How to make Alcohol at Home (Ethanol)

In this video, I will show you how to produce

ethanol

by fermenting sugar. This method is very similar to making wine or beer, but it differs in several aspects. The process is designed to obtain the greatest amount of

ethanol

possible with the least amount of contaminants and in the shortest time possible. You can drink the ethanol that is produced, but even if you clean it with activated charcoal, I don't think it will taste very good. My interest in ethanol is as a solvent, so once the fermentation is finished, I will distill the

alcohol

and concentrate it.

In a future video, I'll show you how easy it is to build your own

home

made still and distill your own

alcohol

. I will also produce a separate video on the dangers and myths surrounding

home

distilling alcohol. You will need a few things that can be purchased at your local brewery. You will need water, sugar, yeast and an airlock. The amount of water, sugar, and yeast you buy and use depends on the amount of alcohol you plan to

make

. Additionally, the water you use must be distilled to avoid the introduction of other microbial content. I recommend using approximately one packet of yeast for every two liters.

Because we are only fermenting sugar, we don't really need to use any yeast nutrient packets. Yeast nutrient packets prevent yeast from getting stuck in their fermentation process. However, because we are only fermenting sugar and we are using yeast with high alcohol tolerance, we really shouldn't have any problems getting stuck. Your best choice for yeast will be K1V-1116 or EC-1118, both made by Lalvin. Some of these yeasts advertise that they can obtain alcohol percentages of up to 18%, but that is rarely possible. Always assume you probably have a limit of around 15% if you're lucky. Just for terminological reasons, fermenting only sugar is known as sugar washing.

First you will need to start with a bowl and a scale. You will want to use approximately 0.25 kilograms of sugar per 1 liter of the total volume of your final wash. Remember that adding sugar to water changes the volume, so it is important to keep in mind that it is 1 liter of the final wash and not 1 liter of water that you plan to use. If you want to do a 4 liter wash like I did in this video, I only used about 3.4 liters of water to do it. However, my final projected volume is 4 liters, so I weigh about a kilogram of sugar.

I don't show this step, but before you begin you should clean and sterilize everything you plan to use using sodium metabisulfite, which is available at your local brewery. So, once you've sterilized everything, including the pot you plan to boil the water in, add about two liters of water. The amount of water you use obviously depends on the amount of sugar you have. Once the water is hot, start adding the sugar. Keep the heat on stirring a lot and keep adding sugar until it is completely dissolved and the solution is nice and clear. It's okay for the solution to be a little cloudy as long as there is no undissolved sugar evident.

If there is still a little sugar left even though the water is practically boiling, you can add a little more distilled water. Once all the sugar is completely dissolved, remove the pot from the heat and let the solution cool slightly. The next step is to transfer the sugar solution to the fermentation vessel. But if it's too hot, it can break glass or melt plastic. Once the solution has cooled until it is lukewarm or slightly warm to the touch, add it to the fermentation vessel using a funnel. You can see here that I spilled some over the side, so prepare for a nice sticky sugar mess.

It is very important that you let the sugar solution cool to room temperature before proceeding to the next step. Next. You should prepare the yeast according to the instructions on the back of the package. I used twice as much water as listed on the back of the package because I plan to rehydrate two packages of yeast in the same container. Again, this container that you are rehydrating the yeast in is also important to sterilize. Many yeast packages say to use water at around 40°C. I use a thermometer to ensure accuracy, but it's probably completely unnecessary. I'm pretty sure you can fix it by just using warm water.

Just

make

sure not to heat it too much because if the water is too hot it can kill the yeast. After adding both packets, stir the yeast slurry and let it sit for about 15 to 20 minutes. It is extremely important that you do not let the yeast sit here for more than 45 minutes. That's why it's important to cool the sugar solution to room temperature before continuing with this step, because you can't add yeast to hot water. To test if the yeast is alive and working, sprinkle a little sugar and mix it in. If the yeast is alive and functioning, it will start to foam quite a bit.

Now your yeast is ready to add to the sugar solution. And now, using a funnel, pour the yeast into the fermentation vessel. I added about 500 milliliters of water outside the chamber before adding the yeast. After adding the yeast you must complete the washing up to the volume you want. Then, using a sterilized spoon or stick, mix the suspension well. The last important step is to add the airlock. Add the appropriate amount of water depending on the airlock design you choose. The airlock lets CO2 out, but doesn't let air in. This maintains an oxygen-free environment for the yeast to live.

It is extremely important that the environment the yeast is in is oxygen-free. Otherwise it will not produce alcohol. Optionally, you can monitor alcohol fermentation by measuring the specific gravity of the sugar solution, which is useful if you are trying to obtain a target alcohol percentage. However, we are looking to try to obtain the highest alcohol production possible, which will be near the end of the fermentation. The simplest way to control this fermentation is to simply control the production of CO2 gas. After an hour it should speed up to be this fast or even faster. Near the end CO2 production should almost stop.

So for a week or two, store it in a cool, dark place and check it later. After a few weeks, this is what your solution might look like. There's a lot of yeast and slurry, but that's perfectly fine if you plan to distill it. Optionally, you can add a clarifying agent and wait a day or two and your wash could look like this afterwards, much lighter. If you plan to drink your wash, you can add a little activated charcoal to clean it up, but I don't think it will taste very good either way. You can test the alcohol percentage of your sugar wash by purchasing a meter at a brewery.

The next step for me is to build a homemade still and distill the ethanol.