Moonshine double distillation. Double distillation of moonshine at home

For many, the question remains unclear - why do we need a second distillation of moonshine, if the first, in principle, can be drunk? So what gives a secondary stage?

The taste of home-made alcohol improves, the unpleasant fusel smell disappears.
With properly conducted distillation with separation into fractions, the product becomes largely purified from fusel oils, alkaloids, acetone, methyl alcohol and other impurities.
In this way, you can reanimate any recently kicked out or old "overwhelming", once failed moonshine.
This is an effective way to increase the strength of low-grade alcohol. For example, if you accidentally diluted it too much or missed the moment when it was worth stopping the run.
There was a splash or cloudy moonshine (which can be both during distillation and happen after a while), it will also be helped by re-distillation.

Carefully. Repeated distillation of strong alcohol is a fire hazard!

Heating high-grade moonshine can cause an explosion and subsequent fire.

Dilution of strong alcohol is necessary not only from the point of view of fire safety, but also in order to have as few impurities as possible in the final product. The fact is that the higher the degree of alcohol, the stronger the bond between alcohol and fusel oils at the molecular level.

And by adding water, we weaken these ties, so that it is easier to divide the moonshine into fractions (read:). It's safer to follow the rules.

Dilution before the second stage

Measure the strength of your distillate. It is unlikely that it will be 20-30 degrees, which means it requires dilution. Continue to follow the rule: pour the moonshine into the water! If you spill it by accident, don't worry. A high-quality device will still take all the alcohol.

Advice. If it is important for you to get a liquid of a specific strength, use the moonshiner's calculator or alcohol with water.

Cleaning moonshine

Remembering that when you decide to re-run, you are striving to improve quality indicators. Therefore, carry out a preliminary cleaning of the existing moonshine. It is more convenient to do this before diluting with water - there will be less liquid for filtration, and less cleaning material will be spent.

The procedure is well known: add a cleaning agent that will bind fusel oils and other impurities and lower them in the form of sediment to the bottom of the container. Then filter the liquid. What to apply?

Potassium permanganate does an excellent job of getting rid of not only impurities, but also odor. Although this method is doubtful if you are preparing moonshine for drinking, it is quite suitable before the second stage. For 3 liters of moonshine, you need to take no more than 6 g of potassium permanganate. Pre-dissolve the crystals in warm water, then mix with an alcohol-containing liquid. Let stand (10-12 hours) and filter.
woody or activated pharmacy coal. Grind it, pour it into alcohol at the rate of 3-4 tablespoons per three-liter jar. Stir several times over the course of a day or two. Filter.
Milk fresh binds impurities and flakes down to the bottom of the container.
Bentonite(white clay) is perfect for both cleaning mash and ready-made moonshine.
Soda- Another of the effective folk remedies.

Advice. It is most convenient to filter moonshine after cleaning with a cut plastic bottle (from beer, with a narrow long neck).

Insert a few twisted cotton pads into the neck and filter.

Rules and proportions of the second distillation

Pour the diluted alcohol-containing liquid into a cube, connect all parts of the apparatus, ensuring the tightness of the connections, and put on heat. Watch the thermometer readings carefully.

Now every modern moonshine is equipped with a thermometer. If you do not have it, then it is easy to modify the cube in order to be able to monitor the heating temperature.

As soon as the temperature reaches 65 ° C, be careful not to miss the appearance of the first drops of distillate - these are poisonous heads containing acetone and. Collect them in a separate bowl and pour. The number of head fractions is from 8 to 12% of the expected yield of moonshine, with a strength of 40 ° in the total mass. Experienced distillers determine the end of the expiration of the heads “by scent”: the characteristic acetone stench stops - they begin to select the body.

Important. When the first drops of distillate appear in the receiving tube, the heating should be sharply reduced to a minimum. Take the head fractions not in a jet, but only drip.

The main drinking part of moonshine goes at a temperature in the cube of 78-80 - 92-96 ° C. Finish the selection of the body when the strength in the jet is 40°. At the same time, the liquid collected in a spoon under a jet burns with a red flame, and when it goes out, about half of the initial volume of liquid is still in the spoon.
Take the tails (separately) while the liquid collected in the spoon flashes and goes out. That is, up to 20 degrees.

Possibilities for improving the second stage

As a rule, even after dilution with water, the liquid for the second stage is not enough. To fill the cube, you can add tails from past hauls. They also need to be cleaned before use. The methods described above will not take away the degree, but only remove impurities.

There are other methods that deserve attention. For example, if you have a tasteless wine lying around, add it to the cube along with diluted moonshine. It will give moonshine new notes of taste. Wine does not need to be diluted or refined.

Answers to questions from distillers

- To what degree should moonshine be distilled a second time?

Usually, the middle fraction (body or heart of moonshine) is taken up to 40 ° in the stream, but you can also find an opinion - up to 50 °, so that it is guaranteed that there is no fuselage in it. It is easier to dilute the final product with clean water to the desired strength than to use harmful impurities. Do something for yourself.

— Is it necessary to clean the secondarily distilled moonshine?

