How to remove essential oils from moonshine. Cleaning moonshine in traditional ways! Cleansing with potassium permanganate
Not only in industrial conditions, but also in home kitchens, delicious and useful tinctures, liqueurs, liqueurs, brandy and whiskey. But in order for the organoleptic of the product to correspond to the reference one, it is necessary to clean the moonshine from fusel oils and other impurities that spoil the taste.
In addition, they harm health, lead to alcoholism and cirrhosis. From our selection of articles, you will learn how to purify one or another type of distillate, what ingredients are best used for this.
In order to develop in your favorite business and create more and more high-quality home-made alcohol, you need to replenish knowledge.
This will help the articles of our section, telling how to clean moonshine to bring it to High Quality without industrial equipment.
Coal issues
From the proposed articles you will learn:
- Why purification of moonshine is in the first place and which system to choose, how to create it yourself.
- Is it possible to combine distillation with the simultaneous removal of impurities and fusel oils.
- How to cook and activate charcoal yourself.
- Which one is better - for the needs of the moonshiner.
- Where to buy and how to properly assemble a carbon filter with a pump.
- How effectively household moonshine works, what are the advantages and disadvantages of this method.
Find the answer for yourself whether it is necessary to clean moonshine at various stages of manufacture and why it is so important.
home remedies
Articles are devoted to this topic about how familiar substances from the first-aid kit and refrigerator work at home:
- you will find out the opinion of experts on controversial issues regarding the use of . Is it true that it does more harm than good? In what cases is the application justified, and in what cases it is unacceptable;
- we have collected proportions and rules, methods of using and combining different products. We will tell you how to make the cleaning of moonshine as effective as possible and no harmful impurities remain in it;
- develop your doubts about the need for a double distillation and find out how to quickly remove harmful substances from raw alcohol using;
- Do you want your home-made alcohol to surpass store-bought vodka in terms of taste and quality? We will tell you how best to use: which one to choose, at what stage to apply, how to filter the product;
- step-by-step and detailed instructions for using the combination will help you avoid mistakes and expel soft moonshine without an unpleasant aftertaste.
Various cleaning methods are presented in the article on proven ones:
- pasteurized milk;
- soda;
- fruits and berries;
- vegetable oil.
You will learn how to filter the product after the precipitation is completed so that harmful compounds do not enter it again.
Recipes are devoted to improving the organoleptics of homemade alcohol that will help you get rid of the fusel smell of moonshine and turn it into a drink that is pleasant to drink.
You will find ways, even if cleaning the moonshine did not bring the desired result. You will also figure out what mistakes you made and at what stage in the preparation of alcohol, and you can avoid them in the future by making your product ideal in home-brewing.
Remember that the best cleaning is achieved only by combining various ways, which you will learn about by reading the proposed materials with advice from experienced distillers. Study, apply the information in practice and do not forget to recommend articles to friends through social networks.
The primary reason that prompts the purification of moonshine is the state of withdrawal, which occurs after the use of an unrefined drink. In other words, abstinence? it's a hangover syndrome. But it is worth noting that a hangover is not the worst adverse condition that can take you by surprise in the morning. An unrefined drink can cause poisoning of the body, because it contains a lot of harmful, hazardous to health, impurities, fusel oils, and also has an unpleasant odor.
What are fusel oils and why are they dangerous
During the fermentation process, in the preparation of alcoholic beverages, both at home and in factory conditions, toxic substances and impurities are inevitably formed. Fusel oil? it is a single complex of one-component substances, which is a by-product of alcoholic fermentation. This collection of toxins visually represents a reddish or yellowish liquid, resembling oil in consistency, with a very unpleasant characteristic odor.
These oils not only have a detrimental effect on the mucous membrane, but are also truly capable of poisoning the human body. Fusel elements, getting into the bloodstream, cause severe dizziness in a person, loss of orientation in space, and also provoke nausea. A properly prepared drink does not contain a huge dose of the toxins presented, but they are quite enough to cause serious damage to the body.
A variety of ways to clean moonshine
There are different recipes and methods for cleaning and filtering moonshine at home. Some are physical or chemical methods, while others simply involve distilling the drink multiple times until the purest result is obtained. In order to purify moonshine, it is necessary to take into account the fact that at a higher alcohol strength and temperature, toxic substances and harmful impurities are more strongly retained in the final product. Therefore, moonshine should be diluted with water so that its strength varies from 40 to 45 °.
