Chapyer 01 Modern Distillation Techniques

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MODERN

MOONSHINEECHNIQUES

34 illustrations4 fow charts

2009All rights reserved

White Mule Press

Box 577

Hayward, CA 94541

ISBN 978-0-9824055-3-6

www.distilling.comwww.moonshineorm.com


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iv Modern Moonshine Techniques

Written by Bill Owens

Contributors:om Hubuck o oms Foolery Chagin Falls, OH;Jim Blansit, Copper Run Distillery, MO; Alan Dikty, journalist, Chicago, IL;

Eric Watson, Cayman Islands; Dave Tomas, Golden CO;Rob Masters, Colorado Pure Distilling; and Bill Smith, reasure Island Distillery.

Edited, with Q&A, by Nancy Fraley; artwork by Catherine Ryan;book design by Gail Sands, Sebastopol, CA;

Editor, Matthew Rowleycover photo by Bill Down.


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Distillation

Alcoholic distillation is the process o separating ethanol rom a ermentedwash by evaporation. Te vapors are driven o by heat and then collected, con-densed and recovered as a liquid. Tis liquid may also be redistilled to raise itsalcohol concentration.


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vi Modern Moonshine Techniques


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Table of Contents

viii Glossary

xiii Introduction

Chapter 1 Moonshine: the Legend and the Law ............................. 1

Chapter 2 Distilling in 18th Century America................................. 9

Chapter 3 Moonshine, the Easy Way from Sugar ........................... 13

Chapter 4 What Is Moonshine? ............................................................. 17

Chapter 5 How to Distill a Sugar Wash............................................... 21

Chapter 6 Build a Corn Cooker ............................................................. 29

Chapter 7 I See the Future and its Whiskey ..................................... 37

Chapter 8 Building a Mash Tun ............................................................. 41

Chapter 9 Whiskey Washes .................................................................... 51

Chapter 10 How to Pot Distill Whiskey.................................................. 57

Chapter 11 How to Use a Column Distill .............................................. 65

Appendices

Appendix A The Spread Sheet for a Small Distillery .......................... 71

Appendix B Code of Federal Regulations ............................................. 73

Appendix C Grant Application for Farm Distiller.................................. 76

Appendix D Vocabulary................................................................................ 84

Appendix E Information about TTB and Licensing

a Distillery ................................................................................. 86Appendix F Resources ................................................................................ 87

Appendix G No Yeast Necessary.............................................................. 90

Afterword .................................................................................. 92

Q&A Answer Key.................................................................... 93


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viii Modern Moonshine Techniques

Distilling GlossaryABV Alcohol by Volume, oten expressed as a percentage (e.g 60% abv).

Aldehyde A volatile impurity ound in the oreshots.BAM: Beverage Alcohol Manual

Barrel Whiskey (wooden) 53 US gallons, 44 Imperial gallons, or 200.6 liters.

Beer Barrel (Stainless Steel) Bbl. 31 gallons.

Beer Stripping A crude primary distillation o ermented wash. See stripping.

Bubble Cups sit over vapor pipes. When rising alcohol vapors hits the cup it is

orced down to the rim. At this point evaporation occurs, enriching the vapors.CFR A U.S. government codi-cation o administrative rules,known as the Code o FederalRegulations. itle 27 cover reg-ulations or alcohol beverages.

Charge Te volume o alcoholicbeverage wash, or low wines go-ing to the still.

Condenser An apparatus, o-ten a tube in shell, in whichhot vapors are cooled and con-densed into liquids.

Congeners Impurities. Tese minor chemicals give liquor (spirits) distinctivecharacter and avors. Tey are ound in both heads and tails. May be consid-ered desireable or undesireable depending on quantity and type.

Cuts Te process o separating dierent types o alcohol through the oreshots,heads, hearts and tails cuts made during the nal distillation run.

Density Meter Portable device that measures specic gravity, thus allowing thedistiller to make precise cuts.

Dephlegmator A small pre-condenser that sends distillate back to the pot.Tis process increases the reux and the purity o the spirit.


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Used by distilling companies around the world or blending to produce vodka,gin and whiskey. It is the workhorse o the commerical distillation industry.

Original gravity Te density o the wash beore ermentation.

Packing Copper mesh or copper s used in a stills column to increase the

surace area and thus the reux and quality o the alcohol.ParrotA device resembling a stylized bird that attaches to the still and foatsthe hydrometer.

Proof A measurement o alcohols strength: In the US, proo is twice alcoholcontent at 60F. (i.e., 120 proo is 60% abv).