There are different opinions, including the following: in moonshine there will be and even must be a certain amount of fusel oils, since this is called the organoleptic of the product. The main thing is that there are not too many of them.

As for the subsequent cleaning of the second stage, many argue that it does not make much sense. Everything that is possible, you supposedly have already done - you can’t improve anything else at home. This is not true. If you still feel that your product has not been perfected, purify the distillate again with charcoal, milk, soda, or another method.

Carefully. It is undesirable to use potassium permanganate for a product that you will use inside. Despite its good cleansing capabilities, there is evidence that when interacting with alcohol, manganese forms other compounds that are not known how to "come around" using this product even after filtering.

- Is there a need for a second distillation if the moonshine is equipped with a steamer?

Sukhoparnik really removes some of the fusel oils, but not all. Especially if there is no possibility of draining during the haul. Therefore, there is a sense in the second distillation with separation into fractions. At the same time, we note that the second distillation with a dry steamer will purify the distillate better than a direct-flow apparatus.

- I am not satisfied with the quality of moonshine after the second distillation. How to improve it?

There are several methods for this:

insist distillate on herbs / spices (bison, anise, etc.) or orange peel;
pour into an oak barrel and let stand for 3-4 months;
use for berry-based liqueurs;
carry out additional cleaning;
overtake again.

- What to do with moonshine after the second distillation?

It is better to give him a week or two to rest and stabilize the taste in glassware. Then put it on the table, help yourself, because it is much cleaner than the first distillate. In addition, it is an excellent basis for medicinal or drinking tinctures.

Does moonshine need a third distillation?

If the smell, taste (and even the fortress), even after the second distillation, do not suit you, no one bothers to carry out the third distillation. But do not rush if the mash is taken from grain or fruit and berry raw materials. Such moonshine needs time (up to six months) to reveal its true taste and aroma. It must be placed in glassware, and even better - in.

Features of the triple haul

Before the third distillation, dilute the resulting secondary distillate again to 20-30 ° and clean with sunflower oil. Pour half a glass of oil into 3 liters of moonshine, soak for a day and strain through cheesecloth. Distill according to the same principle as the second time.

In addition, it is advisable to use a dry steamer, it will additionally select a certain amount of fusel oil. When the device is equipped with a second, collapsible steamer, you can put zest, spices, and herbs into it for additional flavoring.

Making moonshine at home requires special knowledge, experience and the availability of appropriate equipment. The main task of any person involved in the preparation of moonshine is to obtain a high-quality and safe product for health. An additional, or second, distillation of moonshine will help to achieve this. This technique will allow you to clean the product from fusel oils, which will improve the quality of the drink, which is commonly called the second moonshine. Of course, re-distilling the liquid will take several hours, but the end result is worth it. How to overtake moonshine a second time and what is needed for this?

The second distillation of moonshine

Before answering these questions, it should be clarified that any moonshine can be distilled a second time.

Purpose of the second run

In Rus', Braga, which today is considered as a raw material for the manufacture of moonshine, was used as a full-fledged drink. At that time, any methods were unknown to mankind. In addition, the person did not know anything about the composition of the mash, which includes not only ethyl alcohol, but also fusel oils, aldehyde and even acetone. All these substances, especially when accumulated in the body, threatened a person with mortal danger. Today, no one uses pure mash, and the distillers themselves have learned how to qualitatively purify the resulting alcoholic drink, and the strength of the moonshine in this case does not weaken.

How to perform?

Allows you to get moonshine of the desired strength. However, experienced distillers note that it is not entirely correct to limit oneself to a single distillation of the drink, since it does not allow removing all harmful impurities from the liquid.

Double distillation of moonshine at home will improve the characteristics of the drink, but only if it is performed correctly. Despite the fact that many distillers use a wide variety of techniques during the re-distillation of moonshine, there is still a standard algorithm for doing this job. How to overtake moonshine a second time:

1) Dilution: at this stage, the strength of the drink, which will be subjected to the second distillation, is adjusted. Ideally, the fortress should fluctuate between 35-40 degrees. If moonshine is stronger, then working with it can lead to damage to distillation equipment. The thing is that concentrated alcohol vapors can literally break some elements of the moonshine still. In addition, strong alcohol is quite difficult to separate from harmful impurities, since the high strength of the drink provides strong molecular bonds.

In order to reduce its strength, it is necessary to use cool filtered water, and it should be added to the raw materials gradually, while controlling the strength index. When diluting moonshine in stages, it is important to consider that water should be added to the moonshine itself, but not vice versa.

2) Secondary distillation of moonshine is not complete without its preliminary cleaning. You can clean moonshine in two ways. In order to, you will need filter paper, charcoal and activated carbon, potassium permanganate. If the distiller wants to clean the moonshine with filter paper, then he will also need a plastic funnel. The paper should be placed in a funnel, and then slowly pour moonshine into it. To improve the filtration quality, the drink should be poured into the funnel very slowly.

