Proper moonshine from apples - mash recipes and distillation. Cooking high-quality apple mash for moonshine - proportions, recipes

Or use as a raw material for the production of alcohol at home.

It is universal. Let's learn from apples. And also we will study the general technology, which will subsequently allow you to prepare this drink from other raw materials.

Braga from apples

The recipe will be very relevant for those who grow fruit trees in their backyards. Indeed, sometimes apple trees in dachas give such a plentiful harvest that it cannot be disposed of by making jam, jam and dried preparations for compote. It's time to try such a wonderful product as apple mash. Ease of preparation (below we will analyze the recipe step by step and you will see how easy it is) is combined with great taste. With a small strength, this drink is still able to noticeably intoxicate, so it should be used with caution. It is also good that you can use carrion for its preparation.

Step by step recipe

Sort the apples, sort out the rotten ones. Clean, wash, cut. Squeeze out the juice in the way that is convenient for you. Pour a bag of dry yeast and a kilogram of sugar into it (this is the proportion for 5 liters of juice and one package of yeast). Place this blank in a high volume bottle. From above, on the neck of the container, you should put on the one bought at the pharmacy, and pierce it with a needle. Instead, you can use a special device called a "fermentation sheet". Now the drink should stay in a dark place for about a month. When the glove stops inflating, this will mean the end of fermentation. Now the apple mash should be filtered until transparent. It can be used to make homemade moonshine.

If you didn’t get apple mash

Let's take a look at some common mistakes to avoid the next time you make a drink. The fermentation process has many subtleties, so it is difficult for a novice winemaker and just an amateur to avoid failure.

Let's pay attention to several factors that interfere with the manufacture of mash. The first one is too little or too much sugar. Keep in mind that fruits contain natural carbohydrates. Apples, for example, are a medium sweet food. If you have sour fruits, you will need to add more sugar. The second negative factor should be called the choice of low-quality yeast. Many take bakers. But this is wrong. When they are used, it is released that can spoil the taste of the drink. Also, the baking product is formed by volatile impurities, the presence of which requires additional purification of the drink, and abundant foam. Special alcohol yeast has advantages over all others and allows you to get the best drink. They will also shorten the fermentation time. Do not forget to buy a special activator, which is an organic top dressing for alcohol yeast.

In our country, apples are highly revered. And they eat them in the most diverse way - in compote, salad, mashed potatoes, jam, pies. And do not forget about the culture of distillation. Apple moonshine has always been the most common in the USSR and Russia after sugar. Most likely, large harvests, especially individual years, have an impact.

At first glance, apples are easy to process. In reality, this is not the case: there is a huge discrepancy in recipes and dosages when preparing products. This has its own charm - in the uniqueness of each particular recipe.

But there are still general rules for production technology. Braga as a whole is prepared according to a recipe that includes water, yeast, sugar. And, of course, the fruits themselves. With the option of preparing mash without yeast, it will be necessary to remove it in a warm place.

Fruit should be properly prepared: try not to wash the fruit, as natural bacteria are located on the skin to promote fermentation. It is also necessary to remove the boxes and stalks from the seeds, which give a not very pleasant bitter aftertaste. We do not forget about possible rotten places to avoid the ingress of harmful impurities, and the raw material for the future drink is ready.

How to cook

To prepare juice from apples, the following is required: apples are processed into puree, sugar is added in the proportion of one glass - 1 kilogram. We mix the wort and pulp until the sugar dissolves and infuse at room temperature for four days. When the mash ripens, we separate it from the cake, preferably with gauze.

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Add sugar to the filtered liquid with the calculation of one kilogram - one glass. We mix everything thoroughly and put it on fermentation for half a month. After the mash is ready, it is recommended to overtake it twice to get the result in the form of apple moonshine.

As we found out, there are many options for apple moonshine, so let's focus on the five most typical ones. Cooking them is not as difficult as you might think.