Pitch Te process o adding yeast to the wash.

Plates: (or tray) Located horizontally at intervals in a col-umn, oten contain bubble caps that enrich the reux

Refux Formed when vapors condense and re-vaporize inthe column o a still.

Slop, Hot Hot, stinky, spent corn mash rom the still.

Sparging At end o mashing, a process in which hot wateris sprayed on, or run through, the grain bed to extract ad-ditional sweet barley water.

Spirit Still A still designed to do the nal distillation, pro-ducing nished whiskey.

Sweet Spot Te head temperature between 174F and180F. Tis range produces a sweet tasting spirit and is

considered the heart o the distillation run.

Stripping Te process o running low abv wash through a still with no head or

tail cuts to remove alcohol that will be re-distilled.TTB Alcohol and obacco ax and rade Bureau, ormerly BAF.

Tails A distillate containing a high percentage o usel oil and little alcohol.

Tub A 55-gallon plastic or stainless steel barrel used as a ermentation vessel.

Wash Fermented substrate containing alcohol.

Water Temperature Controller Device that allows cool water to ow througha copper coil, controlling excess heat in a ermentation.


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Chapter 1

Moonshine The Legend and the Law

Where the English went, they built a house; where theGermans went, they built a barn; where the Scots-Irish

went, they built a whiskey still. An old Appalachian proverb

With the rise o artisan distillation in the US, most producers have decided

to ocus on typical spirits such as vodka, gin and rum, or more specialized spiritssuch as eau de vie or malt whiskey. A ew other distillers, however, are choosingto trade on a bit o legendary history and produce moonshine.

Te term moonshine was rst used in Britain where it reerred to employ-ment or other activities that took place late at night. In the US, however, it hasalways been associated with illegal liquor that has been known under colloquialnames such as white lightning, popskull, corn liquor, rotgut, panthers breath, or,more simply, shine.

Te practice o moonshining is inextricably tied to US history in numerousways. Ater the American Revolution the United States was strapped nanciallydue to ghting a long war. In an attempt to address this problem, a ederal taxwas levied on spirits. Tis did not sit well with the newly liberated people whohad just concluded a war to eliminate British taxation. Tis gave rise to the prac-tice o making distilled spirits clandestinely to circumvent taxation.

Early on, this practice was a method o survival, not extra prot. I arm-

ers experienced a bad crop year, they could use their corn or making whiskey.Because this was a practice o subsistence, the payment o tax on this productmight mean they would be unable to eed their amilies. Tus began the conten-tious relationship with ederal agents who oten were attacked when they triedto collect the tax.

In 1794, things nally came to a head with the Whiskey Rebellion. A groupo several hundred managed to overtake the city o Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Inreaction, George Washington dispatched 13,000 militiamen to take back the

city and jail the leaders. Tis incident served as the rst major test o authorityor the edgling ederal government.


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Te battles between the US Congress and moonshiners continued to rageon. In the 1860s the government attempted to collect more excise taxes to undthe Civil War. In response, a number o elements, including Ku Klux Klansmen,joined the moonshiners in an attempt to ght back. Te new alliances led tomore brutality and incidents o intimidation o local people who might reveal

stills, and revenue o agents and their amilies.

Te emperance movement then added these happenings to their arsenalon the march towards prohibition.Te states began to prohibit the sales o alco-hol in the early 1900s, and then complete national prohibition was establishedin 1920. Prohibitions enactment provided the best possible scenario or moon-shiners. With no legal means o obtaining alcohol, demand grew exponentiallywith which the moonshiners could not keep up. In response, the producers began

using cheaper ingredients such as sugar and even watering down their whiskey.A large network o distribution was established with the assistance o or-

ganized crime. o supply the illegal spirits to this network, young men in ruralareas close to the still operations delivered moonshine in highly modied, highperormance cars. Te temptation was irresistible to these men, as the incomethey could make in a single night was greater that a couple o months o hon-est work. What started as a transportation method or moonshine gave birth tostock car racing which ormalized into todays NASCAR.

With the repeal o prohibition in 1933, the demand or moonshine de-clined rapidly, returning the practice mostly back to areas concentrated in theAppalachian region o the East Coast. Even today, there is illegal production omoonshine in these regions with operations located in northern Georgia, west-ern South and North Carolina and eastern ennessee. Due to the independentand strong willed character shared by most Americans, most historians eel thatmoonshine will always be around in one orm or another.

oday there are a ew who have decided to produce moonshine legally. Notsurprisingly, these individuals are located in the same regions o the East Coastwhere the illegal version is still made.