Re-distillation of moonshine also involves cleaning the liquid with potassium permanganate, but this method requires maximum accuracy. For each liter of moonshine, you should take 2 grams of potassium permanganate and 50 milliliters of hot water (a solution is made from this and poured into moonshine after the potassium permanganate crystals dissolve in water). Raw materials with potassium permanganate should be insisted for ten hours, after which a precipitate will fall to the bottom in the form of potassium permanganate. Then the drink should be filtered through a funnel filled with cotton wool. Only after cleaning the raw materials can the second distillation of moonshine be performed.

You can also clean moonshine with charcoal. To do this, you must first cut the logs (oak, birch) into round logs 3 centimeters thick. They should be kept warm for two weeks, then put in a pot with a lid, burn and cool. After removing dust from coal, it can be used to clean moonshine.

3) The last stage of the procedure is a direct double distillation of moonshine. First, the distiller should prepare the moonshine still: rinse it thoroughly and then assemble it. The second distillation is essentially not much different from the first, but the difference lies in the fact that distillation of moonshine a second time allows you to separate the outgoing raw materials into separate fractions: “body”, “tails” and “heads”.

The first 8-10% of the volume of distillate should never be drunk, since they are "heads" - a harmful fraction of alcohol, which is suitable only for technical needs, for example, surface disinfection. The next 80% of the raw materials are double-distilled moonshine, and it should be collected until the strength of the drink reaches the level of 40-45 degrees. The last fraction of raw materials is called "tails" and it is pure alcohol. It can be used as an additive to increase the strength of the next mash.

Re-distillation of moonshine allows you to clean the drink from impurities that are harmful to health. But many distillers want to diversify the taste of moonshine, for example, to make it softer. Some intend to give the drink the aroma of berries, flowers or spices. However, before refining the drink, it should be additionally purified from impurities. To do this, you can use fatty homemade milk at the rate of one glass for every 1.5 liters of moonshine.

The milk should be poured into the distillate and the mixture left for at least a week. At the end of this period of time, moonshine should be filtered through a funnel with a layer of crushed activated carbon, previously poured onto a layer of cotton wool. Important: at this stage, you can not use potassium permanganate!

Moonshine of the second stage can be made more palatable by insisting on spices (rosemary, nutmeg, vanilla, ginger) or pieces of fruit, for example, lemon slices. Any supplement should be infused with alcohol for at least two weeks. If a sweetener is added to the drink, then the moonshine itself should be heated on fire after the introduction of the additive until it begins to emit gases. After that, the drink should be filtered and insisted for three days.

Double distillation of moonshine with the addition of vegetable components at the final stage will give the drink the desired shade. For example, adding cornflower flowers will help color the drink blue. The introduction of dried blueberries will allow you to color the drink red, etc.

High-quality double distillation is possible only through the use of a high-quality moonshine still equipped with a steamer. If a distiller wants to get a high-quality drink that is safe for health, then in this case he should not save on the quality of the corresponding equipment.

Previously, few people understood why a double distillation of moonshine was needed and why “transfer products”. Moonshine brewing consisted only in the preparation of the mash, which was driven out once and then consumed. The wort was made without the use of special recipes, calculation of proportions, and all products from the garden and vegetable garden were used as ingredients.

Today, everyone knows that it is impossible to use pure mash without primary or secondary distillation of moonshine. The composition of the distillate contains many harmful components, of which the more well-known ones should be distinguished:

aldehyde;
acetone;
methyl and isoamyl alcohol;
acetic and formic acids
fusel oils.

The accumulation of such elements in the human body can lead to fatal consequences.

You can clean the mash by a fairly simple method - double distillation of moonshine at home. This makes it possible to get a strong drink with a clean structure and a high degree at the exit. The main thing here is to figure out how to properly distill the distillate a second time, what water to dilute it with and in what proportions.

Main works in 3 stages

Each experienced distiller has many secrets and tricks that they use when distilling moonshine. Everyone wants to get a quality product. In order for the distillate to please, you need to know the main stages of how to overtake the moonshine a second time.

Dilution of moonshine

Regardless of what technology was used to create a homemade fortified drink, the strength of the moonshine must be brought to 35-40 °. Otherwise, you can get a spoiled moonshine still and "fireworks" in the kitchen. Therefore, before distilling moonshine a second time, it must be diluted with drinking water.

For dilution, use filtered or bottled liquid. But before being diluted, it is cooled by putting it in the refrigerator.

The fractional process of diluting alcohol is carried out by gradually mixing water into the moonshine with a regular check of the strength with an alcohol meter. The most optimal value is 35 °.

Also keep in mind that you need to dilute the distillate with water by adding water to alcohol, but not vice versa. Otherwise, the alcohol may become cloudy due to a chemical reaction.

Cleaning moonshine

Re-distillation of moonshine at home implies a preliminary cleaning of its structure. In this case, several methods are used in which it is applied:

wood charcoal;
Activated carbon;
potassium parchment - potassium permanganate;
filter board, paper.

The last cleaning option before the second distillation of moonshine is considered the simplest. It is enough to place special paper in a funnel, and then pour alcohol through it. The process should be done as slowly as possible, only in this way they achieve the best result.