Cleaning moonshine with milk
This method will help get rid of the characteristic unpleasant odor and improve the taste of the product. A simple and reliable recipe allows you to combine other elements that contribute to cleaning at home. To clean moonshine from harmful fusel oils, you will need to perform the following steps in a certain order:
- It is necessary to take 100 ml of pasteurized milk and add it to a 10 liter container with alcohol.
- Mix thoroughly and cover the container with a lid.
- Then you should keep the solution in this form for a week, stirring every day.
- After 7 days, the liquid should be carefully drained and filtered through gauze or cotton wool.
Cleaning moonshine with soda or salt
This method is short term due to the use of an absorbent solution baking soda or salt. A huge plus
This method is a quick cleaning of the drink, which takes place within 24 hours. The recipe is easy to follow, it requires:
- Take 10 g of soda dissolved in 100 ml clean water, per 1 liter of moonshine 40? 45 °.
- Then add the alkaline essence to a container with moonshine.
- Seal the container and shake or stir thoroughly.
- Let stand for about 45 minutes.
- Repeat the shaking or mixing procedure and leave in a cool place for 10-15 hours.
- Next, it is necessary to drain from the sediment and filter through gauze or cotton wool, after wrapping crushed activated carbon in the filter.
Manganese purification of moonshine
More effective chemical cleaning is achieved by combining potassium permanganate with soda. This method has a number of significant advantages, which are that soda contributes to the withdrawal of such a substance as acetic acid, and potassium permanganate cleans moonshine from fusel oils. This recipe requires a clear implementation of the steps in the prescribed order:
- Potassium permanganate in the amount of 1.5 g is diluted with 200 ml of pure water. The resulting solution is added to 1 liter of moonshine. Proportions are important and it is strictly forbidden to change them.
- Next, you need to prepare a solution of soda according to the above recipe.
- The resulting alkali solution is added to a container with moonshine, thoroughly mixing the liquid.
- Then the alcoholic drink needs to stand for about 30 minutes.
- The container is sealed and placed in a cool place for 10-14 hours.
- After the expiration date, the drink should be filtered, and then the product should be re-distilled.
At redistillation, this method allows you to achieve a high-quality and clean drink, in which the taste will acquire sophistication, and the unpleasant smell will completely disappear.
Cleaning moonshine with vegetable oil
The oil cleaning recipe causes the removal of fusel from moonshine oils. In order to avoid the transition of a third-party smell into moonshine, it is necessary to use raw materials with a weak aroma, and it is better that the oil is completely odorless. Cleaning technology consists of the following procedure:
- It is necessary to dilute moonshine with water until a fortress of 20 ° is reached.
- For 1 liter of moonshine there are 20 ml of oil, which is added to the drink.
- The container is sealed and shaken continuously for a minute, then the liquid settles for about 5 minutes and the shaking procedure is repeated with the same time.
- Then the solution must stand for 24 hours in a cool place.
- After a day, you will need to remove the collected oily film, then re-distill the moonshine.
The product, purified with oil and filtered through gauze with activated charcoal, is redistilled with separation of fractions.
Cleaning moonshine with activated or charcoal
Activated or charcoal are excellent as
cleaning agent for alcoholic beverages prepared by one's own hands. The convenience of this method is the use of a carbon filter during the distillation process. To create a filter, you will need the following elements:
- Purchase activated charcoal. This can be done in a regular pharmacy.
- Next, you need to grind the coal to a powder state.
- Then you should take an ordinary household watering can in the form of a funnel, put gauze rolled up in several layers, or cotton wool into it.
- Pour coal into a watering can equipped with a filter at the rate of 50 g per 1 liter of drink
- Put a funnel under the faucet of the moonshine and drip the drink. Or just pour the coal into a container with moonshine, mix and leave for 2 weeks, shaking or stirring daily. After the expiration of the period, the liquid should be filtered several times through cheesecloth, rolled up in 2-3 layers.
Cleaning moonshine with egg white
Casein and albumin? these are the main substances contained in egg whites, which have impeccable absorbing qualities. Thanks to these elements, fusel oils combine with protein and precipitate,
forming a substance in the form of white flakes. The method is not difficult to implement, for this you need to perform the following steps:
- For 1 liter of drink there are 2 eggs, followed by separation of the yolk from the protein.
