Homebrew
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Distillation
Building a World Class Home Distillation Apparatus this site
contains a step-by-step guide to building a relatively sophisticated home
distillation apparatus that produces a highly refined distillate. The still
is made from commonly available materials, with simple hand tools, and can
be built for under $100.USD.
Teakettle Still! Dangerous laboratories does not condone or
practice illegal distilling in any way, shape or form. The information
provided herein is for educational and informational purposes only.
Moonshine - How to Make it. Makin' good moonshine is quite an art.
It takes lots of time and practice before one can whip up a good batch that
sells. Throughout history, there have been many ways of making moonshine.
Some folks would add a special ingredient or perform a certain method during
the distilling period to make their moonshine taste distinct.
Alcoholic Drinks of the Middle Ages - Brandy and Whiskey:
Distilled beverages may date as far back as 800 BC in China with a
distillate of Sake. In Europe, distillation was known by at least the
eleventh or twelfth century. The Norman English found distillation from
grain firmly established in the form of a drink called uisge beatha when
they invaded Ireland in the twelfth century. The Romans found apples in
abundance as they made their conquests through Gaul, and as early as the
nineth century had laws regulating the production of cider. The first
written mention of an eau-de-vie made of 'Syder', however, was not until
1553 when it was mentioned in the journal of a Norman farmer. Arnold de Vila
Nova, a 13th Century alchemist, wrote of aqua vitae and its restorative
properties and also of the medicinal properties of various flavored
alcohols. Legal documents dating to 1411 mention the distillation of wine
into brandy in the Armagnac region of France. Das Buch zu Destilliern by
Hieronymus Braunsweig was printed in 1519. This book, as its title explains,
is a book on distillation. In addition to the text, there are pictures in
the book which show the operations, including one of a still with 4 alembics
(retorts). [Link recovered 5/13/11]
Home Distillation of Alcohol (Homemade Alcohol to Drink)
How to distill your own drinking
alcohol. A New Zealand page, ostensibly about essential oils.
Home Distillation of Alcohol
by Tony Ackland This is the one
you've been looking for. You can even
Download a Copy for free! Looks like alot of effort was
put into this site, so if you visit it alot - or if you download the whole
site - you might be kind enough to send a few bucks Tony's way. He has a
"PayPal Donation" button available for this on his main page.
How to make alcohol... The Guys Six Feet Under Present Part I of the
Getting Homemade Highs File - A l c o h o l
Vinegar
Fermentation of Vinegar: From the sci.chem newsgroup. A couple of ng
messages on this topic.
Making Flavorful Vinegar
WineMaker is a magazine for people
who enjoy making wine at home. The article is quite lengthy and contains
great info, but the site is poorly designed, takes a long time to load and
only allows for 1/3 of the screen for the actual article. Be prepared to
scroll. [Link recovered 5/13/11]
Wine and Vinegar making
In case your wine was not at all drinkable, you may have discovered the
mystery of making vinegar! Again, bacteria do the job. In this case
Acetobacter is the most likely candidate. Check here how the biochemical
conversion
from sugar to alcohol to acid works (Source: the Whisky
store). Make the best of your wine: make vinegar! [Link
recovered 5/13/11]
All about vinegar
(Source: The Little Vinegar Shop) Not much here
(sales site) but a short article.
History of vinegar
(Source: the Meadery)
- from desc. & history to recipes and methods. Includes footnotes
to bibliography. Great article, horrible and distracting background.
[Link recovered 5/13/11] {Without the background}
Meet 'the mother of vinegar',
the bacterial base for acetic acid production (Source: Gang of Pour) Great
article, very interesting.
THE SCIENCE OF CIDERMAKING Part 6 - Apple Juice and Cider
Vinegar
The Science of Cider Making Part 6 - How to make
apple juice and cider vinegar on a small scale - by Andrew Lea. Great
article will probably leave you wanting to read the rest of the book.
FAQ Making Vinegar
These directions show how to make vinegar at home using readily available
ingredients and supplies.
Beer
Beginners Getting Started Guide by Rob Gardner: I hope that the
following guide can help some beginners with their first batches. I
obviously can't cover every little detail of homebrewing here, but I have
tried to give an easily followed outline of the process, along with most of
the common pitfalls faced by beginners. I would welcome any comments or
criticism on this section, as it will probably appear again, in hopefully
better form...
Basic Brewing
Pretty extensive.
Basic Brewing Primer.
