What Water Is Best For Moonshine?

#1 – Use Distilled and Not Tap Water – One of the most important tips I can give to moonshiners is to always use distilled water for making moonshine wash. It’s no secret that tap water contains a plethora of chemicals, some of which includes chlorine, chlorate, bromate and fluoride.

Can I use spring water for moonshine?

Home Distiller Other discussions for folks new to the wonderful craft of home distilling. Moderator: Novice Posts: Joined: Sun Feb 07, 2016 5:36 pm by » Sat Mar 12, 2016 5:41 pm I have been using distilled water to make my mash. Should I be using spring water instead? Any advice would be appreciated. Site Donor Posts: Joined: Tue Feb 03, 2015 4:51 pm Location: Great White North by » Sat Mar 12, 2016 5:47 pm Distilled and RODI is not the best choice. Yeast need nutrients, and if they are lacking the yeast are not as happy of the fermentation cause stall. Spring water has a better chance of having the things you want. Posts: Joined: Thu Jan 10, 2013 5:16 pm Location: drive to the sticks, hang a right past the sticks amd go a couple more miles. by » Sat Mar 12, 2016 5:49 pm Distilled water is lacking minerals for a healthy ferment. There is stuff added to town water that isn’t good for yeast(chlorine and such).

1. I use mountain spring water from my own spring.
2. Posted with bitter welcome aboard some of us are ornery old coots but if you do a lot of reading and don’t ask stupid questions you’ll be alright most are big help Dunder Master of Distillation Posts: Joined: Tue Mar 18, 2014 7:01 am Location: where the buffalo roam, and the deer & antelope play by » Sat Mar 12, 2016 6:02 pm All grain mashes like calcium to aid in starch extraction.

And yeast like phosphorus for strong ferments. If you go to a homebrew site, you can read tons about water treatment. Since mashing for beer and whiskey are essentially the same, homebrewing data is invaluable (priceless) towards your desired outcome. Using distilled or reverse osmosis water provides you a clean slate upon which you can “paint” your desired water treatment to build upon. Posts: Joined: Sun Mar 13, 2016 4:03 pm by » Sun Mar 13, 2016 5:54 pm Would well water be okay? We have a river near us but well water is closer to us lol. Master of Distillation Posts: Joined: Tue Mar 18, 2014 7:01 am Location: where the buffalo roam, and the deer & antelope play by » Sun Mar 13, 2016 6:05 pm nissath wrote: Would well water be okay? We have a river near us but well water is closer to us lol. Posts: Joined: Sun Mar 13, 2016 4:03 pm by » Sun Mar 13, 2016 6:27 pm The well should be good as to the person still uses it. The river is in pretty good Standing. Guess I could research about adding or minerals and vitamins or which ever. I have a ton of learning and research to do before my first batch.

• Master of Distillation Posts: Joined: Sat Oct 27, 2007 11:54 pm Location: Hiding In the Boiler room of the Insane asylum by » Sun Mar 13, 2016 6:46 pm Just my opinion.
• Distilled or bottled spring water is a poor and expensive option for mashing/fermenting water.
• Yeast need nutrients, nitrates and minerals, that are not found or wanted in normal drinking water.

Pasteurized water from a pond, river or crick is better than pure water. And water from a well, county or city is good enough. Posting with still_stirrin and nissath Angel’s Share Posts: Joined: Sun Feb 03, 2013 12:49 pm by » Sun Mar 13, 2016 6:51 pm I use tap water for fermenting, Spring water from Roaring Springs, PA for product dilution, If you ain’t the lead dog in the team, the scenery never changes, Ga Flatwoods made my avatar and I want to thank him for that,

1. Don’t drink water, fish fornicate in it,
2. Master of Distillation Posts: Joined: Wed Mar 02, 2011 11:46 am Location: Southern U.S.
3. By » Mon Mar 14, 2016 1:04 pm Take a quart jar of water to the county or state Dept of Health and see if they will test it for you.
4. My county and state both will do water assessments for free.

Consider that if the water from a pond, creek or river has fish in it, it is probably safe and good for a ferment. If it is good for a ferment, you are going to distill the alcohol from it, not the water. In effect you never drink anything from the water! All the commercial distilleries that claim they use spring water.they don’t chlorinate it before use.

Can you distill regular water?

How to make distilled water – You can buy distilled water at grocery stores and other places, but you can also make it at home. To make distilled water at home, you need:

A large pot and its lidA bowl that is smaller than the potIceWater

Fill your pot halfway with water. Place an empty bowl inside of your pot. The bowl should be smaller than the pot and should float in the water (not touch or sink to the bottom of the pot). Turn on your stove’s burner to medium heat and let the water boil.