WEST VIRGINIA DISTILLING

www.mountainmoonshine.com

West Virginia Distilling is located in a suburb o Morgantown, home toWest Virginia University, and is only 8 miles rom the Pennsylvania border. Te

owner and operator o West Virginias rst legal distillery is Peyton Fireman, alawyer and childhood acquaintance o mine.


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Beginning in 1998, Peyton tried to get access to regional, illegal moonshineproducers to learn how to make moonshine, but did not have much success.What he ound was that the younger generation that he expected to have hadthe practice o making moonshine handed down to them ound that it was armore protable to grow marijuana than it was to make moonshine. So, he had

to learn on his own by reading distilling texts and asking questions o the ewmicrodistillers that existed at the time.

Tis small distillery is housed in a ormer transmission shop. Peyton is avery resourceul tinkerer. With the help o a local engineer, he made his stillsout o old 40-gallon electric water heaters with columns made rom lengths ocopper pipe and condensers made rom copper coils, all sourced rom local homebuilder supply outlets. He now uses these stills to re-distill head and tail cuts and

instead undertakes the main distillation in the equipment pictured above. Histotal investment to date has only been $40,000! Tree times a year, Peyton putshis law practice on hold and becomes a distiller.

Peyton makes only one distillate but it is presented two dierent ways. One,Mountain Moonshine, is a colorless spirit bottled immediately ater nal distil-lation. Te other, Old Oak Spirit Whiskey, is mellowed by soaking toasted oakwood chips in it or 30 days.

Peyton introduces corn grits into the home-built still, which also serves as

his mash cooker and ermenter. It is heated in a hot water boiler ueled by wasteoil that supplies hot water to external coils mounted underneath the vessel. Heaccomplishes starch conversion by allowing the mash to rest heated or a coupleo hours and then adds enzymes.

Once mashing is over, he attaches an external chilling loop to the vesseland cools the mash to ermentation temperature via internal coils. Once cooled,he adds brewing yeast and allows the mash to erment or 4 to 6 days. Whenermentation is over, he then heats the vessel again and distills the alcohol romthe wash.

echnically, Peyton is not producing a traditional moonshine but rather aspirit whiskey. His corn mash-derived spirit makes up only 20 percent o hisproduct. o produce the nal spirit he blends his distillate with neutral grainspirits. His products are released to market at 80 and 100 proo.

When asked i he eels there is a market or his product, Peyton deers to aquotation rom a recent newspaper article. Montie Pavon, the owner o a local

bar called Levels, stated people like the idea o drinking moonshine. Tey seeit up on the shel and say: You sell moonshine? I thought it was illegal. Tis


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attention-getting eature o the product certainly provides advantages when try-ing to induce people to try it. Presently, West Virginia Distilling sells a little over1,000 bottles o Mountain Moonshine and Old Oak Spirit Whiskey per year.

ISAIAH MORGAN DISTILLERY SUMMERSVILLE, WVwww.kirkwood-wine.com/isaiahmorgan.html

Te Isaiah Morgan Distillery is located on the site o the Kirkwood Winery,which was established in 1992 by the late Rodney Facemire. Unlike West Vir-ginia Distilling, this location is tucked into a quiet mountain valley that makesit easy to picture that moonshine has been produced in this region beore!

Shirley truly produces his moonshine, Southern Moon, the way it was done

in this area or a long time. Instead o mashing milled corn, the raw corn isplaced in straining bags and soaked in hot water. Te bags are removed atersufcient soaking and cane sugar is added to the liquid let behind. For a stillcharge o 50 gallons he uses 50 pounds o corn and 100 pounds o sugar. Shirleytold us that this practice comes rom way back in time where the old timerscouldnt mill corn, so they dissolved the husks with lye beore soaking the ker-nels in hot water. No, Shirley does NO use lye!

Te distillery erments its wash in a group o reclaimed plastic barrels that

are connected by a draining maniold that supplies the still.Shirley charges the still with 50 gallons o wash and conducts a double

distillation with the nal spirit yield o 7 to 8 gallons at 176 proo. Te liquor isthen diluted with ltered well water to 80 proo and bottled.