Nice, extensive work on multiple topics. Text form with recipes
Wine
DANDELION WINE (AND COFFE SUBSTITUTE): ...Seriously, the
chicory is better than dandelion, but both are great for using the whole
plant--no waste. AND the dandelion flowers make very good country wine--make
that, too. Doesn't take much skill, just a bit o' knowledge and a source of
unsprayed (chemical) flowers. Sugar helps. Thanks for the interest...I enjoy
this group....Geri Guidetti, Ark Institute...
The Chemistry of Sake Brewing
by R.W. Atkinson, B.Sc. (Lond.) Professor of Analytical and Applied
Chemistry in Tokio Daigaku
Making table wine at home
HUGE .pdf (requires Adobe Acrobat
reader to view) can be downloaded complete (2.9MB) or section by section in
smaller parts.
Wine Making
After you get past the truly annoying pop up advertising, this provides
a good article regarding the modern process for making commercial wines.
From Jack
Kellar's
Winemaking Home Page
Introduction to Winemaking:
Home winemaking is an enjoyable, educational and satisfying hobby.
Winemaking recipes make the process easy and simple instructions ensure
success. The basic steps are easy to learn and practice. Advanced
principles and techniques are not difficult to master, but are not
required to make good wine. This website, The Winemaking Home Page,
strives to be the definitive resource for the amateur home winemaker.
Getting Started:
If you want to make wine like the ancients did, ask someone else. I will
not help you turn winemaking back into a game of chance. If, on the
other hand, you want to make consistently decent wines from a variety of
base materials, stay here and I will show you how.
The Basic Steps:
You can make this process as complicated and exacting as you please, but
in fact it need not be. Recipes have been developed over the centuries
which pretty much make this a simple process of measuring, squeezing and
siphoning. Sure, there are ports and sherries and Madeiras which require
a few extra steps and exactitude, but even these methods were developed
hundreds of years ago by people far less sophisticated than you, so I'm
wagering that you can master even those techniques if you decide to do
so.
Advanced Winemaking Basics:
I have received email insisting that wine can only be made from grapes,
and that "those other beverages" featured on this site are merely
"fermented juices." Well excuse me for brutalizing wasted brain cells
with the truth, but the email protesters (there have been three thus
far) are snobs and plain wrong. [Great answer! My kind of guy!]
The Miracle of Yeast
: The process of making wine is simple.
Single cell plants of the genus Saccharomyces consume sugar in
grape or other fruit juice and transform it into approximately equal
parts of alcohol and carbon dioxide. It is the single celled plants that
we commonly call yeasts that are the real winemakers. The humans
who usurp the name winemaker are largely technicians.
Winemaking Recipes:
The largest collection on the Internet today!!!
Visitor-Submitted Recipes:
Interesting mix.
Wines from Wild Edible Plants
: 29 plants, multiple recipes!
Blackberry Wines
More than you ever wanted to know about blackberries, their
varieties, and 10 recipes for delicious blackberry wines, including five
new recipes never published before anywhere.
Dandelion Wines
The ultimate collection of 30 dandelion wine recipes, including Jack
Keller's very best! Added on May 16th, 2001, 12 additional
dandelion-based wine recipes.
Watermelon Wines
Here are 10 recipes for delicate and sometimes exquisite wines,
including five new recipes never published before anywhere. Watermelon
wines can be difficult to make well, but when successful they elicit awe
and genuine respect....
Winemaking 101
Including the famous "Apple Juice with Plastic Wrap" recipe
"A Guide To Mead"
by Mike Faul. An incredible article about the history of mead,
including an updated recipe from the old world. Awesome job, Mike!
Alcoholic Drinks of the Middle Ages - Wine & Mead
- same as above, for wine & mead. Yum! [Link recovered 5/13/11]
Wine & mead Recipes
- more than you can use! [Link recovered 5/13/11]
Liqueurs
Liqueur-making, principles
and techniques In this site, I try to present
some of the lessons I've learned about this art (it's difficult to call it a
science), discuss what liqueurs are and aren't, offer some recipes, and
generally make an introductory reference for anyone who wants to try their
hand. It's no substitute for a good book on the subject, but may offer some
enlightenment about topics glossed over elsewhere. If there's a question you
want answered, send me mail, and I'd be glad to both answer your questions,
and incorporate the answers here. And down at the bottom of this page, you
can find whatever recipes I happen to be developing right now, so you can
see the process as it's happening.
How to make fruit and berry flavored liqueurs Making liqueurs and
cordials is easy, and homemade liqueurs can be as delicious as commercial
brands! All you need is alcohol (vodka or brandy), sugar, fruits or berries,
and some patience. General information on how to make fruit and berry
liqueurs is presented and a simple liqueur recipe for fruit and berries is
described.