- Proteins must be added to water and beat it all with a mixer (100 ml of water is used for 1 liter of alcohol).
- Pour the resulting liquid into the alcohol product and mix thoroughly.
- Let moonshine stand for a week in a cool environment.
- For better absorption of fusel oils, during the allotted time, shake the container every 12 hours daily.
- After the moonshine settles, and the sediment accumulates at the bottom, the drink must be drained and filtered through a cotton or gauze filter.
Purification of moonshine using rye bread crumb
In the old days, most effective way cleaning of an alcoholic drink with the help of a crumb of freshly baked bread was considered. Subsequent use
With this method, moonshine lost its unpleasant odor and fusel oils. The recipe for this type of cleaning requires strict adherence to certain actions:
- First of all, you need to purify alcohol with an absorbent product: egg white, coal.
- For 1 liter of moonshine there is about 100 g of bread crumb.
- It is necessary to crumble the crumb, pour into a container with an alcoholic drink and mix thoroughly.
- Next, you should securely seal the container and put it in a cool place for 2-3 days.
- Then moonshine is filtered.
Alcoholic drink should be filtered twice, and after? re-distill, due to this, the taste will improve and the unpleasant smell will disappear.
Cleaning moonshine with a water filter
Aquaphor or Barrier water filters are great as a homemade alcoholic drink cleanser. Its use does not require any skills or additional equipment, it is enough to drive the moonshine through the filter twice in order to get purified alcohol.
Frosty cleaning moonshine
In fact, this method requires nothing but low temperatures. To purify moonshine from harmful impurities, fusel oils and other
toxins, simply freeze the drink and drain the unfrozen alcohol residue. This procedure should be repeated until frost forms on the container, and the sediment in the form of a liquid stops forming.
Moonshine cleaning process? this is the last action, during which the purest drink is obtained. There are a huge number of methods, and each moonshiner will find a suitable one for himself. The main thing to remember is a simple truth: if alcohol created by oneself has a cloudy color, then this means that it contains fusel oils, which must be disposed of. The above recipes will help in achieving the best result.
Moonshine cleaning can be done in various ways. But in no case should it be neglected, because it is this procedure that relieves alcoholic drink from harmful impurities, methanol and fusel oils. It is not enough to prepare a good mash and properly overtake the moonshine. If you want an alcoholic drink prepared at home to be really tasty and safe for human health, it must be cleaned without fail. That is why the moonshiner needs to know some ways to clean moonshine at home.
Currently, there are many different methods for cleaning moonshine at home. To some extent, each of the methods is considered very effective. But it is worth considering the most effective of them.
Charcoal cleansing
How to filter moonshine at home using coal? Answering this question, it is worth noting that this particular method is considered one of the best. After such purification, the drink becomes better. In order to carry out this procedure at home, it is best to use charcoal. But if you do not have the opportunity to get this coal, then you can use activated.
There are two main methods for carrying out such purification of moonshine:
After this time, the moonshine must be drained from the sediment and additionally filtered through a cotton-gauze filter.
The amount of charcoal plays a huge role here. It must be remembered that for every liter of moonshine you need to take about 50 g of coal cleaner.
Cleansing with fruits
To get rid of all impurities and give the product a fruity note, you can use moonshine purification before the second distillation with various fruits. The result is a drink with a distinct fruity flavor.
For 3 liters of moonshine with a strength of about 25 degrees, for example, 1 carrot and one apple are taken. The fruit and vegetable is cut into large pieces, while the core must be removed from the apple. Carrots and an apple are placed in a container with moonshine. The drink must be infused for 3 days, until the fibers peel off from the fruit. When this begins to happen, they can be pulled out of the drink, and the solution must be distilled or consumed in this form.
Cleansing with potassium permanganate
This method of cleaning moonshine is often called chemical. This will require potassium permanganate, which is popularly called simply potassium permanganate.
Using such cleaning, a precipitate should fall out at the bottom of the jar. Do not be afraid of this, this phenomenon is considered normal.
After that, you can filter. First, you can use cotton wool for filtration, and then any water filter. Usually, after a similar procedure. even the most cloudy moonshine is transformed.