Rodney Facemire can be credited with establishing the classication mini-distillery in West Virginia. He managed to get a bill sponsored and passed thatcreated the legal class o alcohol distillers, designated mini-distillery, which are

dened as where, in any year, twenty thousand gallons or less o alcoholic liquoris manuactured with no less than twenty-ve percent o raw products beingproduced by the owner o the mini-distillery on the premises o that establish-ment, and no more than twenty-ve percent o raw products originating romany source outside this state. Additionally, unlike Wisconsin and some otherstates, the law allows mini-distilleries permission to allow on-site tasting andon-site retail sales o the liquor they produce. It also allows the mini-distilleryto advertise o-site. Because West Virginia Distilling was established prior to

this law, it is the only distillery exempt rom the ingredient sourcing provision.In addition to Southern Moon Corn Liquor, Shirley also produces a grappamade rom Concord grapes and a rye whiskey. He plans to release a barrel aged


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version o a whiskey made rom rye, malt and corn in 2010. Recently he hasbegun experimenting with making rum rom sorghum molasses pressed romcane grown in Northern West Virginia.

BELMONT FARM DISTILLERY CULPEPER, VAwww.virginiamoonshine.com

Ater visiting the Isaiah Morgan Distillery, our trek took us into SouthernVirginia about 3 hours southeast o Summersville, West Virginia to Culpeper,Virginia.

Culpeper is a very quiet area o rolling hills with many arms and severalwell-regarded wineries. Te areas quiet appearance belies its close proximity to

Washington, DC and Charlottesville, Virginia.Chuck Miller, owner and distiller, is a consummate showman and quite a

character. He opened up his distillery to us which is located in a large convertedbarn on his arm where he grows all the corn, barley and wheat that goes intohis products. I you are a viewer o the History Channel or/and the NationalGeographic Channel you may have seen him in segments about distilleries.

Chuck produces two products: Virginia Lightning (100 proo ) and KopperKettle Virginia Whiskey (86 proo). He also sells a version o Virginia Light-ning in Japan, but its proo is reduced to 80 to cater to Japanese tastes. VirginiaLightning is made only rom corn, whereas Kopper Kettle Virginia Whiskey isproduced rom corn, barley and wheat. Both are twice distilled.

Unlike Virginia Lightning, which is bottled just ater distillation, KopperKettle Virginia Whiskey undergoes two stages o wood aging. Te rst stage ex-posures the spirit to oak and apple wood chips in a large converted stainless steeldairy tank. Ater sufcient exposure to the wood in the above tank, it is moved

to charred barrels to age or an additional two years beore being ltered andbottled. He now sells 4,000 cases per year o his combined product oerings.

Belmont Farm Distillery combines historical and modern equipment. Hisstill, built in 1933, is a mammoth sight to behold and has a capacity o 2,000gallons.

How Chuck acquired this still is a story in and o itsel. It originally was lo-cated in New Jersey, where it was operated legally until 1962. Te still then wasoperated illegally until the late 70s when the operation was discovered and shut

down by the ederal authorities. Just shortly ater this, Chuck was beginningto investigate starting his distillery. In a conversation with ederal regulatorshe asked where he might acquire a still or his operation. An agent mentioned


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that he knew o the still in New Jersey. Shortly thereater, Chuck negotiated apurchase price and he relocated the still to his arm in Culpeper. Chuck theninstalled the rest o his equipment and led or his ederal permit in 1980.

Standing in stark contrast to his museum piece still is his elaborate watertreatment system that he uses to process water rom his on-site well.

Installed on a wall opposite the still room are multi-stage sediment ltrationunits and a high-capacity deionization unit as well as a reverse osmosis system.We had intended to continue on to North Carolina to visit Piedmont Distill-ers, the producers o Catdaddy Carolina Moonshine and the recently releasedJunior Johnsons Midnight Moon, but advance calls to them revealed they weretoo busy to meet with us. Tat was unortunate because had we visited them wewould have made a complete sweep o mid-Atlantic and southern producers o

legal moonshine and moonshine-inspired products. Te most recent resourcedirectory published by Te American Distilling Institute and the website o-Piedmont Distilleries does not show them producing a corn whiskey.

Tanks to Eric Watson or the text on legal moonshiners. He can be reached at: [email protected].

Artisan Whiskey DistilleriesCopperox.biz, Dryydistilling.com, Stranahanscoloradowhiskey.com, empletonrye.com, Corsairartisan.com, Peachstreetdistillers.com, Ciscobrewers.com, Montanawhiskey.com, Copperrundistilling.com, uthill-town.com, Garrisonbros.com, Highwestdistillery.com, StGeorgespirits.com, Clearcreek.com, YellowstoneValley Distilling, Solas Distillery, to name a ew.


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Chapyer 01 Modern Distillation Techniques

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