Fruit and berry liqueur recipes Links to hundreds of recipes for fruit
and berry liqueurs are presented. The liqueur recipes are sorted by name of
fruit or berry. It is thus easy to compare and test different liqueur
recipes. Detailed recipes for
Blueberry,
Cherry,
Raspberry and
Sloe liqueurs (Sloe Gin) are presented on separate pages.
How to make herb and spice flavored liqueurs Homemade herbal liqueurs
are usually more difficult to make than fruit liqueurs. Here you will find
information on how to make herb and spice flavored liqueurs.
Herbal liqueur recipes This page contains a lot of links to herbal
liqueur recipes. The liqueur recipe links are sorted by liqueur name or herb
name. You can therefore easily compare and test different liqueur recipes
for each type of herb or spice. Detailed recipes for
Absinthe and
Angelica liqueur are presented on separate pages.
Making coffee liqueurs similar to Kahlua Coffee liqueurs are among the
easiest liqueur types to make at home. Three detailed recipes for
coffee liqueurs are presented in addition to links to many similar
recipes.
Large recipe link page Links to websites with more than 400 liqueur
recipes are presented. For each website the liqueur types are listed,
including fruit, berry, herb, spice, coffee, cocoa, nut and cream flavored
liqueurs.
Making liqueurs with essences Liqueur essences can be used to make
delicious liqueurs. In addition to a bottle of essence you need alcohol and
sugar. Some essences from Gert Strand AB are presented with detailed
recipes. All the essences can be purchased at
Brewhaus.com in the USA.
Chartreuse Learn the history of this regional liqueur developed by
Carthusian monks. Find out how to visit the Chartreuse cellar, and find
cocktail recipes. Very neat site!
A few words about making liqueurs
From the WebTender - the bartender's
handbook.
Elixirs And Flavoring Extracts: Their History, Formulae, &
Methods of Preparation, by John Uri Lloyd (1892): Text File (343K) The text
(without images, 2 pages of facsimiles and a bit of Arabic and Greek) but
with a TOC listing the 300 or so formulae.
Acrobat File (725K) Completely bookmarked, with the facsimiles and
some photographs of LLoyd as a youth and an 80-year-old that I added.
Basic Liqueur (Cordial) Recipe
Liquori Casalinghi once you begin home-steeping you'll discover
you're hooked, as are an astonishing number of Italians -- there's a
tremendous variety of liqueurs to chose from, some perfect at the end of a
meal, some perfect for curling up in front of a fire with friends, and
others perfect sprinkled over vanilla ice cream on a hot summer day. Not
only will you become hooked, but your friends will too, and you'll discover
you can solve many of your holiday gift worries with a few batches made
during the spring. See also:
Amaro alle Erbe -- The classic Italian after dinner cordial.
Dried Apricot Liqueur -- Easy to do, and if you run out you can make more without waiting for summer.
Drunken Fruit, or Conserva Antica -- Though one could call this brandied fruit, the term doesn't quite describe it.
Fresh Black Currant Liqueur -- Very tasty, and it will make an excellent gift too.
OranPear -- A tasty, slightly unusual marriage between oranges and pears.
Agrumino -- A somewhat stronger relative of Limoncello.
Cigliegiolo -- Cherries make for an extraordinarily delicate liqueur.
Lamponino -- Raspberry liqueur is a great way of capturing the scents of a woodland meadow.
Nocino -- Walnut liqueur, a perfect remedy for the chill of winter.
Fragolo -- Strawberry liqueur to capture the scents of spring.
Mother-In-Law's Milk, or Latte di Suocera -- A rich, milky liqueur that will be perfect after dinner or over ice cream.
Limoncello -- The delicious symbol of Sorrento!
Crema di Limoncello -- A variation on the southern classic, from Verona.
Rosolio -- A delicate lemony liqueur, which isn't too strong.
Peschen
Everyone knows about peach jam, but you can make liqueur from the leaves too.
Rosolio di Rose -- Made with rose petals, to capture the essence of spring.
RoseNoce -- A delicate rose-and-walnut digestif.
Aperitif
Making Limoncello Limoncello is an aperitif liqueur typical of
southern Italy, especially along the Almalfi coast and Sorrento. It is
commonly enjoyed after a meal of pizza, etc. The lemons of the Amalfi coast
produce a particularly rich zest (yellow, outer part of the rind) which
gives it its depth of flavor. These flavors are efficiently extracted with
95% alcohol, then the extract is diluted with a sugar syrup to make the
finished liqueur. Once you filter out the particulates and thoroughly chill
it, it is ready to consume. Aging does not improve the flavor.
winemaking: requested recipes (Vermouth) Vermouth was a specialty of
monks in France and Italy. They made table wine to sell, and the profit went
to the local charities. But, since they did the work in Gods' name, it had
to be perfect -- if a wine started to go funny, they hit it with a bunch of
herbs to help preserve it. The result was Vermouth, which they would then
sell to nearby military garrisons where it was used as an anti-malarial
(their version had quinine in it). Today it is an aperitif.