Eternal classic from mash

We note with confidence that the drink associated with the brew according to the description below is liked by the absolute majority. We take a kilogram of 30 apples, 20 liters of water, 2-4 kilograms of sugar and 10 grams of dry wine type yeast. Apples should be processed before crushing to get a coarse-grained gruel. Be sure to try the resulting mixture to determine the water-sugar calculation.

With the predominance of acidic types of apples in the must, lay the maximum amount of water-sugar solution. And with the predominance of sweet or unripe apples, we reduce such a calculation to options of 3 kilos of sand and 15 water-sugar product, or even 2 and 10 kilograms, respectively.

If everything is clear in the proportions, then add 9/10 cool pre-poured water and mix everything, and make sugar syrup in the rest. We make cooling to 30 degrees, place it in the blank for the wort, stir again.

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At the same time, we dilute the yeast contents in water heated to 35 degrees, leaving for 20 minutes. Add the resulting product to the fermentation tank and mix everything again. The container is then closed with a lid with a water seal and left for 21 days in a dry and warm place. Do not forget to eliminate the surface cake. With its full sediment at the bottom of the container and the liquid changing in favor of light and bitterness, you can safely start distilling the contents.

Apple pomace in mash

After the appearance of juice, the so-called apple pomace remains. The result is interesting - the approximate equivalent of the famous apple chacha. To prepare it, you will need a dozen kilos of the cake itself, 5 kg. sugar, 35 liters of water and yeast. You can take 100 grams of dry or a pound of pressed type.

So, the cake should be placed under water at a temperature of 30 degrees. Then sand and yeast solution are added. Close the fermentation container tightly with a water seal, leave to rest in warmth and without moisture. And then apply the technology described in the first recipe of the classic plan.

Apple juice and mash

This option will delight genuine gourmets of this kind of drink. As a result, we get apple brandy, the base of which will be pure juice. This is truly the most perfect type of taste and aroma. To the classic ingredients in the form of apple juice about 15 liters, sand about 3 kg., 200 grams of yeast, honey and lemon zest are added to taste.

Let the juice stand for a few days beforehand. Then it is decanted from the sediment, and mixed with sugar and yeast, or rather their solution. Add lemon zest and honey if desired. The resulting substance should be stored in a dim room for 30 days with occasional stirring. And now, after a month's rest, the finished mash is ready for use.

Braga from apples for moonshine is an excellent base that helps to make moonshine with a pleasant smell and taste at home. In fairness, it should be said that you can make juice and jam from apples at home. But if there is no point in replenishing stocks, then you can pay attention to the production of distillate. In addition, slightly spoiled fruits can be used to make moonshine, but on condition that they undergo some training.

Alcoholic drink from apple mash

Braga for moonshine can be made from almost any product. As for apples, there are at least two recipes that can be used without fear of spoiling the raw materials. In the process of making distillate, you can use not only fruits, but also juice.

Apple mash is a special product, the production of which should be approached with all responsibility. Fruit-based distillate has a number of disadvantages and a number of advantages. You can call these shortcomings minor, but still it is worth having an idea of \u200b\u200ball the nuances before starting to create an apple base suitable for the production of moonshine.

So what are the disadvantages of:

When using wild yeast, the mash ferments for a long time.
When sugar is added, some of the flavor is lost.
It will require patience and perseverance in the manufacture of wort.
We'll have to sort through the apples and separate them from the seeds and cut out the core.

When making mash based on wild yeast (that is, using only those microorganisms that are present on the surface of fruits, berries and grains), it should be borne in mind that the mash will be ready in about 30–45 days.

The apple base is sugar sensitive. You can supplement the brew with fructose or identify individual proportions that will help maintain the quality of alcohol and at the same time speed up the fermentation process.

To make puree from a large number of fruits, you will have to be patient. Of course, you can use a grater or blender. But it is better to purchase a special nozzle for a drill - it will help to grind fruits in large quantities.

