waves coming off the spoon, but you couldn't see any flames. But he did enjoy making highballs with it. One teaspoon of our stuff in a large glass made a pretty potent sipper. A mouthy guy once asked for a straight drink. Pap wasn't too fond of him, so he obliged: The guy gulped it down, and then he went down, clawing at the wall and trying to talk. It took him a few minutes, but he didn't ask for any more.

Use brass, copper or glass tubing and use straight tin solders for your still boiler. Pay attention to what you're doing, and KNOW what you're doing, and you can have a lot of fun while enjoying learning a few things.

Now a word of warning for anyone who really wants to play with this stuff: There's nothing difficult or wrong with it, but you'd better know what you're doing when you put your gear together. You can use most any tubing you have a notion to, but rubber hoses will taint the distillate, and lead based solder on the connections will result in making it a deadly poison.

Lead oxide from the lead based solder will dissolve in alcohol, and when you drink it, you will be dosing yourself with some highly toxic material. By the same token, don't drink 'commercial' moonshine either: The moonshiners run the steam from the boiler through an old automobile radiator to condense it. And guess what holds old radiators together: Lead solder. Some moonshine made with a fresh radiator has been known to kill a man with a single glass. No joke! It HAS happened! That's why you shoudn't drink anything not made by your own hands, or by a long-trusted friend. No kidding. I KNOW, and I could tell you some stories that would curl your hair. You can't even make the 'commercial stuff' safe by redistilling it. Yeah, that would leave the lead salts behind, but believe me, they toss a lot of BLEEP in the 'shine that you don't want to know about. Some of it, like Lye, would also be left behind, but the rubbing alcohol will distill right along with the good stuff - and it's darn toxic too!

Me? Nah. Not any more. I might have a social drink on occasion, but I got all the serious drinking I needed as a barefoot hillbilly kid in the hills of West Virginia. My feet were so tough I could walk barefoot through fresh cut wheat stubble at the end of summer, just about the time I got a fresh pair of brogans for winter. I once had a hangover that lasted for three full days. When I sobered up, I asked myself "Did I do this for FUN? Man, this is NOT fun!" And that was the end of my serious drinking. Now I enjoy my grandkids, brag about my patents, and annoy the kids by shooting better with a pistol than they do with a rifle. Ahh, retirement is good!

Regards,
Molly

[acemedic13]

Sooooooooo....... "Run it" does mean to distill the mixture.....Correct??

[Jim]

Right.