What Does It Mean When Moonshine Gets Crystals?

Why is there sediment in my moonshine?

Why is sediment forming in spirit after carbon filtration? This is a very rare occurance. The fine sediment is in fact mineral salts which originate within the activated carbon itself. When spirit runs over activated carbon which contains some mineral salts, some mineral salts can be absorbed into the spirit.

Later, once the temperature has dropped, these mineral salts start to become insoluble in the spirit and after a few days a fine sediment appears in the spirit. This fine sediment (sometimes looks like a milky haze, other times it drops to the bottom of the bottle) is the mineral salts originally from the activated carbon.

These mineral salts are absolutely 100% safe (in fact essential for life!) but you don’t want them in your spirit. Under certain circumstances, some of this residual mineral content gets dissolved into distillate spirit as the spirit flows over the activated carbon.

• Think of it this way, as the spirit passes through the activated carbon, the carbon absorbs the vast majority of ‘volatiles’ from the spirit and holds them within the internal pore structure – however, under certain circumstances, mineral salts contained within the carbon may pass into the spirit.
• Whether mineral salts do indeed get dissolved into the spirit depends upon 2 main variables: 1.

The amount and types of mineral salts within the particular batch of carbon.2. The pH and chelate chemical (eg organic acids like citrate are a chelating agent) content of the spirit. Obviously, we have no control over 1. In a perfect world we would persuade the supplier to first wash with an inorganic acid like they currently do and then wash with organic acids to remove the remaining salt content.

• These mineral salts remain soluble in the spirit for some minutes / hours because the spirit temperature is warm and so has higher solubility.
• After the spirit has cooled, these mineral salts will begin to become insoluble.
• If you had a spectrophotometer to measure even the slightest haze, you would begin to ‘see’ the spirit ‘go hazy’ after just a few hours.

To the naked eye, you will not start to see these solids until after 2 or 3 days (may be less or more depending upon the level of mineral salts present). Re-filtering through activated carbon will not help, but ‘re-filtering’ through an ordinary wine filter or even a coffee filter, say 1 week after the filtering through carbon would remove the insoluble mineral salts and hence solve the problem.

But spirit should be stored cold (not frozen) during this week to ensure anything that is going to become insoluble, does become insoluble). If the spirit is left for long enough (3 or 4 weeks?), it should be easy to pour off the bright spirit from a white sediment at the bottom of the bottle. This problem is likely to be influenced by certain environmental conditions like temperature and water quality.

: Why is sediment forming in spirit after carbon filtration?

Can moonshine be poisonous?

Consuming Methanol In Moonshine – Upon first sip, the dangerous potential of methanol is undetectable. It will simply get people drunker. However, after it is metabolized, the methanol can have an extremely harmful effect in someone’s body.10 milliliters (ml) of methanol is all it takes to permanently damage the optic nerve and cause partial, if not complete, blindness.30 ml of methanol is lethal.

1. For reference, and standard shot glass in the United States holds 40 ml.
2. If less than 10 ml of methanol is consumed then the worst someone will experience is a hangover, (albeit, quite possibly the worst hangover of their life).
3. However, if someone consumes 10 ml or more of methanol, even split up among drinks, that can be enough to cause permanent damage or kill them.

While there are processes today to discard the toxic alcohol that is visually indistinguishable from water, some illegal Moonshiners will add methanol back in to provide a stronger potency. Obviously, without regulation, there is no way to know if illicit alcohol contains methanol.

Does moonshine have to be clear?

Got Cloudy moonshine? We’re here to help! As most of you know, if your moonshine is made correctly, it should be crystal clear. This is a challenge many moonshiners face when they are learning to distill. In this article we’ll talk discuss what causes cloudy moonshine and how you can stop it from happening. There are 4 reasons you could have cloudy moonshine including:

1. Still puking
2. Poor tails cut
3. Water source
4. Yeast in wash

What are the blue crystals in moonshine?