When the apples are processed into a puree, they should be immersed, along with the juice, in a fermentation container.
After the puree is sent to the container, it is necessary to dilute the sugar in warm water. You can prepare syrup - this will significantly improve the quality of the distillate, or you can simply pour sugar into the container and pour it with warm water.
Then the yeast comes into play. They will have to be diluted, based on the instructions that are on the package. Yeast should be allowed to soak a little in warm water, and then sent to other components of the future moonshine. If wild yeast is used, then skip this step.
After the mash, mix thoroughly to saturate it with oxygen, which is necessary for a full-fledged fermentation process.
The final stage in the process of preparing the mash is to consider closing the container with a lid equipped with a water seal. If there is no such device, then we use a glove - we make a small hole in the middle finger and put the glove on the container.

We send to a room with a stable temperature. After 5-10 days, it will be ready for processing, but on condition that the manufacturer used wine, alcohol or baker's yeast. But the wild yeast product will be ready in about 45 days.

Apple-based mash recipes may differ in various additions, you can use any fruit, make adjustments to the recipe. But the above recipe should be considered a classic, it will allow you to cook a quality product with a pleasant taste and aroma at home.

Braga recipe for moonshine with juice

A mash made from juice can be used as a base. It will help to expel the moonshine with a bright aroma of fruit.

To create a quality drink, you will need the following ingredients:

5 liters of good juice from apples (naturally, the juice should not be packaged, but prepared on your own).
1 kilogram of sugar (you can refuse to use sugar if the apples were sweet or reduce its amount).
Water (we calculate the proportions as follows: 200 milliliters per 1 liter of juice and 3 liters per 1 kilogram of sugar).
30 grams of dry yeast (if we use wild yeast in the manufacturing process of the product, then dry microorganisms can be replaced with raisins in the proportion of 30 grams per 1 liter of juice).

If wild yeast is used in the production process, then raisins should not be washed, just like apples before creating juice. Fruits should be wiped with a dry cloth. Washing will kill all microorganisms and cause the mash to turn sour.

So, when all the components are ready, we proceed to create the mash. The process is not particularly complicated, it takes place in several stages:

Add juice to the container, mix it with sugar and yeast. It is advisable to soak the yeast before sending it to the container. You can make syrup from sugar or simply dissolve it in warm water.
Then thoroughly mix the components and send them to a room with a stable temperature. The temperature should not exceed 28 degrees. After 5-10 days, the product will be ready for processing, provided that dry or pressed yeast was used in the manufacturing process. Based on wild yeast, the mash will be ready for distillation in 45-60 days. It all depends on the activity of microorganisms.

We make moonshine from mash

After the mash is ready for processing, it will have to be filtered. As a filter, gauze folded in several layers or a cotton-gauze filter is used. Filtration will help remove large apple residues and avoid damage to the mash during the distillation process.

If the product burns to the walls of the distillation cube, then you can pour out the mash and put in a new one. The burning taste and the corresponding aroma cannot be removed even after repeated distillation in the apparatus.

After the product has been filtered, it should be poured into a still and distilled. It is better to carry out with the separation of "heads" and "tails", it is worth taking away the "body" until the fortress in the jet drops to 30 degrees.

If, after the first distillation, moonshine from apples is cloudy, it is recommended to distill it again, since it is likely that the drink is rich in fusel oils. In principle, turbidity is a normal phenomenon, you can simply pass alcohol through the filter several times. But if the turbidity remains, the product should still be reprocessed - this will affect the taste of the drink, eliminate the aroma, but significantly increase the quality of the moonshine.

It is worth noting that apple-based recipes are incredibly popular among distillers. They allow you to create a drink at home at no special cost that can compete with purchased alcohol.

Homemade apple moonshine is very popular with many distillers. There are plenty of raw materials to obtain apple mash, because these fruits grow in almost every garden and in considerable quantities.

