Freeze Distillation

Freeze Distillation

Notice: Freeze Distillation is illegal in the United States due to the possibility of methanol poisoning resulting from consumption of the distilled drink. In freeze distillation, unlike normal distillation, methanol cannot be filtered out of the resulting drink and will remain in a higher concentration just as ethanol. Consumption of beverages with high concentrations of methanol can cause blindness, kidney failure, and death.

            If you are a United States citizen and decide to attempt freeze distillation, you will need to finish this process while losing no less than 5% of the original volume as to not raise the concentration of impurities. Any removed ice can be replaced with distilled water.

            If you were not frightened off by the warning, freeze distillation is a process used to concentrate flavors and raise alcohol content, most notably used in applejack, ice beer, and eiswein. As water in your beverage will freeze at a higher temperature than the ethanol, the remaining water can be partially removed by leaving your brew either out in a snow storm as it was traditionally done, or by leaving it in a freezer for a few hours and filtering out the ice.

            To raise the alcohol content even further, this process can be repeated until your brew no longer freezes, but it is inadvisable as freeze distillation will not remove impurities from your brew in the same way as traditional distillation.

            There are many ways to handle to go about this, but this one is my favorite so far.

Process:

            -Transfer your brew into one or many freezer-safe sanitized bottles preferably with a thin neck. Leave an inch below the neck line empty to allow for expansion and avoid creating a bottle bomb.

            -Place the bottles in the freezer for four hours allowing most of the excess water to freeze. The bottles should be placed neck up and not sideways to make sure the neck does not freeze shut. Since you will probably be starting with a low alcohol concentration, leaving your brew too long will leave the whole bottle frozen through and you will be unable to transfer out the water from the ethanol.

            -After the four hours, remove the bottle(s) from the freezer and empty the remaining liquid into a separate sanitized container. If your brew is frozen to the point where the ice will not pass through the bottle neck, you can simply pour your brew to the next container straight. However, if the mouth of the bottle is too wide of your brew froze in smaller chunks, you can make use of a wire filter or a bottle spout to keep the ice from transferring.

            -At this point, you can choose to either bottle your brew and put it on a shelf to mellow for a month, or transfer your remaining brew back into your freezer safe-bottle(s) to let it go for another round.

            Drink responsibly and enjoy.

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Blue Berry Cyser

Blue Berry Cyser

            One of the best parts of brewing mead is the variety of recipes, from Capsicumel brewed with peppers to Morat simply flavored with elderberries. Taking advantage of that variety, I will show you how to make a simple blue berry cyser, which is a variant of mead fermented with fruit juice in place of water. Traditionally, it is fermented with cider, but we will be substituting blue berry juice instead because we can. Since the investment is nearly double the cost of a basic mead, make shift equipment should be avoided to lower the risk of ruining your ingredients.

Ingredients:

            To make Blue Berry Cyser, you will need to collect a packet of Red Star Champagne yeast, 2lb honey, yeast nutrient, and a gallon of blue berry juice without potassium sorbate.

- Champagne Yeast: $1.50

-2lb Honey: $7.50

-Yeast Nutrient: $1.50

-Blue Berry Juice: $5.00

Total: $15.50

Equipment:

          For mixing and storage, you will need a 2 gallon, food grade, plastic brew bucket with an airlock friendly, sealing lid, a standard 3 piece econo-lock, a sanitized stir stick, a vessel to activate yeast, and a pot to warm up the honey. Most equipment on this list can be found in the average kitchen, but the rest might take a trip to a home brew store.

-Econo-lock: $1.00

-Brew Bucket: $13.00

Total: $14.00

Directions:

-Step One: Mixing

            -Slowly pour the juice which will serve as the base to the cyser to the sanitized brew bucket.

            -Pour in at least 1 tsp of the yeast nutrient to ensure a healthy fermentation.

            -Carefully pour boiling water over the bottle of honey to melt and loosen the contents.

            -Add the warm honey to the rest of the ingredients in the brew bucket.

            -Mix thoroughly to aerate the must.

           

-Step Three: Pitching

            -Heat 1/4^th C of sterile water to between 100-105 °F and stir the packet of yeast into the water. Swirl the glass until the mixture begins to give off the smell of unbaked bread, allow the yeast to rehydrate for around 4 minutes before pitching the yeast into the mead.

 

-Step Four: Finishing Touches.

            -Add the lid to the brew bucket, being sure to complete the seal all the way around, and apply the airlock, already filled to the appropriate height with water.

            Storage and Fermentation:

            The mead will need +30 days to complete primary fermentation and for the yeast to do some cleaning up and dying off. During this time, the brew bucket should be kept in a dark corner at a temperature between 60-75 °F to create a nice habitat for the yeast. Try to avoid unnecessary movement during this time to avoid mixing dead yeast and other detritus back into the cyser.

