To date, the recipes for which the whiskey is prepared are huge, everything here depends on the manufacturer.
Therefore, making whiskey at home, do not worry about the fact that you can make a mistake with taste.
This article will be devoted to recipes by which you can make whiskey at home with a taste as close as possible to the original.
Whiskey at home - general principles
The most famous producing countries are Ireland and Scotland. The production technology of this alcoholic beverage in these countries varies significantly. For example, the Scots make this alcoholic drink with a sharper taste. According to technology, in Scotland, during the process of drying the malt, peat is used as fuel, which gives the whiskey a light smoky aftertaste. As for Ireland, they do not use peat during the drying of malt, and the distillation process is done 3 times, which gives their whiskey a mild flavor.
Extract of the drink takes place in oak barrels. In general, the principle of making whiskey is very similar to moonshine, therefore, despite all the efforts of manufacturers, it is not possible to completely remove the taste of fusel oils from the drink, even long-term exposure does not help. Therefore, in the manufacture of whiskey at home, it is necessary to take moonshine as the basis.
Since the recipe of the drink brought to Scotland by monks from Arab countries, who, in turn, took it from the Crusaders, did not need serious equipment, making whiskey at home is a very real task.
Barley malt
Barley malt is one of the most important components in the production of most strong alcoholic drinks, including whiskey. You can buy it in specialized online stores (average cost $ 2-3 per 1 kg), or in large food markets in places where cereals are sold, there, malt will cost slightly cheaper. In addition, barley malt can be made at home, but for this you will need to wait at least 2-3 weeks to sprout grains, although the procedure itself is not so complicated.
To make home-made whiskey you will need 2 kg of malt per 8 liters of drink, while the malt must be dry and finely divided.
Oak bark or wood chips
Regarding the oak bark, it will not take a little to make whiskey, it is enough that it could cover the bottom of a can or other vessel in which the drink will be infused. By the way, instead of oak bark, you can also use thin oak planks. Before lowering to the bottom, the bark or planks are recommended to be burned, this will give the drink a pleasant smoky aftertaste, although this can hardly be called an alternative to peat.
But it would be better to use chips, not bark. You need to cook it like this:
take an oak log and chop it into wood chips;
wood chips are poured with water and infused throughout the day, the water needs to be changed periodically;
add soda (1 tbsp. to 5 liters of water). In a solution with soda, you need to keep 6 hours.
drain the soda solution and wash the chips with clean water;
we steam the chips on an ordinary sieve for two hours above the steam.
Manufacturing technology of whiskey:
1) Barley grains are soaked and germinated for several days before turning into malt;
2) The malt is dried in a furnace at a moderate temperature;
3) after drying, the malt is crushed to the size of the cereal;
4) then the detailed malt is mixed with hot water and kept for a certain time;
5) the liquid that came as a result is called a must. It is separated from the detailed malt, cooled and poured into a container for fermentation;
6) yeast is added to the must and left for a couple of days for fermentation;
7) the wort turns into mash and it is poured into a cube for distillation;
8) after the first distillation in an ordinary cube, the mash is converted to raw alcohol, after repeated rutting, the “head” and “tail” parts of the distillate must be separated;
9) the distillate obtained as a result of double distillation is poured into an oak barrel so that it finally ripens.
The fastest and easiest option is to infuse vodka or moonshine for a couple of weeks. This option is the easiest, however, you are unlikely to receive moral satisfaction from a drink such as a noble whiskey.
Therefore, if you want to get an almost original taste in the end, you have to go a longer way. Such a drink will not be a sip, and you can put it on the festive table for guests.
Making whiskey at home
To make homemade whiskey, we need the following ingredients:
wheat flour - 1 kg;
corn seeds - 8 kg;
barley malt - 7 kg;
yeast - 100 g;
boiled water - 30 l;
oak barrel and sawdust; sawdust;
alcohol mashine;
50 liter capacity
So, with the ingredients sorted out, we go directly to the manufacturing technology of this noble drink:
1) first you need to grind the corn kernels to the state of very small grains (or prepare a ready-made groats grocery);
2) pour wheat flour and corn grits into a 50-liter container, mix, add water to the mixture and put on fire;
3) then the resulting mixture is simmered for 4, 5 hours, periodically do not forget to stir;
4) after that the mixture is removed from the fire and covered with old blankets or insulated items;
5) when the wort warms up to 30 ° C, you need to put the yeast in it, mix, and report the barley malt;
6) then leave the whole mixture for 7-8 days, so that it fermented. If the mash is a bit bitter, do not worry, this is quite normal;
7) after the mixture has fermented, we start making moonshine from the obtained mash, moreover, it is better to overtake it 2 times;
8) then the cleaning step is carried out. It must be carried out by means of ordinary activated carbon from a pharmacy, crushed into very small parts. We place in a regular watering can in layers: gauze, cotton wool and activated carbon. Through such a “filter”, all prepared moonshine must be drawn;
9) if you could not find the oak barrel, at the final stage of the manufacture of whiskey you can use oak sawdust. They need to be laid out at the bottom of the tank, where the purified moonshine will be poured;
10) the container (or several containers) is well corked and left to insist for a year.
