Moonshine purification. Methods for purifying moonshine from fusel oils, useful tips

Novice moonshiners do not always pay due attention to purifying moonshine at home; more experienced ones know that purifying moonshine from fusel oils that are harmful to health is simply necessary.

Cleaning moonshine also helps remove the specific smell. It should be noted that freshly distilled moonshine should not be purified; let it cool and sit for at least a day. If the strength of moonshine is high, then it must be diluted with clean water to 35-40 alcohol degrees. This is done so that the moonshine releases fusel oils more easily. There are many ways to clean moonshine at home. Let's look at some of them in more detail:

Cleaning moonshine with potassium permanganate

Take potassium permanganate crystals at the rate of half a teaspoon per 3 liters of moonshine, stir everything carefully until the crystals are completely dissolved and set the container with the moonshine to settle. After some time, a cloudy sediment with flakes will form at the bottom, but the smell of moonshine will noticeably improve. When the moonshine becomes crystal clear, carefully pour it using a hose into a clean, prepared container, making sure not to touch the layer at the bottom with the sediment that has fallen. The next stage of purification is filtration. Take regular activated carbon, which is sold at the pharmacy (one package is enough for 3 liters), a funnel for draining the liquid and filter paper or regular paper napkins. Place paper at the bottom of the funnel, pour powdered activated carbon on top and cover with a second layer of paper. It turns out to be a homemade carbon filter. Carefully pour the liquid through it. You dilute the moonshine filtered in this way to 25-28 degrees, and then distill it again and repeat the entire purification process again. The resulting product is already ready for use, but if the moonshine goes through three cycles of this process, the quality of the moonshine will noticeably improve.

Cleaning moonshine with charcoal

This method is very simple and effective. Take charcoal from birch, linden, oak or fruit trees and crush it into small pieces. You can also buy special processed coal for winemakers. And put it directly into a jar of moonshine at the rate of one handful per three-liter jar. To reduce coal dust, pre-sieve the coal. Close the jar tightly with a nylon lid. Leave it like this for a week, shaking the jar vigorously from time to time 2-3 times a day. After this, let it sit for another one and a half to two weeks at rest. A cloudy sediment forms at the bottom. Now let's start the filtering process. Carefully pour out the settled moonshine through a funnel with cotton pads. If the filters become clogged and the filtration process is slow, you need to change the cotton pads.

Cleaning moonshine with milk

This method has been used by our ancestors for a long time. It has its advantages - it is absolutely safe, it does not need to be distilled again, it can be combined with other methods of purification, but moonshine may turn out to be somewhat cloudy in appearance. It is important that the milk is low-fat; the fattier the milk, the cloudier the moonshine. Only pasteurized milk should be used.

For 10 liters of unrefined moonshine, take 100 or 150 grams of low-fat milk. Add milk to moonshine, mix everything thoroughly. Cover tightly with a lid and place in a dark place for a week. During the first five days, the contents of the jar should be shaken at least once. White flakes should form in the jar. Under the influence of milk protein, harmful impurities precipitate. Pour the moonshine into a clean jar through several layers of cotton wool. For a greater cleaning effect, crushed activated carbon can be placed between layers. The resulting moonshine is ready for use. If it turns out cloudy, pass it again through charcoal and cotton wool or filter paper.

Cleaning moonshine with black bread

There is also an interesting option for purifying moonshine using freshly baked black bread, which perfectly absorbs fusel oils and additionally gives the moonshine a pleasant smell. Stale or stale bread will not work, as the moonshine will have an unpleasant aftertaste. Break fresh black bread into small pieces at the rate of 100 g of bread per liter of moonshine, put in moonshine, mix well until the pieces become soggy and fall apart. Let it sit for a couple of days and filter it using the method described above.

Cleaning moonshine with egg whites

Cleaning moonshine using the freezing method

Perhaps the easiest cleaning method, which does not require dancing with filters, coals and additional distillations, is freezing the moonshine. It has long been noticed that when water freezes, it takes with it all the harmful fusel oils and moonshine is purified in this simple way. Place the moonshine in a metal bucket or glass jar in the cold or in the freezer of the refrigerator. The water freezes, turning into ice with impurities, and the moonshine itself, which is not afraid of frost, is poured into prepared containers. For greater effect, you can do this several times.