To prepare this drink, any variety of apples is suitable, and the sweeter they are, the less sugar is required. The raw materials for apple moonshine can be: apple juice, juice pomace, apple pulp or dried fruits.

Apples can also be used to make delicious light cider, calvados or drinking brew, which will replace a mug of rye kvass in hot summers. This article will present simple and proven recipes for making apple mash for moonshine.

How to choose apples

Before proceeding with the production of moonshine or cider it is necessary to select the appropriate fruit for each type of drink. Almost any apple is suitable for moonshine, and unnecessary can be cut off. But for cider, only the best fruits are needed.

In addition to taste and aroma, different varieties of apples differ in the content of fruit acids and sugar. Therefore, when preparing mash for cider or moonshine, these quality characteristics of apples must be taken into account.

sweet apples go only for yeast-free fermentation. Add sugar, water and yeast to sour ones. When using a specific recipe, you can use the following data on varieties, where the first digit is% sugar, the second is% fruit acids:

Unsorted sweet and sour - 10/0.9.
Sour varieties or wild game - 6 / 1.3.
Sweet-20/1.
Tart garden and sweet and sour - 16/1.

In order for the apple brew for moonshine to reach well and give the desired product yield and the required degree, sugar is added to unsorted sweet-sour and sour fruits. More acidic apples will ferment sooner because the environment is acidic.

Fruit preparation

To get delicious apple mash for moonshine, the fruits are well prepared. If possible, it is better not to wash the fruit, as the bacteria and natural yeast that "live" on the peel will further contribute to fermentation.

To avoid an unpleasant bitter aftertaste of the final product, it is necessary to remove the stalks and seed pods containing tannins. To avoid harmful impurities, rotting places are also cut out.

Popular Recipes

From applesauce - yeast

Simple apple brew for moonshine It is made from any variety in terms of sugar content and acidity. This will require:

Apples - 30 kg.
Water (not boiled and settled for a day) - 20 liters.
Pressed yeast - 100 gr.
Sugar - 3.7 kg.

Yeast from juice

This recipe making mash from ready-made juice which must be 100% natural. You can add a little sugar and citric acid. For cooking you will need:

Juice - 5l.
Sugar - 1 kg.
Yeast (pressed) - 30 gr.

We mix all the ingredients in a fermentation container, after which we leave it for a month in a warm and dark place with a tightly closed lid (water seal). At the end of the process, we filter and get raw materials for moonshine or excellent cider.

Yeast-free from apples

Before making the mash according to the specified recipe, it is necessary to check the selected variety. To do this, prepare a puree of 200 gr. sugar and 1 kg of apples, and watch how fermentation is going on, which should begin after 1-1.5 days, proceeding quite actively. Required Ingredients:

Apples - 10 kg.
Wheat sprouts or raisins - 100 gr.
Sugar - from 4 kg.

The famous Calvados can be made from homemade moonshine no worse than the factory version. In fact, this is the distillation of apple cider and the subsequent aging of the product in oak barrels. The main condition for this is the observance of all the proportions that are indicated in the recipe when making cider from apples and the exact following of the technological process.

For making cider, which will be later turned into brandy, several varieties of apples are taken:

Sweet (sugar content over 7%) - 70%.
Sour varieties - 20%.
Gorky - 10%.

Classic cider

After getting the juice the remaining apple cake can also be used. At the output, this will turn out to be a kind of equivalent of the famous chacha, only apple. For this you will need:

Apple cake - 10 kg.
Sugar - 5 kg.
Pressed yeast - 500 gr.
Water-35 l.

Braga from apples for drinking

Drinking apple mash is essentially a low-alcohol refreshing drink or cider that is quite palatable. For its preparation, the following ingredients are used:

Sweet varieties of apples - 5 kg.
Sour apple varieties - 5 kg.

Such a drink can be prepared using yeast and sugar, but drinking it in its pure form will not be so useful and pleasant, since such a mash will contain toxic substances that can be harmful to health.