11) everything, home whiskey is ready!
Smoky Whiskey
To make homemade whiskey with a smack of smoke, we need the following ingredients:
good vodka - 1l;
"liquid smoke" - 2 drops;
pharmacy oak bark -50 g;
natural sherry - 30 ml;
sugar syrup - 2 tbsp. spoons;
homemade moonshine - 50 g;
saffron - 25 g;
brown bread crust;
Elecampane leaves - 20 g.
The process of making homemade whiskey "with smoke" looks like this:
1) take a glass (200 ml), pour oak bark into it and leave it to brew for 2 hours, then filter the contents into a separate container;
2) add a couple of drops of "liquid smoke" to the resulting tincture (in no case can it be anymore, this will ruin the product!). If there is no "liquid smoke" at hand, sugar can be used as an alternative. Take a piece of sugar, set fire to it and simmer in tincture. For greater effect, the procedure should be repeated several times;
3) then pour sugar syrup into the tincture. If you cook Scotch whiskey, then you need to pour 1 tablespoon of syrup - if Irish - 2 tablespoons;
4) after that we add here the moonshine and our "sherry";
5) then the most important stage - you need to dilute our tincture with vodka, which remains. You need to do this without rushing, taking a sip of the resulting drink from us. The fact is that immediately determining the right amount of vodka is not always obtained, so if necessary we add the necessary amount to the tincture.
The bulk of the process is complete. It remains only to give our drink a suitable shade. To do this, we have as many as 4 options:
1) saffron (25 g), which was previously filled with a glass of vodka and aged for 2 weeks (do not forget to shake it every day);
2) a crust of black bread, which was previously dried and crushed into powder, filled with water and aged 2-3 days in a dry, warm place;
3) elecampane leaves (20 g) are poured with vodka (200 ml), clogged, and infused in a warm place for several days;
4) food coloring.
Thus, the prepared home-made analogue of whiskey is bottled from a "branded" drink, and only a specialist can distinguish it from the present.
Accelerated recipe for whiskey on moonshine
However, not all people have the opportunity to wait a whole year to get high-quality whiskey. For people who want to speed up the process somewhat, but having slightly worsened the quality of the drink, there is a recipe for making whiskey from ordinary, already made moonshine.
There are times when whiskey needs to be prepared as soon as possible, and it is for such cases that a recipe for making this drink from moonshine was invented.
First, we need an alcohol base. To do this, we need vodka or diluted alcohol, but the most suitable option is to use moonshine.
So, in the container where the whiskey will be infused (you can use the can), pour the alcohol base. Then you need to add crushed charcoal in an amount of 20 g per 1 liter of drink. As an alternative, you can use pharmacy activated charcoal, for this we need 10 tablets.
We will also need oak bark or wood chips. We take 1 tbsp. l oak bark, as well as 6-7 pre-chopped dried apricots and prunes and add them to our home-made whiskey.
The preparations are finished, followed by insisting. The capacity in which our future whiskey will be insisted must be selected so that the drink completely fills it. The fact is that the final quality of the drink directly depends on the amount of air in the container, so try to fill it completely.
The recommended period of infusion is 2 weeks, but if you do not have enough patience or are running out of time, it is possible earlier. Before serving the drink to the table, do not forget to filter it.
Making whiskey at home allows you to not only get a drink that is very close in taste to the original, made by yourself, but also significantly save on its cost, since “branded” whiskey is not a cheap pleasure, and you can afford it far not every.
At the same time, there are a lot of recipes for making this drink, because today it is produced not only by the historical "parents" of the drink in Scotland and Ireland, but also in the USA, Australia and even Japan, and the taste of the manufactured product is different for each manufacturer.
Make this noble drink at home and enjoy its majestic, mild taste!
