Q&A for How to Make Vodka

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  • Question
    Can I use honey to make vodka?
    Tom Blake
    Professional Bartender
    Tom Blake is a Bartending Expert and the creator of the Crafty Bartending website. He has over 10 years of experience in the industry as a professional bartender, bar manager, and traveling bartender. Throughout his career, he’s worked in all sorts of venues & positions, and notably traveled his way through Europe, the UK, South-East Asia and Australia, all while bartending. He is the author of “The Bartender’s Field Manual”, which covers a myriad of topics, including bartending as a profession, the composition of alcohol and spirits, and craft cocktail recipes.
    Professional Bartender
    Expert Answer
    Yes, you can use honey! As long as it’s distilled to be ‘almost’ without distinct charateristics, it’s considered vodka.
  • Question
    Do you have to use white sugar for making vodka?
    Tom Blake
    Professional Bartender
    Tom Blake is a Bartending Expert and the creator of the Crafty Bartending website. He has over 10 years of experience in the industry as a professional bartender, bar manager, and traveling bartender. Throughout his career, he’s worked in all sorts of venues & positions, and notably traveled his way through Europe, the UK, South-East Asia and Australia, all while bartending. He is the author of “The Bartender’s Field Manual”, which covers a myriad of topics, including bartending as a profession, the composition of alcohol and spirits, and craft cocktail recipes.
    Professional Bartender
    Expert Answer
    No. I think the article explains this quite well. You can make vodka out of any type of sugar.
  • Question
    Are any alcohol drinks made without sugar?
    Community Answer
    No. The sugar is like food for the yeast, which makes the alcohol. But the finished product doesn't contain any sugar.
  • Question
    Can I use champagne yeast?
    Community Answer
    Yes, you can use champagne yeast. It is actually ideal, as it ferments to a higher alcohol volume than most other yeast.
  • Question
    How do I make vodka without a still?
    Community Answer
    Freeze the wash with a nylon mesh in the container. When the wash becomes "mushy," lift out the frozen ice crystals with the mesh, leaving behind the unfrozen alcohol. Note: carbon filtering is still required.
  • Question
    Can I only use distiller's yeast for this? It is not sold in my area.
    David Siegfried
    Community Answer
    You can use ale yeast, wine yeast, or even baker's yeast.
  • Question
    What kind of yeast should I use?
    David Siegfried
    Community Answer
    You can use ale yeast, wine yeast or even a packet of dried baking yeast found at the grocery store.
  • Question
    Can I use citrus fruit to make vodka?
    David Siegfried
    Community Answer
    Citrus fruits are very acidic and don't make a good starting material for vodka. You want to use a neutral tasting raw material like grain or potatoes.
  • Question
    How do I store and age my vodka?
    Community Answer
    I store mine in glass so there will be no chemical taste leeching from the container. I use old wine bottles.
  • Question
    What is the purpose of using refined sugar in making vodka?
    Community Answer
    It replaces the sugar made from the broken down starch; therefore, replacing the mash.
  • Question
    What if I can't get a carbon filter?
    Community Answer
    Use a Brita filter pitcher, they work great and improve the flavor of store bought vodka as well.
  • Question
    Will the water source quality make a difference in the quality of the final product?
    Community Answer
    Yes, I use cheap bottled water from the supermarket. I believe if you're going to make a good product, you must use good water.
  • Question
    How much alcohol can be extracted from how many kilograms of potatoes?
    Community Answer
    Theoretically, 10kg of potatoes can produce about 2.5 liters of 40% vodka. Real world results will probably be somewhat lower than that.
  • Question
    Can vodka be made from watermelon, bananas, or pineapples?
    Community Answer
    Technically, you can make vodka with watermelon or bananas (pineapples are too acidic). You would need a lot of yeast nutrient if you wanted to ferment watermelon or bananas though.
  • Question
    What can be observed during the fermentation process of raw and cooked potatoes?
    David Siegfried
    Community Answer
    You can't ferment raw potatoes. First you have to cook them and then you have to convert the starches in the potatoes to sugar using malt or enzymes. During fermentation, you will observe bubbles of CO2 gas rising from the liquid.