Also, moonshine before the second distillation can be cleaned with potassium permanganate, but here it is important to take into account the proportions, how much the component is required for a certain volume of drink. Follow the steps in the following sequence:

prepare the right amount of raw materials and potassium permanganate - for 1 liter of alcohol you need 50 ml of drinking water and 2 g. pharmaceutical component;
dilute the potassium permanganate with hot water, wait until the granules are completely dissolved, then dilute the distillate with the contents;
leave the raw material for 10-12 hours, after which a precipitate should form at the bottom;
beforehand, before making the second distillation, strain the raw material through 3-4 layers of gauze or flannel.

This stage allows you to eliminate harmful impurities from alcohol to the maximum, so if you want to get a high-quality and safe product, there should be no doubt whether moonshine needs to be cleaned before the second time.

The second distillation of moonshine

The process of distillation of the distillate for the second time does not differ much from the primary distillation. But in the case of double processing of the raw material, the result will be significantly more than the original product. It should also be noted that the second distillation takes much less time.

The technology does not differ from the first time in any way - the same temperatures, the same order of cutting off heads and tails

Despite the increased purity of moonshine after secondary distillation, experts also recommend dividing the volume into fractions:

heads (10-12% of the total volume);
body;
tails (when the fortress falls below 45 °).

Therefore, in the process of the second stage, you need to take an active part, regularly monitoring the strength of alcohol.

What you need to consider when making moonshine double distillation:

of the total amount of raw 10-12% is given to the heads, which are forbidden to be used as a drink, but they can be used for technical purposes;
be sure to monitor the concentration of alcohol, when the fortress falls below 45 °, you need to change the tank to a container for collecting tailings;
body - 80% of the entire product, the product has a pleasant aroma and is fully usable;

As for the tails, they are used to increase the concentration of alcohol in the finished product, this fraction is returned to the wash after the first distillation and before the second. They can also be used for outdoor use.

Whether to do a second distillation or not is up to the distiller to decide. But experienced moonshiners do not recommend neglecting this method. This is understandable, the output will be a pure product without harmful impurities that adversely affect human health.

VIDEO: How to improve the taste of moonshine

Distillate purification

After the second distillation, an important stage begins - additional purification. The most effective method is filtration through milk. Which one to use - home or store - is not important, and in both cases, milk protein is present in the composition, which reacts with harmful impurities.

For the separation of raw milk, you can even use powdered milk, previously (2-2.5 hours) diluted with water. Next, the mixture is introduced by analogy with ordinary milk.

Prepare the necessary ingredients. In our case, you need 250 ml of milk per 1.5 liters of fortified drink. As soon as you begin to inject, the reaction will be immediately noticeable - albumin and casein, which are part of the protein, begin to bind the molecules of fuselage and acids, forming a flocculent precipitate.
Pour the product into the moonshine and leave to infuse for 7 days in a dark place. The first 5 of them daily shake the jar strongly, in the last day do not touch it at all, so that the sediment thickens.
A week later, the distillate is carefully drained from the sediment, passed through a gauze and cotton-charcoal filter, after which the product is ready for distillation.

Cleaning with milk is considered the most gentle and at the same time effective method in which the "soul" of the drink is preserved and the taste remains mild.

After the moonshiner determines whether a second distillation is needed for his product and carries out all of the above procedures, he can further ennoble his product. For this purpose, recipes for infusing moonshine on herbs, spices, fruits, and berries are used. From such a product you can get cognac, absinthe, rum, medicinal tincture or real homemade whiskey.

If the distillate is prepared on a fruit brew, it is recommended to use only carbon filters (coal column) between distillation and at the end without chemical intervention (milk, soda, potassium permanganate, etc.).

VIDEO: How to work with milk correctly

The third entry - benefit or harm?

Making homemade alcohol should be treated without excessive enthusiasm. The only way the third distillation of moonshine can affect the product is to reduce its volume. At the same time, if wine alcohol is prepared from grape chacha, then, on the contrary, the third distillation is necessary. It is commonly used to make brandy and cognac.

If there is a goal to make even better moonshine, then it is better to purchase a moonshine still with a distillation column. This unit will serve as the best assistant in the task of more accurate separation of the body, heads and tails. And at the output you get pure rectified alcohol with a strength of 85-90 °.

Is additional purification of the finished product necessary?

After the process of the second distillation is completed, the resulting product can be cleaned a little more, “ennobled” or simply diluted a little with water to make it softer. To give moonshine a certain taste and aroma, fresh berries, fruits, or special aromatic additives that can be purchased at the store are sometimes added to the drink. In addition, the drink can be given a certain color:

red, for example, comes out when dried blueberries are added to moonshine;
yellow - when using lemon balm, parsley or mint;
orange peel, walnut shell or saffron will give a golden color;
if you add cornflower flowers, the liquid will turn a pleasant blue color;
currant leaves will not only color the moonshine green, but also help to give it an unusual taste.

Adding milk, preferably natural and fat-free, to an already finished product, can significantly soften the taste of the drink and slightly neutralize its strength.

Improving the taste

Herbal additives used for a ready-made drink are a way to give the secondary moonshine not only a certain color, but also a taste, as well as the desired softness and originality of the blend.