Selection of fresh fruits

When selecting fruit for mash, it is not advisable to use fallen apples with rot. But if you still can’t do without apple droplets, you need to carefully cut out all the rotten places so that the semi-finished product for moonshine does not turn out to be too bitter.

10 percent rule

When putting the wort into the fermentation tank, it is necessary to leave about 10 percent of free space so that the accumulation of carbon dioxide and foam does not create excessive pressure on the water seal and the tank itself.

Baker's yeast is not for quality alcohol

Baker's yeast is sometimes used to make mash, but despite the fact that the fermentation process is accelerated, the product itself eventually acquires a characteristic unpleasant smell and taste.

Braga sugar with apples

If you add pieces of apples to the usual preparation for moonshine (sugar-yeast), then at the end of the fermentation process you will get a refined sugar mash with apples.

Experiment

When it is quite acceptable to mix apples with various fruit and berry ingredients. For example, add grapes or plums to apples. The main thing, at the same time, is that the sugar content of the wort does not exceed 20 percent. Otherwise, fermentation simply will not take place.

Braga from whole apples

What is necessary:

Apples - 30 kg.
Sugar - 4 kg.
Water - 20 l.
Yeast (pressed) - 100 gr.

Depending on the yeast used, the mash will reach readiness in 5-45 days and you can drive moonshine.

double distillation

The resulting mash, made according to the above recipes, filter and make the first distillation using the device of any design. The temperature during distillation should be increased gradually. The first 200-300 ml (“heads”) are poured into a separate container for technical needs. Then we continue to select the product until its strength drops to 35% in the stream.

To give moonshine a pleasant aroma, it can be infused for several days on dried apples, but it must be filtered before the secondary distillation. Measure the total strength of the distillate and dilute to 25-30%.

Then a second distillation is done, where the first 10-12 percent of the pure product is also taken into a separate container for technical purposes, since it is hazardous to health. The product is then withdrawn to a strength of 40% in the jet.

apple distillate

To stabilize the taste of the distillate it is poured into a glass container with an airtight lid and placed for several days in a cool dark place. The resulting apple moonshine can be diluted with water at will up to 40-45 degrees.

Cooked apple distillate is perfect for any holiday or just “warming up”. Its aroma goes well with vegetable and chicken dishes, as well as with cold appetizers. Once you have prepared and tasted this drink, you will definitely want to do it again. Moreover, it is a fairly simple, affordable and cost-effective process.

Attention, only TODAY!

Apples are not only tasty fruits, but also suitable raw materials for making mash. Apples come in different varieties, each with varying degrees of sugar content. Fresh and dry apples, as well as compote and juice from these fruits, are used in home brewing to make mash. As you know, mash is often prepared from water, sugar, yeast and basic raw materials (in this case, apples). Braga from apples without yeast and how it is prepared is an interesting topic for many moonshiners.

Yeast-free alcohol without apples

Everyone knows how to cook mash with the addition of yeast to the wort, and such raw materials are prepared quite quickly - in just 5-7 days. But many moonshiners note that due to the addition of yeast, fruit alcohol acquires a pronounced yeasty smell, while almost no fruity aroma is felt. For this reason, apple brew for moonshine is prepared without alcohol or wine yeast.

Cooking principles

To obtain alcohol-containing raw materials, you need to prepare a mixture of water, yeast and sugar. Under the influence of the vital activity of yeast fungi, sugar breaks down into ethyl alcohol and water. That is, cooking mash without yeast cannot do without any yeast. If the recipe specifies that the mash can be prepared without yeast, then this means that pressed / dry wine, alcohol or baker's yeast is not added to the must. What is the substitute for yeast in this case?

When purchased yeast is excluded from the recipe, this means that the composition of the wort will include wild yeast, which can be found on the surface of unwashed fruits, for example, apples, raisins and others.