Slakethirst » Making Mauby The mercury was headed straight up
last week — peaking at an unseasonably hot 94° F — making it an ideal time
to try concocting a homemade batch of mauby. It seems as if every island has
its own recipes… I borrowed from several and averaged, to make a sort of
pan-Caribbean version. Definitely the wrong way to start out a proper
experiment, but some of the ingredients sound too tasty not to use.
Venetian Aperitif Recipes
courtesy Walter Bolzonella of Hotel Cipriani.
Cider & Perry
The Cold Storage of Apple Cider ~ Circular No. 48 By USDA Bureau of Chemistry, 1997:
This report gives the results of the first season's work on the cold storage of
apple cider. It is hoped that these investigations may later become the basis of
definite recommendations for commercial practice.
Perry Making This document is organized into a number of
sections. Firstly, the principal stages of the fermentation are described,
followed by an overview of the perry making process, a discussion of the
characteristics of the pear juice, the microbiology of the process, the
changes in the composition of the perry during fermentation, and finally a
description of how to make your own perry. Unlike cider making, you do need
to know some of the technical detail to make the best possible perry.
Research into perry making is less well advanced than into cider making so
the depth of detail is not so pronounced. For this reason perry making is
more of an art than cider making.
The Real Cider and Perry Page
Cider makers FAQ - Ukcider This page is for accumulating
questions and answers about cider making, gleaned from the group knowledge
as it flows through the ukcider mailing list and other sources. The aim is
to help new and existing cider makers to setup and improve all aspects of
small scale cider making, whether as a hobby or small business. Once people
have been acquainted with the product, there is a growing demand for real
cider and perry so the more people who begin to get involved in making at at
any level, the better for the industry overall.
Standard Cider and Perry - BJCP Style Guidelines The styles
represented in this category are the principal established styles. The
Common Cider and Common Perry styles are analogous to the cider and perry
categories of earlier style standards. There are well-known styles not
represented here, for example, Asturian (Spanish), for which there are
presently insufficient appreciation and a lack of commercial examples for
reference. [Link recovered 5/13/11]
Home brew cider and hard cider A very easily made dry cider which
is slightly acidic to the taste and can easily be adapted/modified as
required, I find adding the petals of an aromatic, fully opened rose, picked
on a good sunny day, can be added around day 4, giving a little subtlety to
the bouquet and flavor.
perry-msg
See also the files:
cider-msg,
cider-art,
beverages-msg,
brewing-msg,
mead-msg,
wine-msg,
p-bottles-msg,
beer-msg,
jalabs-msg,
fruit-pears-msg. These are collections of discussion group messages.
THE SCIENCE OF CIDERMAKING Part 1 - Introduction There has been a
tremendous resurgence of interest in cidermaking over the last few years.
The CAMRA 'Good Cider Guide' lists well over 100 small commercial
cidermakers in addition to the 'Big 3' of Bulmers, Taunton and Showerings
and Merrydown - and a general interest in all things 'green' has fostered
the growth of small-scale cidermaking (author's note - there's only the 'Big
2' now, since Taunton and Showerings were swallowed up by Matthew Clarke and
Merrydown fell on hard times). However, there is a quasi-religious zeal
about some of the 'new' cidermaking, whose Ayatollahs proclaim the dogma on
'sinful' topics such as apple juice concentrate, yeast, sulphur dioxide and
pasteurization. Such dogma can be confusing and misleading to the novice,
and seems to result from an almost willful ignorance of the scientific
principles of cidermaking. In part, this stems from a general lack of
accessible information about the subject. Since the Long Ashton Research
Station closed its Cider Section in 1986 there has been no 'official' source
of advice for cidermakers, and the few books on the topic are mostly out of
date and out of print. This series of articles tries to fill the gap and to
put the science of cidermaking into its proper perspective, so that
potential small-scale cidermakers can make their own choices from the
options available. There are, after all, as many different ways of making
cider as there are people who make it.
How to make
cider Michigan Apple Committee/MSU Product Center. Hard cider is the one of
the fastest growing segment of the liqueur industry and it is considered by
many to be the drink of the future. Sweet or hard cider was the drink of
America’s past. Between 1870 and 1892, cider consumption rose a healthy 200
percent to become the most popular drink in America. Enjoyed by many notable
historical figures cider was the outstanding American beverage.
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