How to Make Vodka at Home for Free
Vodka enthusiasts can enjoy their own homemade brew from simple, widely available ingredients, but the process can be difficult and is not designed for beginners. Homemade liquor has a long heritage. In Russia, home brew is called "samagon" and, like the version described below, it can be harmful to your health if the recipe is not followed to a T. Does this Spark an idea?
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Things You'll Need
- Still
- Funnel
- Mashing ingredients (carbohydrates like potatoes or grains)
- Activated carbon
- Cotton balls
- Purified water
Instructions
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1
Build or purchase a still. A still is composed of four parts: a boiling chamber, water cooling pipes, a heat source and a collecting bottle. They are widely available for purchase as part of a home distillery kit.
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2
Clean your equipment. It's very important that all your distillery gear is perfectly clean. Any foreign matter can contaminate your brew, leading to unpleasant flavors. Use a bleach and water solution to clean your equipment.
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3
Make a mash. Vodka is made from a carbohydrate mash--usually composed of grains, potatoes, sweet beets or sugar. Each type of carbohydrate requires a different mashing technique, and you'll need to reference a book or a distilling expert to figure out what your mash requires.
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4
Distill the brew. To do this, add your mash to the still's boiling chamber and turn on your heating source. The alcohol within the mash will evaporate, and the gas will move through the water cooling tubes and then collect in the collecting bottle. In order to produce palatable vodka, you should repeat this step with the same brew at least two more times. The finest vodkas are distilled even more times than that.
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5
Filter the brew. To take away the harshness of the vodka, put a cotton ball and some activated carbon at the bottom of a funnel, and pour the distilled vodka through the funnel. Repeat this step until you get the desired smoothness.
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Dilute the vodka. The distilled vodka is very strong at this point in the process. In order to drink it, add purified water to taste--at a ratio of three or four parts water for each part vodka.
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Tips & Warnings
Make sure you use the finest available water at each step of the distilling process; it will result in a better tasting product. For flavored vodka, add berries, peppers and honey, horseradish, birch leaves or any other desired ingredients and let the distilled and diluted vodka sit for a week or so.
During the distillation process, you must discard the first and last 50 milliliters that empty into the collection bottle. These parts of the home brew are very dangerous if consumed; in extreme cases, consuming them could lead to blindness.