Secondary distillation makes the liquid safe for consumption and of sufficient quality.
Therefore, taking care of their own health, each manufacturer of this homemade drink needs to make a second distillation at least once, and best of all - 3.
This will preserve the health of the moonshiner himself and his friends and relatives who will consume the prepared strong drink. Moreover, this process does not require significant effort.

Experienced craftsmen and beginners in the business of making homemade moonshine use the moonshiner calculator online. Using this resource, you can calculate what degree of drink you get, the required amount of water and alcohol to obtain the volume of moonshine of the required strength, and even calculate the correct proportions of mash, after fermentation of which you will get moonshine with the desired alcohol content.

Today, the old, simple method of getting rid of harmful and dangerous impurities is still relevant. As a result, you can get a pure and practically harmless product for consumption, almost completely freed from fusel oils, which are highly toxic and very poisonous. The main thing is to do everything in a certain sequence, adhering to technology.

The moonshine obtained during the distillation still contains a whole mass of impurities and fusel oils hazardous to health. The higher the strength of the product obtained, the stronger the bond between impurities and fusel oils dissolved in it.

The second distillation of moonshine is necessary primarily to get rid of fusel oils. They are toxic and poisonous substances. When interacting with the skin in its pure form, they can leave a thermal burn, and the ingress of fusel oils into the human body through the respiratory system can cause severe coughing or suffocation. However, they are used for industrial purposes.

The most correct solution to this problem will be the second distillation of moonshine. What we get at the exit is called double-run moonshine, which in its taste is much superior to the original product. Therefore, having spent not so much money and time on these operations, we will get a really clean and high-quality product without third-party odors and impurities.

Preparation for distillation

The first thing to do is to dilute the moonshine for the second distillation. This must be done by pouring moonshine into chilled, and most importantly clean water, until the fortress is 35-40%.

Before re-distillation, moonshine should be cleaned with activated carbon, or any natural absorbent should be used. Activated charcoal should be used in the proportion of 50 g per 1 liter of water. Making a filter? cotton wool, a layer of gauze, coal, gauze and again coal. We filter through such a filter. You can also infuse with charcoal for a week. Then, stirring occasionally, strain through a cloth or gauze bandage.

Cleaning with a filter

Also, to clean moonshine from impurities, you can use a solution of potassium permanganate. We take 300 ml of hot water and dissolve 3 g of potassium permanganate there. We apply such calculations to 1 liter of moonshine. We mix it all in the correct proportion and leave to brew for an hour. After diluting a tablespoon of baking soda or table salt, mix thoroughly and leave for 2 hours. Once the moonshine is infused, it should be filtered through a gauze filter.

In addition, milk can be used to clean moonshine from fusel oils. The ratio of milk to moonshine is 1:5, 1 liter of drink should be diluted with 200 ml of milk. Then mix thoroughly and let it brew for 30 minutes. The product is ready, and you can safely overtake it.

After carrying out these operations, you can proceed directly to the second distillation.

The process of the second distillation of moonshine

Here the usual distillation process will take place, as well as with mash. How to overtake correctly? We use the same moonshine, but washed, without the remains of mash, small pieces of fruit or seeds. After all, the remnants of mash in the future can spoil the taste characteristics of the drink. Before starting the second distillation, you should pay attention to the strength of the original product. It should be about 60-65%.

According to the process, the second distillation is not very different from the first. But at the exit from the refrigerator, we will get more drink, because the strength of the original wort is higher. You will spend less time.

During the second distillation, the resulting moonshine should be divided and distilled into fractions. Separation will take place on? tail? and the "head" as well as the most pleasant part of the drink? ?body?.

We take into account the following points:

Usually? head? is approximately 10-12% of the total volume. The resulting product is contraindicated for use, it is harmful to our body. Ideal for technical applications such as surface cleaning and household decontamination.
To determine the main part, as well as the moment when to collect it, use your sense of smell. After receiving 10%, the liquid should be smelled. If there is no pungent odor, then it is in the process? main share. Fortress? bodies? may be about 84%. In some cases, a product with a strength of 96% is obtained.
When the fortress of the original product is about 45%, use the container to collect the "tail". To constantly monitor the strength of the drink, use a household alcohol meter. Then you will react in time and do not mix these small impurities with the main part. The share containing this part? 10%.

So, "head" leave for household needs. Where do we apply? tails?? It would be a mistake to get rid of them, they can be used to increase the strength of raw materials when added to mash.

The resulting 80% "body" after the second distillation of moonshine is no longer worth

subject to additional processing or filtration. Bred only to a suitable strength and the drink is ready to drink.

Moonshine after the second distillation will no longer contain harmful impurities or heavy metals and will become transparent.

In order not to spoil the whole result, pay attention to the following points. When a temperature of 65-68°C is reached, the release of light impurities begins.

The moonshine obtained in the temperature regime from 65 ° C to 80 ° C will be poisonous and unsuitable, it is during this period that the “head” is released. It is easy to identify it by a slight alcohol smell and condensation on the refrigerator.

The moment of transition to strong heating will be the most crucial. Since you will need a sharp decrease in the heating rate, otherwise the moonshine will simply burn out. Subsequently, the entire journey will be in vain.