It should be borne in mind that it ferments much longer in comparison with the one in which wine or alcohol yeast was not added. Nevertheless, moonshine on apples without the addition of such yeast has a pronounced taste of fruit.

Recipes

First, consider the recipe without yeast raw materials. In this case, a substitute for purchased yeast will be natural yeasts that live on the surface of unwashed fruits.

According to the recipe, the following ingredients are taken for the preparation of mash:

a standard bucket of fragrant apples;
2-3 kilograms of sugar;
water: for every kilogram take 5 liters of water.

Apples for making mash are not washed, they are cut into small pieces so that it is convenient to turn into mashed potatoes. After that, the pieces of apples are turned into a homogeneous mass using a construction mixer or blender. You can also grate the fruit on a fine grater, but this will take several hours.

After that, you can start making sugar syrup. To do this, heat water, add sugar according to the recipe and cook everything over low heat, first removing the foam. The syrup is cooled and added to apples. Everything is thoroughly mixed until a homogeneous mass is formed, after which they put a water seal on the container with the workpiece and place it in a warm dark place.

Since the composition of the must contains only wild yeast, this will affect the duration of the fermentation of the mash. Apple mash with wild yeast can ferment for more than a month, which is considered the norm. The readiness of apple mash will be indicated by such signs as the cessation of carbon dioxide emission, the separation of the contents of the bottle into liquid and sediment, as well as the appearance of the smell of alcohol.

The mash obtained from apples is carefully separated from the sediment and poured into the distillation cube of the moonshine still. To get the mash, you will need to overtake twice, not forgetting about the intermediate purification of raw materials.

There is another recipe for making apple mash without adding wine or alcohol yeast. In this case, such yeast is replaced with unwashed raisins. To prepare apple mash, you need to take a kilogram of apples, wash the fruits, and thoroughly clean them from traces of rot. After that, the apples are cut into small pieces, which are crushed into a puree.

7 liters of water are poured into apples, after which sugar diluted with a liter of water is added to them. 50 grams of unwashed raisins are added to the wort, a water seal is installed on the container with it and the future mash is placed in a warm place without access to the sun's rays. Braga on apples and raisins without yeast can ferment from 30 to 45 days, and all this time you need to monitor the condition of the must. The finished mash is distilled 2 times.

Apple mash can also be made from the juice of these fruits. To do this, prepare 10 liters of juice and 2 kilograms of sugar. In this recipe, yeast is replaced with unwashed raisins, taken in an amount of 50-70 grams. The juice is thoroughly mixed with apples, raisins are added to the must and a water seal is placed on a container with these components. Ferment the must for 30-45 days, so it is recommended to constantly monitor its condition.

Ready mash without yeast is distilled twice.

Features of distillation

Braga from apples and any other fruits is a raw material that contains not only ethyl alcohol, but also such harmful impurities as methyl alcohol, acetone and others. It is possible to clean the mash from harmful components only with the help of proper distillation.

During the first distillation, the mash turns into raw alcohol. During the first distillation, alcohol is taken before its strength drops to 30%. Moonshine obtained after the first distillation will be cloudy, which is considered the norm. This haze will be removed by purification and a second distillation.

Before re-distillation, the total strength of the resulting distillate should be measured. To do this, you need to calculate the content of pure alcohol in it. That is, if the output is 2 liters of moonshine at 60 revolutions, then such a drink of 1.2 liters will consist of pure ethyl.

Moonshine from apples without yeast is diluted up to 20% with water. If there is a desire to get a drink with a pronounced taste of apples, then cleaning with charcoal, potassium permanganate and other means is not recommended.

During the second distillation, the first 8-12% of the volume of pure alcohol is taken into a separate container. The selected part of the raw material is the “heads”, which should not be present in moonshine, since they are poisonous.

The main part (core) is taken before the drop of the fortress in the jet to 40%. Moonshine obtained from apples, if desired, is diluted with water to the required strength. You can store such a drink for several years in a row, but only if it is in glass containers, not plastic.