Sunday, December 2, 2012

Making Alcohol, Easy as 1-2-3

By Dan Sutton


Producing alcohol is not difficult. It can occur naturally when yeast comes into contact with sugars. Fermentation, or alcohol production, occurs when yeast metabolizes sugars. The byproduct from the yeast is alcohol and Carbon dioxide.

For making alcohol one just needs to take a liquid or juice that's high in sugar and add yeast. For wine the sugars come from the grapes . Winemakers will harvest the grapes when the sugar content is appropriate for producing wine. Beer makers may use a combination of malted barley, cereals and grains and lots of water (mash). However, the brewers need to cook the mash in an effort to convert the starches into fermentable sugars. Winemakers do not have this hassle since the sugars within the grapes are readily available to be fermented. Making whiskey is similar to making beer. However, mash after ferment will be distilled to create a beverage which will be approx . 40% alcohol by volume. The mixture of several grains and cereals will in the end determine the taste, flavor profile, of the final results.

Yeast is abundant. The most frequently used yeast put to use in wineries, breweries and distilleries is Saccharomyces cerevisiae. It is one of the most common species of yeast used to make alcoholic products. Having been used since ancient times in brewing and baking it is believed that yeast was initially isolated from grapes skins. Often you can observe on the skin of grapes a white film which is partially made up of yeast. Brewers, distillers and winemakers will select specific strains of yeast to add particular flavor components. Yeast selection is also critical for the solution that it will be required to ferment. Some yeast strains perform better in high pH while others do better with a lower pH solution. As the yeast metabolizes the sugars the concentration of alcohol increases which kills the yeast. This is the reason why it's difficult to ferment a mash to an alcohol level beyond 18 percent. To reach higher alcohol content product it is essential to distill the fermented mash.

What might you make alcohol with? Anything with sugar. This includes beet pulp, apples, grains, etc. Some individuals use animal feed like cracked corn to make whiskey mash. As long as there are fermentable sugars it can be converted to alcohol.

There are plenty of sites on the internet that have posted different recipes for making alcohol. For instance, one simple recipe is to use concentrated grape or apple juice, sugar and water. There isn't any cooking involved. Just add the yeast and let the magic happen.




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