            After primary fermentation is complete, consider racking the mead into a separate carboy with an auto-siphon leaving the bottom inch to avoid transferring to sediment.

            After racking the mead into a secondary container, allow at least two months for flavors to develop and mellow. When you are satisfied with the flavor, place your fermentation chamber in the refrigerator to cold crash the mead and clarify the cyser.

Final Step:

            Drink and enjoy.

If you want to find more recipes by this author go to alcoauto.blogspot.com

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Dorm Closet Mead

Dorm Closet Mead

            Dorm Closet Mead is the most basic recipe for anyone looking to get into home brewing, but who does not want to make a large investment. The cost of ingredients and equipment together should not be any more than $15.00. It is the cheapest recipe you could possibly hope for when first experimenting aside from the recipe found in De re Rustica, but comes with less control in flavor and clarity. Flavors aside, if this is your first time as a mazer this is a nice, simple test recipe.

Ingredients and Equipment:

            To make Dorm Closet Mead, you will need to collect a packet of dry Fleischmann's yeast, an orange, 2lb honey, a packet of raisins, a gallon of spring water, and a balloon/rubber glove, a square of foil, and a rubber band for the airlock.

- Fleischmann's Yeast: $1.50

- Orange: $0.75

-2lb Honey: $7.50

-Raisins: $1.50

-Spring Water: $1.00

-Improv-Airlock: $2.00

Total: $14.25

Directions:

-Step One: Preparation

            -Wash, freeze, and slice the orange into eight parts. Washing the orange is important to keep any wild yeast out of the mead and freezing the orange will break up some of the flesh and make it easier for flavors to transfer.

            -Pour half the gallon into clean containers. Leave 1/4^th C of the excess water in a separate container as illustrated by the red cup above. This will be used for yeast activation later on. The rest of the water will probably not be needed, but if you poured too much out, you may have to top off the brew at the end.

            -Place the bottle of honey in a pot or bowl of water just below the boiling point to warm up the honey and make it more pliable. If the plastic is cheap and the water is too hot, you risk melting the bottle and ruining the honey, but the risk in minimal.

-Step Two: Mixing

            -Pour the heated honey into the mixture using a wide mouthed funnel. The honey not only acts as the base flavor, but provides most of the fermentable sugar for the mead.

            -Add the 8 cleaned and frozen orange slices, peel and all, to the jug to give the mead a more complex flavor.

            -Add 25 raisins to the jug which will act as a yeast nutrient. Adding too few will leave the yeast starving and leave fermentation incomplete while adding too many will leave the mead with an unwanted grape aftertaste.

-Step Three: Pitching

            -Put the cap back onto the jug with an inch or two of empty space between the top of the must and the bottom of the cap and shake vigorously for 2-5 minutes to aerate the mead. The yeast will need some oxygen to survive and ferment.

            -Heat the extra 1/4^th C of water to between 100-105 °F and stir the packet of yeast into the water. Swirl the glass until it begins to give off the smell of unbaked bread, allow the yeast to rehydrate for around 4 minutes before pitching the yeast into the mead.

-Step Four: Finishing Touches.

            -If you have more than 1 inch in between the top of the must and the bottom of the bottle neck, top off the mead with some of the extra water. After you have the mead at an appropriate volume, place the square of foil over the mouth and poke 5 holes in the covering.

            -Poke three holes in the balloon or glove and secure this over the foil with a rubber band. If the mead ferments too vigorously and the balloon/glove is overly inflated, add a few more holes until the swelling goes down. The improve-airlock is there to keep insects and free floating bacteria out of the mead. It will not work perfectly, but it will serve you well enough.

Storage and Fermentation:

            The mead will need +30 days for fermentation and for the yeast to do some cleaning up and dying off. The first two of these thirty days should be spent sitting in a sink or tub on the off chance of an explosion or an overflow, but that should not be an issue with bread yeast and an improve-airlock. Through the rest of primary fermentation the mead should be kept in a dark place with a temperature between 55-70 °F to create a nice habitat for the yeast. During this time, frequently check the balloon/glove and rubber band for atrophy, replace them as needed.

            After a little over a month, the Dorm Closet Mead will be done and drinkable. If you can control yourself, it is a good practice to leave the mead longer for the flavors do develop and mellow, but it is not necessary.

            If you are worried about clarity, after the thirty days is over pour the mead into another empty gallon jug being careful not to transfer any of the orange, pulp, raisins, or yeast residue. Place that jug in a refrigerator for 48 hours to killing off some of the remaining yeast and let it settle at the bottom, also known as cold crashing. Finally, thoroughly clean the first jug and pour the cleared up mead back into the first jug being careful not to transfer the dead yeast at the bottom. This entire process is known as racking and will leave you with a cleaner, clearer mead, but will not clean it up perfectly.

Final Step:

            Drink and enjoy.

If you want to find more recipes by this author go to alcoauto.blogspot.com

If you want future updates, follow us on Twitter @alco_auto