We dilute the raw to 15 ° with water, then add refined vegetable oil at the rate of 20 ml per liter of raw.
Close the container with a lid and shake vigorously for a minute, repeat after a couple of minutes and shake again after a couple of minutes for a minute, then leave for a day. If there is no time - at least 12 hours must be allowed to brew.
After this time, carefully remove the film from above - oil with impurities has collected here, and what remains is passed through several layers of gauze a couple of times and always through a carbon filter.

Proper distillation means mandatory intermediate cleaning, but only for sugar and grain mash. Raw from fruit and berry mash should not be cleaned, the organoleptic changes too much. This is where fractional distillation comes into play.

VIDEO: Fractional distillation

Second distillation

Objectively, this stage is not much different from the first, with the exception of the temperature regime. You also need to pay attention to whether you did the cleaning or not. If intermediate cleaning was carried out, merge raw material, tailings into the cube and start the process again. If cleaning was not done, you need to carry out a series of manipulations:

We dilute the raw material to 15 ° with water - this is necessary so that during distillation the distillate is more actively divided into fractions of alcohol, water and impurities.

For the convenience of separating the raw, you can use the "parrot". It makes it easier to control the fortress

Pour the raw water solution into the distillation cube, heat up to 86 ° C and control the appearance of the first drops. In order to make it more convenient, we reduce the temperature to 68 ° and slowly begin to select the heads. In this case, there are already 50 ml per kilogram of sugar.

You can determine the duration of the heads by smell - essential oils and methyl smell sharp and unpleasant. As soon as this aroma disappears (somewhat reminiscent of acetone), the body begins to go, it is already collected in a clean receiving container.

If there is a dry steamer in the design of the apparatus, at this stage it is desirable to clean it too - drain the fusel, rinse and return to its place.

When the heads were cut off, we again raise the temperature and begin to select the body. We select exactly until the fortress begins to fall below 55 °. Next comes the tails.

The strength of the body is measured after it has cooled to 20 °, if the hotter hydrometer will “lie”. And one more thing - do not use household alcohol meters, as a rule, in such situations they are useless. Best of all, the ASP-3 hydrometer copes with the determination of the fortress.

Tails can be ringed, as we wrote earlier - the quality of the final product will only improve from this, but dispose of the heads immediately.

As a result, we get the purest product, which in terms of transparency, aroma and concentration will not be inferior to the best drinks. On average, from each liter of mash, after double distillation, we get about 400 milliliters of 50-55 ° moonshine, which can then be further diluted with water to the desired condition.

What to do next?

So we come to the most interesting - the final stage of distillation of moonshine at home. To begin with, we dilute it with water - here everyone decides for himself, for someone 40 ° is too much, but for others 50 ° is just right. Then we insist for at least two days in an airtight container to improve the organoleptic. Be sure to clean.

Those who mainly work with grain or fruit must do not clean up, and in vain. They purify not only sugar distillate, but also all others.

For cleaning, you can use the most common carbon filter, and this is quite enough. Then you can use either a pure product or prepare a wide variety of alcoholic drinks based on it. The article "" has a lot of recipes with a detailed description of how and what to cook from. Let’s add on our own, when moonshine becomes your second “I”, do not be greedy and buy a good oak barrel - the incredible taste and aroma of the same whiskey has not yet been canceled.

VIDEO: How heads and tails are cut off and high-quality distillate is made

Many home craftsmen who are engaged in the production of beverages often ask themselves the question: how to improve the quality of their products so that they themselves like to drink, and it was not shameful to put guests on the festive table.

The best solution is to overtake moonshine again. The resulting product is much cleaner and stronger than the original, it is often called double moonshine. Of course, this will take a little more time, but the result is worth the effort - the drink will turn out to be of really good quality, without an unpleasant odor and impurities.

Double distillation is suitable for all types of moonshine, it does not matter either the method of preparing the mash or the raw materials used. You can overtake even moonshine made a long time ago.

There is nothing complicated in double distillation, the main thing is to observe the order of all stages.
Dilution is the first thing to be done before the second distillation. The logical action would be to pour water into the moonshine, but this can make it cloudy. Therefore, the opposite is done - moonshine is poured into the water. The strength of the drink should fall by 20-35%.

Why is it undesirable to drive without dilution? In strong moonshine, the vapors contain a large amount of alcohol, which can cause a fire and have to (we recommend choosing an apparatus with a distillation column of the brand or with a dry steamer of the brand). Also, due to the high strength, it is more difficult to break the molecular bond of the drink with fusel oils, therefore, the distillation will be inefficient.

Although many moonshine makers do not add water before re-distilling the moonshine, they say that the unpleasant smell in the diluted drink still remains. This is quite reasonable, but when distilling such moonshine, make sure that there is no open fire nearby.

Cleansing. Before proceeding to the second stage, moonshine is cleaned in any way familiar to a person. Someone prefers potassium permanganate, someone prefers activated carbon. For example, for the first method, 3 g of potassium permanganate dissolved in 300 ml of hot water is taken per 1 liter of moonshine. The solution is mixed and infused for 30 minutes, then a tablespoon of rock salt and the same amount of baking soda are added.

