Video: How Vodka is Made?

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Vodka is made through a process of making a mash from potatoes or wheat grains, filtering the mash, adding yeast to convert the sugars to alcohol and distilling the liquid. Learn about the process of vodka-making with information from a professional bartender in this free video on alcohol.

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Video Transcript

How is vodka made? It's a bit of a complicated process. It starts with a fermentable material. A common material is potatoes, or wheat grains. Basically, what you do with them is you make a mash with them, which means you put this item in warm water, and you let it steep. Then, you know, it breaks down, certain enzymes come out, and sugars are created. So, after that, it's usually filtered. You take this mash that you have. You take all the sediment out of it, and then you let it ferment. You can use open air yeast, which means you just let yeast that's in the air convert the sugars to alcohol. Or what you can do is add yeast, and that's probably the most common thing, because it speed up the process. And after that, once it's fermented, it's distilled, which means it's boiled. The alcohol evaporates, and is then condensed into a more strong form, which is why you end up with a vodka that is, say, forty percent alcohol.