  • Question
    How do I re-distill my alcohol to make the vodka pure?
    Daniel Courtney
    Community Answer
    Simply clean your still of the remaining backwash (what's left over after you get the hearts out), pour the alcohol back into the still, and heat to 168°F. Hold this temperature for about 10 minutes, you may or may not get a few more milliliters of methanol, but after 10 minutes there definitely will not be any left. So after the 10 minutes raise the temperature up to 180°F and collect the ethanol. You should get cleaner, purer vodka. Your proof will be higher too, so have some distilled water handy to cut it back down to between 80 and 100 proof. You can repeat several times, but I probably would not distill more than 3 times. Filter in a charcoal filter (a Brita filter works great).
  • Question
    What equipment and amount of ingredients are needed to make a medium sized bottle of vodka?
    David Siegfried
    Community Answer
    You need a kettle, a container to ferment in, and other basic kitchen utensils. The amount of ingredients depends on your choice of raw materials. If using grains, about 2 kg will probably be enough to make a liter of vodka. Figure about 1 kg of sugar.
  • Question
    I tried potato. After fermentation it tasted very sour. I haven't distilled it yet. Is it rotten?
    Community Answer
    It probably isn't. Freshly fermented mash is supposed to be sour.
  • Question
    How do I create a flavor for my vodka brand?
    Community Answer
    After the above process is complete, including filtration, you could cut up a few berries of your choice. Let the berries infuse with the vodka for a few days. Then, filter out the berries and drink or serve.
  • Question
    I need to know how much sugar content is in regular vodka, because I am diabetic.
    Daniel Courtney
    Community Answer
    None, unless you add it to the finished product yourself. Yeast eats the sugar and produces alcohol, which is mixed in with the water and remaining sugars in the wash once the yeast dies off (fermenting stops after 7 to 10 days if you did it right).
  • Question
    What process do I use to redistill the first run? Is it mixed with anything and put back in the still?
    Community Answer
    Do not distill higher than 45% (90 proof), as it is extremely flammable! Use distilled water to bring down the ABC and increase the the amount in your still to a comfortable level.
  • Question
    How much yeast should I use in a 5 gallon mixture?
    Community Answer
    Normally yeast will come in a small sachet, and a single sachet should be enough.
  • Question
    Can I redistill existing vodka to give it a higher alcohol content?
    Community Answer
    Sure, but it's an expensive way of getting a high ABV. You're better off with some dextrose, water and yeast, which is all very cheap.
  • Question
    Can I drink fermented potato juice?
    Community Answer
    Yes. There are actually quite a few surprising health benefits. Go ahead and search for them if you'd like to know more, but it is perfectly safe for you to drink it, as long as you don't drink gallons at a time.
  • Question
    Is it necessary to throw out the first 5 percent of the second and third distillations?
    Community Answer
    No, I don't think it's necessary. It might help produce a purer final product though.
  • Question
    In Part 5 Step 7, Double or Triple Distillation, do I pour the distilled spirits back into the mash and run it again or collect several distilled spirits and run them separately?
    Community Answer
    Pouring it back in would result in simply repeating the same process, so you should run them separately, remembering to deal with the heads and tails nastiness correctly. Good temperature control will help.
  • Question
    Why does my vodka taste sour?
    Community Answer
    You may have run it too fast or too hot, causing water vapor and other contaminates to enter the worm. This can be corrected by redistilling at a lower temperature. You may also need to run it through a carbon filter.
  • Question
    How much vodka will I wind up with at the end of the process?
    David Siegfried
    Community Answer
    That depends on how much raw material you start with. Theoretically, 20 lbs of potatoes would yield about 1.5 quarts of 80 proof vodka. Real world results are going to be lower, however. After taking cuts and removing the heads and tails, one quart of vodka would be about what you could expect.
  • Question
    There is a smell in the vodka after it's made. How can I get rid of this smell?
    David Siegfried
    Community Answer
    Careful re-distillation and filtering through charcoal should get rid of the odor.
  • Question
    Don't airlocks solve the problem of the fermentation apparatus building up pressure and exploding?
    Community Answer
    Yes, they also keep out wild yeast and other contaminates.
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