After stirring again, it is infused for another 2 hours. The settled moonshine is passed through the filter. A household water filter is great, but if it is not at hand, you can make an elementary cotton-gauze one.

How to overtake moonshine a second time?

The final stage is no different from the first distillation from mash. The main thing to remember, as mentioned above, is that distilling a strong drink is more dangerous and less effective. Therefore, before starting the process, it will not be superfluous to check the degree of moonshine again.

If in the future moonshine will no longer be processed, at the output it is divided into fractions: head, body and tail.

The head is the first 10% of the resulting drink, it can only be used for technical needs, but not inside. This liquid has an unpleasant odor.

It is impossible to distill the heads of moonshine a second time.

Before you substitute the container for collecting the body of moonshine, you need to make sure that the unpleasant smell is gone, then you can continue collecting.

The tail is determined by the strength of moonshine: it drops to 40%. Most often, this liquid, to increase the strength, is added to the next mash or purified on a distillation column. It is practically useless to distill moonshine tailings; the quality will not get better from this process.

The main part, the body of double moonshine, does not require additional processing. If desired, it can be diluted to the desired strength and used in.

All professional moonshiners at some point are faced with the issue of improving the quality of a strong drink prepared by their own hands. The most popular recipe in this case is the secondary distillation of moonshine. Double rectification through a moonshine and a certain temperature during the procedure allows you to make a pure product that will be much stronger and cleaner than the original version. That is why it is recommended to devote more time to making moonshine at home and make the drink truly of high quality, without unnecessary odors and impurities. Among the people, the recipe for cooking using this technology gave the name to the drink "double moonshine".

Re-distillation of moonshine can be carried out with any type of mash, and neither the raw materials nor the recipe for making a strong drink affect the cleaning process. You can make a double distillation of moonshine with a drink that you have stored for a long period of time. Moreover, the distillate will become crystal clear and soft at the exit. However, the temperature during distillation must change in a strictly defined sequence. To get a quality drink at home, let's take a closer look at how to overtake moonshine a second time.

The technological process of obtaining double moonshine

Step one: Dilution with water

First, it is necessary to overtake the mash in the usual way, while the temperature of the liquid during this procedure should be equal to 100 ° C. In order to carry out the second distillation of moonshine, the drink must be diluted with clean spring water. Cold purified water should be poured into the alcoholic liquid until the strength of the mash reaches 20-30%. In order for the drink not to become cloudy, it is recommended to pour alcohol into water, and not vice versa. It is dangerous to carry out distillation with a higher concentration of alcohol vapors due to the fact that the moonshine may catch fire. In addition, stronger moonshine has a much stronger molecular bond with fusel impurities and harmful substances, in this case the recipe for the secondary distillation of moonshine will be less effective and will not bring the proper result.

Stage Two: Cleaning

Before starting the re-distillation of grain or sugar moonshine at home, it is imperative to do a cleaning. The procedure is performed using potassium permanganate, baking soda, milk, activated carbon and any other adsorbent that is convenient for you.

The most common and classic recipe for this is to make. We will need manganese powder in the amount of 3 grams per 300 ml of water, the temperature of which is more than 40 ° C. The diluted solution is added in proportion to 1 liter of moonshine. The resulting mixture should be mixed well and insisted for 30 minutes. Further, the recipe provides for the addition of 1 tablespoon of baking soda and table salt. Then the contents are mixed again and allowed to stand for two hours. After rectification, the liquid is separated using a water filter or a cotton-gauze funnel.

Step Three: Fractional Distillation

The first thing to do before the final stage is to double-check the strength of the drink. So that the high temperature that occurs during distillation does not cause a fire, the fortress must be equal to 20 degrees. Fractional distillation is carried out with a dry steamer, and the liquid output must be divided into fractions: “head”, “body” and “tail”. The exit temperature of the first 8-10% of the mash is 75 ° C, and this harmful fraction is prohibited for use, since it consists of fusel oils and other low-quality impurities. To obtain the second fraction, the temperature of the mash rises to 95 ° C, and the amount of the drink is 80% of the total liquid and is a double moonshine, that is, the drink that we wanted to get. This part must be collected until the fortress drops to 45%. The exit temperature of the third last fraction rises to 100 ° C, the liquid is recommended to increase the strength of the future moonshine, but you should not use it.

As a result, the second distillation at the outlet gives about 60-70% of a crystal clear drink without impurities and unpleasant odors. You just have to dilute it to a suitable strength and the drink is ready to drink.

Purification of moonshine by distillation is superior in efficiency to any other methods, as it allows you to get rid of the maximum amount of fusel oils. Double or even triple distillation allows you to get the purest product even without intermediate purification, but it will not be superfluous. In many ways, the quality of the final product will depend not only on the raw materials, the number of distillations, but also on their correctness, and the main thing here is the ability to select the necessary alcohol fractions. The problem is that in addition to ethyl alcohol, the mash contains a lot of other alcohols and acids, other unnecessary impurities, each of which boils at a certain temperature, and it is not so easy to track the temperature of the mash and evaporation during distillation.