Whatever method you choose to purify your moonshine, they all have their advantages and disadvantages. You can determine which method is best for you experimentally, but in any case, the moonshine must be purified, and then instead of a dubious quality and very peculiar-smelling alcoholic liquid, you will get a completely refined alcoholic drink, from which you can later make excellent homemade tinctures or liqueurs .

Moonshine is one of the favorite drinks of village (and not only) residents. Almost every village has long kept the secrets of preparing this strong intoxicating drink, passing down from generation to generation the “highlights” invented by their ancestors and time-tested. Among them, for example, is this secret: how to purify moonshine from fusel oils. This is what concerns the criterion of the benefits and harms of “pervach” for human health. But first, let's talk about how to remove the smell from moonshine.

Unpleasant to the smell

It should be noted that almost any neophyte in the moonshine business is faced with the problem of an unpleasant odor, even with the soul of the distilled drink. It is caused by fusel oils formed during primary distillation. There’s no escape from this and, believe me, you shouldn’t get too upset about it! After all, our folk craftsmen have long come up with several simple and quite effective methods to help clean moonshine at home. We will consider only the most popular ones, but in fact there are a great many of them, to suit every taste, as they say.

How to clean moonshine with potassium permanganate?

To implement this method, we take three liters of a ready-made, freshly distilled drink (but, as already mentioned, with an unpleasant odor). Add up to three grams of manganese powder (sold in pharmacies) to moonshine. We are waiting for the sediment to fall. Usually this happens quite quickly. To speed up the process, close the jar of moonshine with a lid and shake several times. You can also place the dish itself with the cloudy liquid - not yet cleaned - in a water bath at a low temperature (fifteen minutes will be enough). After all the procedures, filter the moonshine through cheesecloth. Pour into bottles. Use in moderation!

How to clean homemade moonshine with soda?

This is another method popular among the people. Because it's simple and cheap! So, for one liter of drink, add ten grams of regular soda (sold in any grocery store), mix, and leave for half an hour. After this, mix again and leave in a dark place for ten to twelve hours. During this time, our muddy substance stratified. Now carefully drain the top layer. We also carefully remove the sediment formed at the bottom of the dish. We pour the middle part into bottles and drink. It must be said that soda will perfectly remove the fusel oils themselves, which cause unpleasant odors.

Orris root

Used for cleansing mainly in rural areas where this flower grows. But the fact is that the healing root can now be purchased at any herbal pharmacy, so this process is significantly accelerated. So, we take one hundred grams of crushed violet root per three liters of unrefined moonshine and leave it in a dark, warm place for twelve days. We filter. The drink is ready!

Freezing

This method is traditionally simple and quite cheap because it only requires a refrigerator (rather, the freezer compartment of this household kitchen appliance). We take metal dishes (of good quality, without impurities) or glass containers. We pour our moonshine there and put it in the freezer. The effect is simple: water, along with harmful impurities, will freeze to the edges of the dish, but the moonshine itself will not. After the water has completely frozen, the moonshine can simply be poured into another container. By the way, in some villages, quite large batches of moonshine were historically purified this way all year round, using specially designed underground glaciers, where the ice or snow remained until late autumn.

Carbon filter

How to clean moonshine from fusel oils using charcoal obtained from birch? To do this, grind the main ingredient into powder. We wrap the coal in several layers of gauze and pass the moonshine through this filter. Moreover, we warn you: activated charcoal in tablets is not suitable for high-quality cleansing. It is made from animal bones, and it can only absorb large molecules of harmful oils, not completely purifying the product, leaving an unpleasant odor in it.

Double distillation technology

Repeated distillation of the pervacha significantly purifies the drink, greatly improving both quality and taste. This “clean as morning dew” product is popularly called “double”. It is especially valued, since it is much more useful in its qualities than the “single” one. Its preparation, however, will take a little more time, but the result is a pure, crystalline distillate without foreign odors or impurities. By the way, almost any moonshine can be distilled a second time, even regardless of the raw materials and how long ago it was produced. Note that a drink that has been kicked out for a long time can be “ennobled” in this way. First, the moonshine must be diluted to about thirty-five degrees (measured with an alcohol meter) with plain, clean, cool water. If you try to distill a stronger substance, this may result in the moonshine still catching fire due to the high concentration of alcohol vapor. Moreover, strong moonshine has a fairly strong molecular connection with fusel oils. As a result, double distillation will not give the desired result.