Bread cleaning
To make a cleansing moonshine in this way, you will need fresh rye bread. Ideally, it should be warm. Bread must be cut into small pieces, while removing all the crusts. It is important to pay attention to the fact that only crumbs are required, which additionally need to be crushed.
Next, the bread crumbs must be sent to a container with an alcoholic drink, after which it is sealed with a hermetically sealed plastic lid. Let moonshine brew for 2 days in a dark room. After this time, you can proceed to filtering the drink with gauze and cotton wool. It is worth noting that the spent crumb should not be wrung out.
Cleaning moonshine with milk
The benefits and harms of moonshine are probably known to everyone. But at the same time, it must undergo a mandatory cleaning procedure. Speaking about cleaning with milk, it is worth noting that there are two main conditions for the effective operation of the technique:
- It is best to use skim milk. If this is not available, then you need to take a drink with a fat content of up to 1%.
- The strength of moonshine before cleaning should be from 45 to 59 degrees.
It is also necessary to observe the correct proportions. For 5 liters of alcohol-containing drink, from 50 to 75 ml of milk is taken. It is important to comply with this condition.
When the required amount of milk is added to the moonshine, the contents must be thoroughly mixed in the container, cork it with a lid and let it brew in the pantry for a week. Every day, the drink must be shaken. After this time the drink drains from the sediment and passed through a cotton filter.
Egg white
It is necessary to take a three-liter glass jar, pour 2.5 liters of moonshine into it. After that, you need to take 5 chicken eggs, separate the whites from the yolks. Please note that one protein cleans 500 ml of moonshine. Compliance with this condition is important. If the proteins from the yolks are separated poorly, then the alcoholic drink will emit a not too pleasant egg smell.
In a container with egg whites, add 250 ml of clean water at room temperature. Using a mixer, the proteins must be turned into a homogeneous mixture. Beat egg whites until a rich foam appears on the surface.
The resulting protein mass must be poured into a jar with a drink and mix well. It is good to cork the container with moonshine with a lid and put it in a dark place for 5 days. Shake the contents of the jar thoroughly every day. . However, on the last day the drink does not need to be touched so that the sediment completely settles to the bottom. Next, you can move on to filtering. First, filtration is done through cotton wool, and then through gauze.
Freezing or freezing
The main advantage of this method of cleaning moonshine is its extreme simplicity and affordability. Before starting the procedure Moonshine must be poured into an aluminum pan. The pan is covered with a lid and placed in the freezer. Moonshine should be frozen in the freezer for 12 to 15 hours. Thus, during the freezing process, water, fusel oils, and other harmful impurities freeze to the walls of the container. Since ethyl alcohol has a lower freezing point, it remains liquid.
With this method of cleaning, it must be remembered that after freezing, the volume of the drink will decrease. And for this reason, his fortress will increase.
Cleaning oil
To use this method of cleaning moonshine, you can use only good, refined, odorless oil. If you use unrefined oil, then the whole smell will be transferred to an alcoholic drink.
Refined vegetable oil must be added to a container with alcohol. In this case, the necessary proportions must be observed: 20 ml of oil is taken per 1 liter of alcohol. After that, the container is tightly covered with a plastic lid, and then the contents of the container are actively shaken for 2 minutes. This procedure must be repeated several times, and then leave the moonshine to infuse for 12 hours.
After this time, with lowered to the bottom of the tube the drink must be poured into a clean container.
Cleaning with baking soda
It doesn’t matter at all what recipes were used to prepare moonshine or chacha, it will perfectly lend itself to cleaning with soda. But before using this method, you must first dilute the alcohol with water to a strength of 41 degrees.
Baking soda for cleaning is taken at the rate of 1 g of powder per 100 ml of moonshine. But before that, soda must be dissolved in water. The amount of water is equal to the amount of soda, for example, 50 g of soda is diluted in 50 ml of water, and then the resulting solution is added to 5 liters of alcohol.
When the soda solution is added to the container with the drink, it must be well corked and shaken well. Let the moonshine brew for an hour, and then shake again. After that, alcohol is placed in a dark room for 12 hours. After this time, alcohol must be filtered with several cotton pads.
There are also other cleaning methods. homemade vodka. These include cleaning: kefir, gelatin, bran, salt, pine nut shells, lime. But they do not differ much in their effectiveness. That is why it is recommended to use the above methods.
Why there is an unpleasant odor
A sharp unpleasant odor in moonshine can be caused by the following reasons:
- Poor-quality cleaning of moonshine.
