Q&A for How to Make Vodka

Yes, you can use honey! As long as it’s distilled to be ‘almost’ without distinct charateristics, it’s considered vodka.

No. I think the article explains this quite well. You can make vodka out of any type of sugar.

No. The sugar is like food for the yeast, which makes the alcohol. But the finished product doesn't contain any sugar.

Yes, you can use champagne yeast. It is actually ideal, as it ferments to a higher alcohol volume than most other yeast.

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.

You can use ale yeast, wine yeast, or even baker's yeast.

You can use ale yeast, wine yeast or even a packet of dried baking yeast found at the grocery store.

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.

I store mine in glass so there will be no chemical taste leeching from the container. I use old wine bottles.

It replaces the sugar made from the broken down starch; therefore, replacing the mash.

Use a Brita filter pitcher, they work great and improve the flavor of store bought vodka as well.

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.

Theoretically, 10kg of potatoes can produce about 2.5 liters of 40% vodka. Real world results will probably be somewhat lower than that.

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.

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.

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).

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.

It probably isn't. Freshly fermented mash is supposed to be sour.

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.

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).

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.

Normally yeast will come in a small sachet, and a single sachet should be enough.

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.

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.

No, I don't think it's necessary. It might help produce a purer final product though.

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.

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.

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.

Careful re-distillation and filtering through charcoal should get rid of the odor.

Yes, they also keep out wild yeast and other contaminates.