Secret: it is very important to pour water into moonshine, and not, on the contrary, moonshine into water. This way the resulting liquid will not become cloudy. Before distillation itself, the source must be cleaned. You can choose any of the methods listed above in the article. For example, cleaning with manganese solution, soda or charcoal. After cleaning, strain the resulting liquid through a filter made of cotton wool and gauze. The secondary distillation itself is practically no different from the initial distillation. However, it is important to separate the fractions of the resulting moonshine at the exit. The “heads”, the first ten percent of the distillate, cannot be drunk! They are also identified by their unpleasant, fetid odor. The next part, about eighty percent, is the “body.” It is collected until the strength drops to forty-five degrees. The remaining faction is the “tails”. It is also not recommended to drink, but can be used to add to the next mash to increase the degree. The resulting moonshine with a strength of up to seventy degrees no longer requires additional purification. All that remains is to dilute it to 40-45 degrees in a consistency favorable for drinking the drink.

"Milk" cleaning method

People often ask: “How to clean moonshine from fusel oils with milk?” There are two methods, and if you use them correctly, you can get a drink of special purity!

First: add milk directly to the mash until it distills. So, you need to mix five liters of mash and one liter of milk. Proceed with distillation. Drive out slowly, with special passion. During the first distillation, a cloudy precipitate is sometimes observed. Then the drink is distilled again.

Second: how to clean moonshine with milk? A glass of milk is added to one liter of prepared moonshine. It collapses and absorbs various harmful elements. After the milk has curdled, the drink is filtered and additionally filtered using charcoal (fifty grams per liter of liquid). The process takes place within one week. Sometimes - once every two or three days - the mixture needs to be shaken. At the end of the period, the liquid begins to lighten, and a coal sediment falls to the bottom. It is sucked out using a tube. The rest is filtered out. It is also recommended to carry out additional cleaning with bread (preferably black rye or grain), after which the moonshine acquires a very pleasant bready aroma. Now you know many ways to clean moonshine from fusel oils.

This is important to know

What exactly does moonshine consist of? In addition to water and ethyl alcohol, it contains various impurities, which, during the production of, for example, good vodka, are removed from it by various industrial methods. And in the production of whiskey, cognac, tequila, on the contrary, they are cultivated to give the drink originality, style, and sound. For this purpose, there are industrial methods of artificially interrupting the purification process.

But in fact, these same impurities also form a hangover syndrome in a person who has had a little too much. Tequila, for example, contains high-molecular alcohols that are part of these impurities (up to two hundred), forming fusel oils. When drinking, they place a heavy load on the liver, which seems to be “distracted” by additional information, which prolongs intoxication and makes the hangover much worse. So those who have even minor liver problems are not recommended to drink unrefined drinks, including moonshine.

Myths of distillery alcohol producers about artisanal moonshine.

Factory production of alcoholic beverages has found a dangerous competitor. Research by scientists has shown that half of the alcohol consumed in the world is made by artisans at home.

Unrefined moonshine can be not only harmful, but also poisonous. All components of moonshine, with the exception of water, are dangerous in a certain concentration: methanol, acetaldehydes (which include isoamylol, propyl, isobutyl and isoamyl alcohols), acetaldehyde, ethyl esters (formic, butyric, valerian, acetic), methyl acetic ether, alcohols (amyl and methyl), acids (acetic and formic). It is almost impossible to clean moonshine from all harmful components, but this is not required, because... each of them in a certain dose gives the moonshine a specific aroma and taste. production

In some Western countries, certain types of moonshine are produced in alcohol factories drinks, their purification is being developed by scientists. But the bulk of moonshine is purified using methods obtained experimentally by artisans and which have not undergone full-fledged laboratory tests.