- Too much heat mash distillation.
- Before the distillation of moonshine alcohol mashine was poorly washed.
One of the above reasons will be enough for the noble drink to turn into what the people call the whole fuselage. To prevent this from happening, moonshine at the preparation stage must be cleaned without fail.
Infusion of a drink to eliminate odor
To make it pleasant to use moonshine, it is quite often additionally flavored with various natural methods. To improve the smell of homemade moonshine, you can use the following methods:
In conclusion, it is worth noting that the process of cleaning or clarifying moonshine will become more effective if you combine several of the above methods at the same time. Any moonshine needs to remove impurities. If at the same time one or more methods of purification of the drink and secondary distillation are used, then you can end up with a drink that will be much better in its purity than any factory alcoholic product. And in this case, your friends and you will hear about the hangover only in jokes.
Attention, only TODAY!
Any alcoholic drink, including wine and, contains fusel oil. Experts who are well versed in alcohol call it the "soul" of the drink, since its unique organoleptic properties depend on this component.
First of all, let's figure out what it is and where it comes from? This term is called oily compounds that occur during fermentation and partially pass into the finished distillate.
Extracted from alcohol (which is possible only in laboratory conditions), they have a color from light yellow to brown-red and an oily consistency. In moonshine, they are simply dissolved. The concept of "fusel oils" includes more than 40 chemical compounds, divided into two groups:
- The boiling point of which is lower than that of ethyl alcohol (it has 78.4 ° C). The most famous of these are acetone and esters with acetaldehyde.
- The boiling point of these substances is more than 78.4°C. Among them, alcohols predominate, as well as furfural, acetyl and other toxic compounds.
The benefits of fuselage
Many consider fusel oils to be the culprit of a severe hangover. And they are very wrong! Our bodies perceive any alcohol as a poison. The liver tries to break it down and quickly remove it from the body.
But there is a "hiccup" here. It is pure poison that acts sharper and stronger! And impurities, which are fusel oils, soften the process and prevent hangover.
And the main culprits of headaches and debilitating nausea are acetic acid and acetaldehyde. It is “thanks” to them that during the breakdown in the liver it is washed out a large number of magnesium. What causes such a deplorable state of the body.
Therefore, supposedly pure vodka () has a much worse hangover, and the occurrence of alcoholism is 8 times more likely than from other drinks. Although when using, for example, whiskey, neither such a hangover nor such a frequent addiction is observed, although it contains 200-400 times more fusel oils. In cognac - 50 times.
And the whole thing - in proper cleaning. There is no need to remove all impurities, but it is important - the most harmful.
Is there any harm?
Naturally, we will not sing the praises of the sivuha, all the same, there is also a lot of harm from it. Let's start with what she gives moonshine disgusting smell, because of which it is sometimes impossible to drink it. And the taste of unrefined moonshine leaves much to be desired.
Some fusel oils, for example, the same one, which is also called technical or wood alcohol, destroys internal organs, can cause blindness, etc. And this is in small quantities!
Another type of alcohol - isoamyl, literally "burns" digestive system, forming foci of irritation and vesicles that can turn into ulcers. Furfural affects the mucous membranes of the eyes, nose, skin, causes eczema.
Concentration
We can more or less accurately indicate the amount of fusel oils in purchased types of alcohol. So, in their vodka, according to GOST, no more than 15 mg per liter. According to specifications - in wine up to 600, in cognac - up to 12000, whiskey can have up to 6000 mg per liter, that is - more than 6 grams!
It is very difficult to determine the concentration of fusel oils in moonshine, but no one seriously did this, although today in Russia there is a GOST for moonshine, according to which only distillate from grain can be considered moonshine. It prescribes the content of fusel oils within 500 to 6000 mg in terms of anhydrous alcohol.
In some types of homemade alcohol, up to 60% of the fuselage is isoamyl alcohol. The easiest way to determine the concentration is by smell and taste: the more the liquid stinks and the worse the aftertaste, the more fuselage.
How to clean moonshine from smell and fusel oils?
One way to get rid of moonshine from more fusel oils is secondary fractional distillation with separation into fractions.
But even after that, it is desirable to bring its organoleptic to perfection.
Ideally, when a light note of the product from which the mash is made is felt in home-made alcohol and there is absolutely no sivukh. To do this, many methods have been invented, with which we will introduce you.