“All things distilling.for spirited people” – Published Dec 3, 2021 If ever you distil your mash and find that you get a blue-ish colour (and perhaps even a copper/metallic taste) don’t drink it! It is not fit for human consumption. When distilling “faulty” mashes the distillate will start off with a bluish colour and slowly the blue-ishness will turn less blue as you continue to distil.

These faulty mashes is the result of chemical reaction between the copper of your still and ammonia. To explain: Nitrogen is used in many nutrients to allow the yeast to grow and ferment healthy. However, too much unconsumed nutrients can also create a problem during distilling. The nitrogen (from the nutrients) reacts in an alkaline environment to form ammonia.

The more residual nitrogen and the more alkaline the mash, the more ammonia results. This ammonia then corrodes the copper and results in a “blue-ish distillate which tastes not good at all. “Blue-ish” distillate should be discarded and is not fit for human consumption.

• To prevent this: Use less nitrogen containing nutrients and ensure the pash pH is acidic rather than alkaline – easy as that! If you do expect the mash to contain residual nitrogen just before distillation, make sure to keep the pH low (acidic) before distillation.
• An alkaline mash makes the nitrogen/ammonia/copper problem even worse.

Ideally your mash’s pH shuld be between 4 and 5.5 (use pH test strips to confirm this). After a blue run, just flush all copper with clean water and it will be fine again.

Is sediment safe to drink?

Is Sediment Safe to Drink? It may look a little bit funky, but sediment is safe to drink. However, it doesn’t really have a taste, more of a texture — think the bottom of a cup of tea with tea leaves, or bits in a bottle of kombucha.

How long does it take for moonshine to expire?

Final Thoughts – According to our extensive research, moonshine does go bad, at least not in the traditional sense. However, no bottles of moonshine expire in the same way that milk does. Moonshine has an indefinite shelf life and is one of the strongest alcoholic beverages, like whiskey.

On the other hand, flavored moonshine, which contains sugar, has a shorter shelf life but can survive for years after being opened. Direct light, heat, and air can alter the flavor characteristics of an open bottle and affect how long does moonshine could last. But if you store moonshine properly, it can last long.

References:

1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/alcoholic-beverages
2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/food-science/distilled-beverage

What color does good moonshine burn?

MOONSHINE FACTS | mysite Did you know when your brother-in-law makes his apple pie moonshine and it freezes that means it’s under 20 proof? An IPA beer these days is product rated at 8 proof and a regular domestic beer is 4% alcohol by volume. Did you know when you get clear corn, rye or wheat moonshine and it’s heavy with bubbles that it means it’s low in proof? Our moonshine is 150 proof before it is expertly blended to produce your favorite flavor.

So, if your brother-in-law makes his own or buys 100 proof vodka at the liquor store it is not possible for his moonshine to ever be more than 100 proof. When he puts about a quarter of that in a bottle and adds flavoring it then becomes only 25 proof. Did you know that the higher the proof of the moonshine, before adding flavoring, that less bubbles and a lighter weight is good? Water is heavier than alcohol, therefore moonshine with too much water produces a bubbly, heavy and lower grade product.

Did you know the higher the proof of the clear the less you will taste the corn, wheat or rye? So if it has heavy, sweet corn taste it’s probably 80 proof at best. ​ Did you know that our state taxes any product put into the state store at a mandatory 44% cost to the distillery? That doesn’t include the 6% sales tax, 1% county tax or the taxes on the grain which is 225%! Did you know if the proof of a clear moonshine is high it will burn blue with a tad of orange on the top? That’s because it’s extinguishing the oxygen in the air.

If it’s low in proof it wont burn blue or hardly at all. Country Hammer Moonshine offers a top quality product, with an unmatched variety of flavors. Best of all we make it convenient and it’s totally LEGAL ! Our clear has very few bubbles, is low on water content and won’t freeze, even after we blend in the flavors.

It will always burn blue, has a smooth taste with very little burn and minimal corn taste. ​ Any of the facts mentioned above can be verified with a Google search. : MOONSHINE FACTS | mysite