And yet, alcoholic beverage producers somewhat exaggerate the deadly danger of moonshine in order to discredit a competitor. For example, for alcoholic beverages it is considered normal to contain their most dangerous components in the following doses: methanol up to 4 thousand mg/l, acetaldehydes up to 400 mg/l, isoamylol up to 4 thousand mg/l, fusel oils up to 6 thousand mg/l . The concentration of these components in moonshine of the first distillation from sugar: methanol 0.001 mg/l, acetaldehydes up to 160 mg/l, isoamylol up to 8 thousand mg/l, fusel oils up to 12 thousand mg/l. From these figures it follows that moonshine, purified from fusel oils, can successfully compete in quality with factory-produced alcoholic beverages. Handicraft moonshine producers have clearly defined the main direction of moonshine purification - purifying it from fusel oils. Low-quality purified moonshine is not the rule, but the exception; for example, experts have determined that high-quality purified Russian moonshine is superior in quality to the popular Cutty Sark whiskey.

Ways to clean moonshine

All methods of purifying moonshine were developed by folk craftsmen and are passed on from mouth to mouth from generation to generation. Therefore, they should not be approached as scientific research. Some artisans are trying to study the results of cleaning in laboratory conditions, but these studies are not systematic. However, the good quality of purified moonshine allows us to hope that with a successful choice of purification technology, the desired result will be achieved. Artisanal moonshine production is an industry in which experiment, past experience and personal skill replace scientific and laboratory research.

Cleaning moonshine with potassium permanganate

If accurate scales are available, 2-3 g of potassium permanganate is dissolved in 50 ml of boiled water and the solution is added to 1 liter of moonshine, the jar of which is shaken periodically when sediment forms, after 10 hours it is placed in a cool water bath for 15 minutes, then filtered through cotton wool and gauze or flannel fabric. Moonshine is distilled again, and if the quality is unsatisfactory, additional purification is carried out using another method.

Activated carbon cleaning

50 g of activated carbon must be crushed and poured into 1 liter of moonshine. For 3 weeks, the mixture is shaken daily, left for 1 week, then filtered through a water filter or cotton wool between layers of gauze. Activated carbon should not be made from animal bones; its use will not achieve high-quality cleaning.

Charcoal cleaning

Charcoal can be made or purchased at the store. The best cleaning results are achieved when using beech charcoal, but the more affordable birch charcoal is most often used. You can also use coal from such tree species as pine, spruce, linden, oak, alder, aspen, poplar, but the quality of cleaning will decrease.
Charcoal is made from wood that is less than 50 years old, cleared of bark, core and knots. The wood is burned in a fire, the ash is blown off the resulting hot coal, placed in a container, after extinguishing it is crushed to a powdery state and sifted through a sieve.

A filter is made from 50 g of charcoal, wrapped in several layers of gauze, through which 1 liter of moonshine is filtered after 3 days.
Charcoal can be replaced with charcoal made from coconut shells, and coal consumption is reduced by 5 times.

Biological coagulation of moonshine (cleansing with milk or egg white)

Cleansing with milk is performed in 2 ways:
a) 1 liter of milk is added to 5 liters of mash before distillation, distillation is carried out slowly, if there is a cloudy precipitate after distillation, strain the moonshine and perform a second distillation;

b) 1 glass of milk is poured into the prepared, unrefined moonshine; after curdling the milk, the moonshine is filtered and purified again with charcoal. Shake the mixture once every 2 days. After 7 days, use a tube to remove the coal dust that has settled to the bottom and filter the moonshine.

In each option, after the second distillation and additional purification, monitoring with a hydrometer, the moonshine is diluted to 40 degrees of strength, 100 g of small pieces of freshly baked rye or grain black bread are placed in 1 liter, shaken, and filtered after 2 days.

During the second distillation, the following rules must be observed:

• moonshine is diluted to 35 degrees strength with cool water;
• water is poured into moonshine, and not vice versa;
• after the second distillation, the moonshine is divided into heads (the first 10% of the distillate with an unpleasant odor), body (80% before the strength drops to 45 degrees) and tails. The heads are removed, the body is collected, the tails are separated and added to the subsequent mash;
• the body is diluted to 40 degrees of strength.

Cleaning moonshine with egg

Egg white beaten with water is added to 1 liter of moonshine, after about 3 days flakes settle to the bottom, the lightened transparent moonshine is poured into a clean bottle. Then, as with purification with milk, a second distillation and additional purification with rye bread is carried out. All variants of biological coagulation make it possible to obtain moonshine of a high degree of purification.