In order to not be ashamed to put moonshine even in front of dear guests and so that it not only catches up with vodka in taste, but also surpasses it, folk methods cleaning. You can use one of them or try several.
Advice. Test different cleaning agents on small batches of homemade alcohol and compare the results.
Having chosen the best way, “use” all the moonshine.
pasteurized milk
In urban conditions, pasteurized milk of low fat content is used. At home - fat-free, after cream was extracted from it with the help of a separator.
The proportions are contradictory: from 200 ml to 2 liters per 10 liters of moonshine with a strength of 45 °. Pour milk into alcohol, stir well and put in a room in a dark place for a week. Shake daily. Do not touch the last day of insistence. At the bottom of the container, a layer of curdled milk with impurities forms.
Peculiarities. Milk contains casein and albumin. They then bind the sivuha and precipitate the oils into sediment, forming flakes.
Strain the alcohol through several layers of cheesecloth, then filter using cotton wool or cotton pads.
Egg white
For 1 liter of moonshine you need 2 egg whites. Beat them without fanaticism (foam is not needed) and mix with alcohol. White flakes will begin to fall out quickly. Filter.
activated or charcoal
You can cook charcoal yourself, or use a purchased one, such as BAU-A, specially designed for cleaning alcohol. 50 g of crushed coal are taken per liter. Shake, defend, filter.
Potassium permanganate
Perfectly cleans moonshine from fusel oils and smell, while forming other chemical compounds, the benefits of which are doubtful. Nevertheless, the method is popular.
You need to take 3-5 g of manganese per three-liter jar of moonshine. It is better to pre-dilute it with warm water, but this is not necessary, it will also dissolve in moonshine. Filter thoroughly through cotton wool.
How to get rid of fuselage by freezing?
The method was adopted from Siberians, who in this way even freeze alcohol from mash. It is enough to place a container of moonshine in the freezer overnight, and in the morning drain the alcohol that has not frozen. Then dilute it to the desired degree. Almost all the sivukh will remain in the frozen part.
Baking soda
This substance is able to neutralize the acetic acid found in crude moonshine. Pour soda at the rate of 1 g per 1 liter. Stir. After 10 minutes, strain through several layers of gauze or filter.
Vegetable oil
Although not everyone likes the method, refined oil cleans moonshine well. Pour in 100 g of oil per 3-liter jar. Shake and stand for a day.
The oil film along with impurities will rise up. Drain with a silicone tube. If necessary, filter further. This way good before the second run.
Water filter
It is popular today to use a water filter as a cleaning agent. Moonshine is poured into a filter jug and passed through a cassette. Store it then in the refrigerator in a plastic bag. But there are doubtful points here. Not everything that is intended for water is suitable for alcohol.
Although the main component of such a filter is coal, there are also impurities that with alcohol may give unknown connections. In addition, it is not recommended to use plastic with alcohol.
Rye bread
Use fresh bread by crumbling it into a jar of moonshine (10L 1kg loaf). The method is considered good, especially in addition to cleaning with milk. Soak overnight, then filter.
Attention. Rye bread gives a pleasant fragrance, but changes the color of alcohol.
Fruit and vegetable mix
For 3 liters of moonshine, take one apple and one carrot. Finely chop and soak in alcohol until the apple and carrot pieces begin to disintegrate into fibers. Then filter.
On the Internet, there are frankly harmful tips that are given by complete laymen in the art of moonshine. They will definitely not help you make moonshine clean and pleasant to drink. We will refer to such salt cleaning which will just make the drink salty and undrinkable. There is advice on how to use washing(soda ash).
Do not be fooled by dubious offers, use methods proven by the people. Perhaps you know more trusted methods in practice - share in the comments with other readers. Share this article with your friends on social media.
Purification of moonshine is a rather important stage that allows you to radically improve the taste and aromatic properties of the product. After the first and second distillations, and even after the high-quality separation of the “heads” and the use of a steamer, the finished alcohol will contain a sufficient amount of oils and other benzene compounds that will spoil the aroma of moonshine.
It is worth noting that the use of serious methods for cleaning moonshine from fusel oils can make it pointless to create moonshine from fruits: aromatic oils, for which the creation of fruit or berry mash was started, will be removed after successful cleaning, and you will get almost pure alcohol. Therefore, the use of methods for cleaning moonshine at home will be appropriate only if you strive to get the purest alcohol possible; in the case of fruit, berry mash, it’s enough just not to use a steamer.