With modern factory-made moonshine stills, the situation is simpler - they are often supplied complete with special thermometers built into distillation cubes. In other modifications, a niche for a thermometer is provided directly in the distillation column. But what about those who distill moonshine "blindly"? Personally, for example, for distillation I use an aluminum flask of 40 liters, a home-made steamer, a copper coil and a non-flow type condensation tank. To help - an alcohol meter, which you can buy at almost every step, as well as the basics of chemistry and mathematics.

Purification of moonshine - the second distillation

So, for starters, a few numbers - I will give them in a table for easier perception, and below I will explain what's what.

	First run	Second stage	Third stage
Light fraction - "pervak", "heads"	2% of the volume of mash	5% of the output of moonshine	2% of moonshine output
Ethyl alcohol - "body"	15% of the volume of mash Gathered to a fortress of 45 degrees	From +76 C o to +84 C o for mash (vapors) or up to 45 degrees of strength of the drink	From +76 C o to +80 C o for mash (vapors) or up to 45 degrees of strength of the drink
Heavy fraction - "tails"	The whole rest is from 45 to 25 degrees	From +84 C o to +95 C o for mash (vapours) or up to 35-40 degrees of strength of the drink	From +80 C o to +95 C o for mash (vapours) or up to 35-40 degrees of strength of the drink

And now in Russian:

Light fraction or "pervak", "heads"- acetone impurities, which are strictly forbidden to use. They drain down the drain without regrets or are used in the garage as a solvent.
Ethyl alcohol or "body"- the product we need, which is suitable for consumption
Heavy fraction "tails"- moonshine with a high content of fusel oils. Collected separately only at the final stage. That is, if you distill twice, then you separate the tails only on the second stage. And at the first time you expel it into the total mass - into the “body”. If you distill three times, then you separate the tails only on the third stage, and the first two times you drive them straight into the body

The table shows the numbers that you can focus on when distilling using a thermometer to measure the temperature of the mash, as well as the strength of the drink for those who, like me, use only an alcohol meter. The most difficult thing is to guess the total yield of moonshine on the second and third stages in order to clearly separate the “heads” (pervak). But there is no need to guess - we take the exit of the first stage and focus on it, to be sure.

Example! I have 20 liters of mash, which I want to overtake three times. Accordingly, on the first stage, I drain 400 milliliters of pervak, drain the steamer, and collect the entire remainder together with the tails in one container - I get about 3 liters of raw moonshine. It must be diluted with water to a strength of 20-30 degrees to facilitate separation into fractions during subsequent distillation and eliminate the possibility of ignition of alcohol vapor. I get about 4-4.5 liters of workpiece. I distill for the second time, draining about 150 milligrams of “heads”, draining the steamer, and collecting the rest to a condensate strength of about 30 degrees. It should come out no more than 3 liters, but according to the mind - a little less. I dilute the resulting alcohol with water to a strength of 20-30 degrees and distill it for the third time, separating only 50-60 milligrams of “heads”, draining the steamer, and then, collecting the body to a condensate strength of 45 degrees according to an alcohol meter, I collect the remaining tails up to 35 degrees separately and use it on the first run of the next mash. I dilute the product obtained as a result of a triple distillation with clean water to a strength of 40-45 degrees. About 2.5-3 liters of pure vodka should come out, depending on the quality of the mash.

After the selection of the "heads", it is necessary to drain the sukhoparnik, since part of the light fractions remains in it, and then it is transferred to the "body".

Intermediate purification of moonshine after the second distillation

Between hauls, intermediate cleaning can be carried out, although this is not necessary. To do this, add ordinary vegetable oil to the billet already diluted with water to a strength of 20 degrees at the rate of about 20 milligrams of oil per 1 liter of the billet. Shake well, leave for a day, drain through a silicone tube.

Of course, doing everything that is described above is quite troublesome, but the quality of the product really improves noticeably. Before the final distillation, I recommend putting lemon zest, fragrant fruits and spices into the steamer (after selecting the heads) - they impart a light pleasant aroma to the drink.

Moonshine double distillation. Double distillation of moonshine at home

Dilution before the second stage

Cleaning moonshine

Rules and proportions of the second distillation

Possibilities for improving the second stage

Answers to questions from distillers

Features of the triple haul

Purpose of the second run

How to perform?

Main works in 3 stages

Dilution of moonshine

Cleaning moonshine

The second distillation of moonshine

Distillate purification

The third entry - benefit or harm?

Popular Distillation Questions

The first stage - dilution

The second step is filtering.

How to clean moonshine with charcoal

Manganese cleansing

Milk cleaning

The third stage - secondary distillation

Is additional purification of the finished product necessary?

Improving the taste

Preparation for distillation

The process of the second distillation of moonshine

Second distillation

What to do next?

How to overtake moonshine a second time?

The technological process of obtaining double moonshine

Step one: Dilution with water

Stage Two: Cleaning

Step Three: Fractional Distillation

Purification of moonshine - the second distillation

Intermediate purification of moonshine after the second distillation

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