Cleansing with baking soda

A filtered solution of 10 g of baking soda per 10 g of water, aged for 10 minutes, is poured into 1 liter of moonshine, sealed, shaken vigorously, and after 30 minutes put in a dark place for 12 hours. During this time, a cloudy sediment falls to the bottom of the container, and the moonshine stratifies. The top layer is carefully drained, the middle layer is filtered through cotton wool into a clean container, and the sediment is removed. Soda neutralizes acetic acid and removes some of the fusel oils. After cleaning with soda, the moonshine is cleaned with potassium permanganate.

Tannin cleansing

Tannin is extracted from oak wood. Therefore, at home, instead of tannin (10 g per 1 liter of moonshine), oak shavings or oak wood cubes are used. When using oak shavings, the moonshine with the shavings is kept for 10 days, then filtered. Cubes with sides of 2 cm are cut out of oak, placed in spring water for 2 hours, after changing the water several times, the oak cubes are poured with a solution of a tablespoon of soda in 5 liters of water, then washed and poured with boiling water. After the boiling water has cooled, the cubes are taken out, dried and fried for 3 hours in the oven at a temperature of 1600. The oak cubes prepared in this way are placed in moonshine (2 cubes per 1 liter of moonshine), and infused for at least 1 week.

Freeze cleansing

This moonshine purification technology is based on the fact that fusel oils freeze at temperatures below 00, after which the moonshine can be drained and purified using any other method. This is a simple and economical cleaning method. Glass or stainless steel containers with moonshine are placed in a freezer, in which water with fusel oils dissolved in it freezes to the walls and bottom of the container. After this, the moonshine is poured into a clean container. In the old days, when there were no freezers, moonshine was placed in underground glaciers.

Violet root cleansing

Healing orris root can be purchased at herbal pharmacies or medicinal herb stores. To purify moonshine, 30 g of crushed orris root is poured into 1 liter of moonshine, left for 12 days in a warm, dark place, then the moonshine is filtered.

Purifying moonshine from fusel oils is an important task that everyone who distills this strong drink at home is trying to solve.

The specific smell and taste of the final product will be present in any case, no matter what recipe you use to make it. Therefore, folk craftsmen have come up with many effective ways to clean moonshine from various harmful impurities and give it a pleasant aroma.

In this article we will look at the most effective of these methods, thanks to which you can quickly cleanse and refine this strong drink.

The sharp and unpleasant smell of moonshine is caused by the following main reasons:

• A poorly washed moonshine still.
• Poor quality cleaning of mash and moonshine.
• Distillation temperature too high.

Any of these reasons will ultimately affect the quality of the final product, which from a noble drink can turn into the notorious “fusel drink”. To prevent this from happening, the drink must be repeatedly cleaned in various ways during the preparation process.

Pre-cleaning methods

The future strong drink undergoes the first stage of purification from fusel oils and harmful impurities before distillation. The most popular methods for clarifying mash are the following cleaning:

• Milk.
• Edible gelatin.
• White clay (bentonite).
• A decoction of Sudanese rose petals.
• Freezing.
• Filtration through a press filter.

Charcoal cleaning is considered one of the best methods. Charcoal is well suited for this procedure, although activated charcoal can also be used. Two methods of such cleaning are usually used:

Cleaning with potassium permanganate

• Baking soda is added and stirred into moonshine, diluted with water to 40 degrees (3 g of soda per 1 liter of alcohol).
• Then potassium permanganate is used (1 g of manganese per 1 liter of moonshine).
• The jar is tightly closed and infused for 12 hours in a dark room.
• After precipitation, filtration is carried out through cotton wool and any water filter at the end.

Cleaning with rye bread

• Remove the crusts from the bread, cut it into pieces and finely crumble the crumb.
• Pour the resulting crumbs into the moonshine, seal it tightly with a lid and let it sit in the pantry for several days.
• Then filter through cotton wool and gauze.

Cleaning with milk

To do this, you will need skim milk and moonshine with a strength of 45-50 degrees. For 5 liters of alcohol you need 50-70 g of milk.