Consider the main methods of cleaning moonshine at home.
One of the main and most popular methods for cleaning moonshine is the use of activated carbon, which can be easily bought in tablets at any pharmacy. Activated charcoal is an ideal absorbent, it was created specifically to absorb various contaminants.
A distinctive feature of this material is that it contains a large number of tiny pores, therefore it has a colossally large specific surface area per unit mass (1 gram of activated carbon has about 1500 m 2 of surface). In addition, activated charcoal tablets can be further crushed in a mortar, which will further increase the area of contact with alcohol.
Purification of moonshine with activated carbon is carried out in the following two ways.
In the first case, during the distillation itself, alcohol from the refrigerator passes through a layer of activated carbon. To do this, paper is placed in the funnel, on which crushed activated carbon is poured. This method is fast enough, but not very effective: the coal in the passageway gets dirty quickly enough, the edges remain clean. In addition, it is impossible to use a large amount of coal.
In the second case, activated carbon is added to a container with alcohol after distillation. To do this, activated carbon in the amount of 50 grams per 1 liter of alcohol is crushed into powder (a simple coffee grinder can be used), after which activated carbon is poured into the container and left for 1, 2 or even 3 weeks. After that, the alcohol must be filtered - for this, cotton wool is used between two layers of gauze, or an ordinary water filter that retains the crushed activated carbon powder.
All world companies for the production of brandy, cognac and are engaged in the purification of alcohols with charcoal. As a rule, cleaning is carried out right during distillation: alcohol passes through a 3-5 meter column of coal immediately after the refrigerator, and enters the collection container already cleaned. It is believed that charcoal purifies alcohols and moonshine even better than activated. However, using it, of course, at home is not as convenient as activated. Well suited coal type BAU-A, BAU-MF, as well as coal "Akvasorb".
Cleaning moonshine with milk
The author of this site is extremely negative about cleaning moonshine with milk and considers this method to be unscientific rubbish. However, the high popularity of this method forces us to at least mention the practice of some moonshiners of using milk to clean moonshine.
People who missed chemistry classes at school and who are confident in their talent as moonshiners claim that moonshine is easily cleaned with milk. According to them, after pouring milk into the moonshine, a precipitate forms, which supposedly characterizes the fact that the milk has taken on all the fusel oils and dirt. In fact, milk will curdle even in perfectly pure alcohol, since milk, like any protein, simply coagulates from alcohol. Long protein molecules begin to break down, stick together into lumps, and the lumps begin to fall. And the point here is not at all in fusel oils - this is how any protein reacts to alcohol. Even one cocktail is based on the principle of milk coagulation - "" - where simple cream falls into the same mass simply from strong absinthe.
Using milk to clean moonshine is a vicious practice that spoils the final taste of the drink, adds unnecessary compounds to the product, while leaving all the fusel oils and benzene compounds in place. From a purely chemical point of view, milk is not capable of purifying alcohol, so that supposedly “experienced moonshiners” who brew “according to grandma's recipe". Alas, science is not on their side.
Purification of moonshine with potassium permanganate (manganese, potassium permanganate).
Cleaning moonshine with potassium permanganate, or rather, potassium permanganate, is an even more vicious practice than using milk. With milk, you just spoil the drink with new fats, proteins and other impurities that are an integral part of the protein drink. When using potassium permanganate, you are poisoning your drink with potassium hydroxide and manganese dioxide.
Homegrown moonshiners, poorly familiar with chemistry and physics, offer this method of cleaning moonshine with potassium permanganate. Potassium permanganate is poured either directly into the container with alcohol itself, or potassium permanganate is preliminarily diluted in water, and the already concentrated solution is poured into a container with ready-made alcohol. According to these "specialists", a precipitate in the form of black-brown lumps that appears after a few hours is a sign of a high degree of purification of moonshine.
In fact, this is complete heresy. Potassium permanganate is one of the strongest oxidizing agents available to mankind, it can even oxidize water. What does he actually do when added to water solution alcohol. The following reaction occurs:
2K 2 MnO 4 + 2H 2 O -> 2KMnO 4 + MnO 2 ? + 3KOH
Quadrivalent manganese oxide MnO2 precipitates into a dirty brown precipitate.
