Homemade Strawberry Moonshine

The strawberry moonshine sticks to memory for its softness and berry aroma. But there are two nuances in its preparation. If you don’t understand them, you can spoil the valued raw products. We’ll look over the right recipe for high-quality brew with good yield.

2.2 lbs/1 kg of strawberries contains 1.2-1.5 oz/35-45 grams of fructose. This means that without adding sugar from 11 lbs/5 kg of berries you can obtain 250 ml of pure strawberry moonshine with potency of 40 degrees. I recommend adding sugar thus increasing the yield up to 0.8-9 gl/3.3-3.5 liters (40%). Moreover, bright pleasant flavor will remain. Any further increasing of sugar proportions weaken the smell.Without yeasts (only with wild ones) strawberry brew ferments for 25-40 days, with artificial yeasts – 5-12 days, but a part of aroma gets lost. If you are in no hurry, making brew with wild yeasts is for the best.

Ingredients:

Strawberries – 11 lbs/5 kg

Water – 4 gl/15 liters

Sugar – 6.6 lbs/3 kg (optional)

Yeasts – 0.5 oz/15 grams of dry or 2.64 oz/75 grams of compressed (optional)

Mash unwashed berries (it’s very important in case of using no yeasts) until you get a homogeneous mass.

Pour the obtained brew into a fermentation container. Add water, sugar, yeasts (optional), then stir it up and install a water seal or a medical glove with a hole in a finger on a bottleneck.

Leave the container in a dark place with a temperature 64.4-77°F/18-24°C. First 3-4 days you should take off the water seal and stir the brew by clean hand. Depending on the choice of yeasts (store-bough or wild) the fermentation lasts for 5-40 days. When the brew gets brighter and bitter without any sweetness and there’s sediment at the bottom, you can go to the next step.

Filter the brew through 2-3 layers of gauze and pour into a distillatory vessel of a moonshine still. Squeeze the contents of gauze, pour the liquid part into a vessel, you won’t need dry husks.

Distill the strawberry brew. Finish drawing off the distillate with potency dropping below 30 degrees.

Dilute the obtained moonshine with water up to 50% for its potency to drop to 18-20% and then distill it once again.

Draw off the first 150 ml into a separate container. This harmful distillate called “heads” contains methanol and other hazardous admixtures. Drinking it is highly dangerous.

Finish the distillation while the potency drops below 40 degrees. That’s the main product for which the whole process was starte

Dilute the strawberry moonshine with water up to 40-45%. Let it mature for 2-3 days in a dark cold place before trying it.