After adding the required amount of dairy product to the alcoholic drink, you need to thoroughly stir the contents of the container, close the lid tightly and leave for a week in a dark place, shaking the liquid daily.

After the above period, drain the alcohol from the sediment and strain through a cotton filter.

Egg white cleaning

One protein can clean 0.5 liters of moonshine.

Freezing

The advantage of this method is its accessibility and extreme simplicity. Moonshine is poured into an aluminum pan, covered with a lid and placed in the freezer for 13-15 hours.

During the freezing process, fusel oils and other harmful impurities will remain on the walls of the pan, freezing to them. But ethyl alcohol will remain liquid because it freezes at a lower temperature.

After freezing, the volume of the product will decrease, which will entail an increase in its strength.

Oil cleansing

For this method, you need to use highly refined, odorless oil, otherwise it will be transferred to the moonshine.

Add refined vegetable oil to a container with alcohol (for 1 liter of moonshine - 20 ml of oil).

Then the container is closed with a lid and vigorously shaken for several minutes. This procedure (shaking) must be repeated several times, and then leave the moonshine to settle for 12 hours.

Using a tube, pour the purified alcohol into a clean jar.

Cleansing with baking soda

It doesn’t matter what recipe you used to prepare moonshine, thanks to this method it is easy to clean it (1 g of soda per 100 ml of strong drink).

• Pre-dilute the alcohol to 40 degrees.
• Dilute baking soda in water (100 g of soda per 100 ml of water) if you want to clean 10 liters of moonshine.
• Pour the prepared soda solution into moonshine, close tightly, shake well and leave for an hour.
• Then shake again and leave the container in a dark room for 12 hours.
• After the above time has passed, the moonshine is drained and filtered through cotton pads.

Cleaning with kefir

Add a glass of low-fat kefir to 2.5 liters of strong drink, mix well and let it brew for several weeks, during which the moonshine will be completely cleared of fusel oils and harmful impurities.

After sediment has formed, carefully drain the pure moonshine using a hose.

During this procedure, you will lose from 300 to 350 g of moonshine, which will go away along with the sediment, but from the resulting pure drink you will no longer be afraid of morning headaches.

Cleansing with violet root

To cleanse the drink from “fellow” per 1 liter of alcohol you need 35 g of orris root.

• The dried or raw root is crushed with a grater or knife, poured into a drink and placed in a dark place for 2 weeks.
• After this, the moonshine must be drained and filtered using cotton wool and gauze.
• To improve the taste, raisins are added to moonshine (45 g of dried grapes per 1 liter of drink).

Peeling with pine nuts

Unshelled nuts are good for cleaning (1 handful of nuts per 1 liter of 50-degree drink). Their peel will give the moonshine a cognac color.

The chopped nuts are poured into the moonshine, the container is tightly closed and infused for several months in a dark, warm place. The tincture needs to be shaken periodically.

If desired, you can add dried apricots or raisins to the drink along with nuts to add flavor and sweetness to the tincture.

As a result, you will receive a purified product with a very pleasant taste.

Purification before re-distillation

To improve the quality of the drink, you can use plain paper or special cardboard, which act as a filter. Filtration is done as follows:

• Paper or cardboard is placed in the funnel.
• The diluted finished product is poured into the prepared container through a funnel.
• Draining the liquid should be done in small portions and gradually so that the maximum amount of harmful substances remains on the filter.

Re-distillation

Repeated distillation improves the quality of alcohol and helps get rid of harmful impurities.

Before drinking, the strong drink is diluted with water by 10-25%, bringing it to 30-35 degrees. The lower the strength of the moonshine, the easier the impurities are separated. Water should be added in small portions and gradually.

How to properly dilute moonshine:

• Measure the strength of the product after each addition of water.
• Under no circumstances should you add warm water; preferably slightly cooled water.
• The recommended strength of the drink before secondary distillation is 30−35%.

By combining the above cleaning methods, you can achieve the best result. Experiment and try different options, being inspired by your own ideas and endeavors, but remember that producing alcoholic beverages at home without certain knowledge and skills is strictly not recommended. Distilleries have everything you need: measuring instruments, equipment and, of course, qualified specialists who control the process and production of a high-quality product.