Of course, potassium permanganate is able to oxidize fusel oils, esters and benzenes, however, it cannot selectively oxidize only them. The price of such a cleaning is the high content of potassium hydroxide inside the alcohol after such a “cleaning” and manganese compounds.
Thus, cleaning moonshine with potassium permanganate is not just pointless, but extremely dangerous. And the arguments from the series “We clean it all our lives and nothing!”, “My grandfather drank such moonshine all his life and did not die” are classic manifestations of ordinary human idiocy.
Cleaning moonshine with alkali (cooking and baking soda)
The third way to clean moonshine from unfortunate chemists is to clean moonshine with soda. A huge number of forums, websites and blogs describe the process of cleaning moonshine with soda. Sites steal information from each other, rewrite it, spend a lot of time retelling a useless recipe, however, no one gets around to checking this recipe even with a 9th grade chemistry book.
This dangerous recipe is that soda supposedly needs to be added to alcohol. Say, after adding soda to alcohol, a precipitate appears at the bottom - these are the “pollutions” that, they say, the soda caught. It is recommended, after adding soda, to clean the moonshine from this sediment by filtration.
Now let's turn to science, and see what exactly happens if water is added to alcohol.
It is noteworthy that alkali does not react with alcohol directly. But an aqueous solution of alkali reacts extremely aggressively to any fats (including flavors and impurities). It would seem that it should be so! But as a result of the reaction, glycerin and .. soap are formed!
Ask any person involved in soap making how exactly the soap base is created. Soap is really "boiled" from fat (remember the movie "Fight Club"), adding lye and water. The result is a first-class soap, similar in type and smell to household soap.
On a large number of sites alcoholic beverages and moonshine it is written that "this method<>tested over the years, a lot of people prefer it, ”although even a superficial study of the issue suggests that such texts are written by extremely illiterate and not savvy with scientific point sight, illiterate ignoramuses.
Cleaning moonshine with an Aquaphor water filter
Water filters (both Aquaphor and Barrier filters) are based on activated carbon, respectively, there is no fundamental difference between using a simple column with activated carbon and an Aquaphor water filter. Cleaning moonshine using Aquaphor or Barrier filters is simply more convenient, but much more expensive. It is much cheaper and more cost effective to pass alcohol through a vertical tube filled with activated carbon.
Moreover, this does not mean at all that the use of Aquaphor filters for cleaning moonshine is pointless - it's just that the filters are quite expensive, and their efficiency is comparable to ordinary activated carbon tablets.
Cleaning moonshine with a gas mask
Gas masks differ from each other in various cassettes that contain a variety of absorbents. Some still use asbestos as an absorbent. Therefore, almost any gas mask will spoil moonshine rather than make it better.
Summarizing
So, to sum up the article.
- The most effective and inexpensive method of cleaning moonshine from fusel oils should be considered charcoal and activated charcoal. Coconut charcoal, which is part of the activated one, also showed itself well.
- The use of potassium permanganate to clean moonshine leads to the appearance inside moonshine acetaldehyde and salts of heavy metals. Moonshine becomes toxic and dangerous.
- The use of alkali (including baking soda) leads to the appearance of glycerin and soap bases.
- The use of water filters as tools for cleaning moonshine is not without meaning, however, compared to simple activated carbon, this method loses in terms of economic feasibility.
- Cleaning moonshine with a gas mask in 9 cases out of 10 leads to mail and poisoning of moonshine.
To obtain high-quality alcohol and moonshine, it is better to use double or triple distillation and distillation. Be sure to use a steamer capable of catching 60-80% of all oils during distillation. It is imperative to throw out the “head” - that is, the first 50 ml from each liter of mash. In the "body" after the first and second distillation, there will still be a small amount of aromatic compounds, which are best simply removed with activated carbon. This will avoid clogging your moonshine. harmful substances. World alcohol producers filter their products with coal, without any newfangled methods using milk, bread or chicken eggs (there are such methods!)
It is not worth trusting people who argue their technology for making moonshine with the phrases “they have cooked this way all their lives”, “no one has died yet”, “it has always been like this”, is not worth it. It is better to once again open a textbook on chemistry and physics than go to the forums of uneducated moonshiners who have hardly completed nine grades of a rural school.