Attention, TODAY only!

Let's get back to the topic of making moonshine at home. And let's talk about how to clean moonshine at home from fusel oils.

I told how to distill moonshine in the article “”.

Now, continuing the topic, I want to tell you how you can clean it to make a tasty, pleasant drink.

There are several ways to clean moonshine from fusel oils and odor.

They are based mainly on the addition of ingredients that give sediment (milk, potassium permanganate, egg white) or compounds that have the ability to filter (charcoal, coconut charcoal).

You should be especially careful about cleaning when preparing moonshine from sugar, water and yeast (), and in this case you cannot avoid the second distillation.

If you prepare strong drinks from juices, jams, based on berries and fruits and in a timely manner, carefully separate the heads and tails (), and use a steamer in your work, then you will not need a second distillation.

Your drink will be aromatic and pleasant to the taste after the first distillation and without the noticeable smell inherent in moonshine, there will be practically no fusel oils in it.

It can be consumed immediately. However, I still prefer to do the cleaning.

I do this using a filter and charcoal.

Cleaning moonshine with a charcoal filter

Cleaning with a homemade filtration column

When purchasing a distiller, you can purchase a filtration column as a set; you will be offered crushed charcoal or coconut charcoal to go with it. What is the difference - according to experts, coconut charcoal cleans better.

If there is no such column, you can make it yourself.

Take a liter bottle and cut off the bottom, make several holes in the cork.

Place 3 - 4 cotton pads at the bottom of the column and add 5 - 7 tablespoons of coal.

Place a column or your bottle on the neck of the jar and first pass 200 grams of the drink through it 4 – 5 times, since coal suspensions may appear in the drink.

After this, you can filter the entire drink in a thin stream, preferably 2–3 times.

This method is suitable for you if the drink is about 10 liters.

If you work on a large scale and you get 20 or more liters, then in this case, more efficiently and with less time spent, use a large column, for example, from a 5 liter plastic bottle and you can pour charcoal into it, sold for cooking kebabs.

Such filtration results in losses of no more than 20 - 30 ml per liter, there is practically no decrease in degrees, the unpleasant odor with oils disappears completely, the aroma, taste and softness remain.

This cleaning method is just as effective as the first, however, it will take you several days.

Pour charcoal into the container with the drink, 2 tablespoons per 0.5 liter, close the lid and shake well.

Leave to settle for a day, preferably several days (from 2 to 5).

Shake your container daily.

The drink turns out clean, transparent, even with a slight bluish tint.

Cleaning is done by adding low-fat milk to the drink - at the rate of 2 tablespoons (15 ml) per liter of product.

Stir the contents well and leave for several days (from 2 to 5), shaking the mixture daily.

The moonshine will acquire a white, cloudy hue, and a sediment in the form of white flakes will fall to the bottom.

After settling, remove the moonshine from the sediment or filter through a cotton filter.

In some cases, I guess it depends on the milk, after filtration the drink still has a slight white tint, then it should be filtered again through a charcoal column.

This type of cleaning removes all fusel odors, the degrees practically do not decrease, it is soft to drink, a small drawback is that the volume of the product is reduced by approximately 10%

Many people use this method of purification, adding potassium permanganate to moonshine, then filtering the flakes that fall out into sediment in the same way.

Potassium permanganate does not cleanse the drink of fusel oils. Without going into details of chemical formulas, we can briefly say that it interacts with alcohol, and not oils; the flakes that appear are a product of this interaction. Apart from harm to the body, such cleansing does nothing.

Moonshine can be cleaned well with egg whites and vegetable oil, but these methods have their drawbacks - the smell of fusel oils goes away, but the smell of egg whites or vegetable oil appears.

When using oil, you need to use high quality olive oil or you will have to re-distill it.

Therefore, my recommendations from, albeit small, experience, use coal purification, you can use milk purification, and most importantly, if you decide to get delicious, high-quality strong drinks, use natural juices, berries, fruits, and jam as raw materials.

Do not use cheap methods like sugar + water + yeast. But this is my personal opinion and advice.

Watch the video, which shows an experiment on purifying moonshine in various ways; how to purify it is up to you to decide.

6 ways to clean moonshine, what they give - video