1. Then place the lid upside-down over the pot and fill the top with ice.
2. This will create condensation as the steam from the boiling water hits the ice-cold lid.
3. The condensation will begin to drip into the bowl, leaving you with distilled water.
4. Continue the distillation process until you get your desired amount of water.

Allow for the bowl to cool before removing it and pour the distilled water into a container for storage. Want to know more? Here’s how distilled water is different from boiled or filtered water

Is tap water OK for homebrew?

Treating Tap Water to Prevent Off-Flavours – Most tap water that is good enough to drink is good enough to brew with straight out of the tap. If your water is treated with chlorine however, you may need to take steps to strip it out, as chlorine can cause medicinal off-flavours in beer. Chlorine alone is not too big an issue, as it will generally dissipate during the boil.

• The main problem is chloramine, which is far more persistent and is used in some areas to keep the water bacteria free.
• Chloramine levels can be greatly reduced by using a carbon filter for your brewing water, however, there’s a quicker, easier and much cheaper method.
• Campden tablets (potassium metabisulfite or sodium metabisulphite) are readily available at homebrew stores.

The active ingredient is sulphur dioxide, which reacts with the chlorine and chloramines and effectively strips them out of solution. A single tablet will treat up to 75 litres of water, so for most homebrewers, half or even a quarter of a tablet, dissolved into your brewing water a couple of minutes before use will do the trick.

Does tap water affect yeast?

Can the Chlorine in Tap Water Kill Yeast? –

Chlorine and related disinfectants are used during water treatment to remove harmful microorganisms, but chlorine can also kill useful bacteria needed for fermentation. However, most potable tap water doesn’t contain enough chlorine to affect your baking when using store bought yeast. Tap water chlorine levels are typically below 4 PPM. Only chlorine levels of 10 PPM or more are likely to affect yeast performance. On the other hand, when making your own sourdough starter—using water to activate the wild yeast naturally found in flour—the longer fermentation time means more exposure to chemicals that may be in your tap water. If you’re having trouble making or maintaining your own starters, chlorine or chloramine may be the culprits. Contact your local utility to find out which disinfectants they use during water treatment.

If your water contains chlorine, you can boil your water or let it sit in an open container for 24 hours If your water contains chloramine, you will need a water filter to remove it.

Can I use Brita water for fermentation?

Here are some things to keep in mind when using tap water for fermenting: – If your water source is a private well than you are in charge of the quality of your water. You should consider having your well water tested every year to check for contamination.

• And most well water is higher in minerals, which is fine for most fermenting projects.
• For example, water kefir loves minerals (in fact, some people add trace minerals to their water kefir).
• However, you do need to be mindful of having too many minerals.
• Ombucha SCOBYs don’t care for high mineral content and may break down over time if exposed to too high of mineral counts.

If your water comes from a municipal source, you need to be concerned with added chlorine, chloramine, and fluoride. You can request a report from your local water utility to find out exactly what it contains. I haven’t requested a report, but I can smell the chlorine in my tap water.

1. This is an easy indicator to me that I shouldn’t use it straight from the tap for fermenting.
2. Chlorine, chloramine, and fluoride can all inhibit the fermentation process.
3. And it can also alter the taste of fermented drinks like water kefir and kombucha.
4. You will also need to take notice if your water is hard or soft.

Hard water may be an indication that your tap water is high in minerals. If it’s soft or treated with a water softer, it may be too low in minerals. So, a few ways to make your tap water more fermentation friendly:

Filter the water with an activate charcoal filtration system. I use a BRITA pitcher and filter, which is said to reduce chlorine taste and odor, zinc, and even contaminant’s like copper, mercury and cadmium. Boiling your water for 20 minutes may evaporate the chlorine. Pour water into a bowl and let sit on the counter overnight. This will may also evaporate chlorine.

If you still notice problems with your ferment projects going very slowly or not working at all. It may be time to find another water source.

Can you ferment without water?

Vegetable Fermentation Further Simplified Excerpted from A head of cabbage forgotten on an obscure shelf of your pantry will not spontaneously transform itself into sauerkraut. Vegetables left exposed to air start to grow molds, and if left long enough, those molds can reduce a head of cabbage to a puddle of slime, bearing no resemblance whatsoever to crunchy, delicious, and aromatic sauerkraut.

The simple key to successful vegetable fermentation is to make sure your vegetables are submerged in liquid. That’s it, the big secret. Usually the liquid is salty water, also known as brine, but fermentation can be done without salt, or with other liquids, such as wine or whey. Typically, when fresh vegetables are chopped or grated in preparation for fermentation—which creates greater surface area—salting pulls out the vegetable juices via osmosis, and pounding or tamping the vegetables breaks down cell walls to further release juices, so no additional water is required.

However, if the vegetables have lost moisture during long storage, occasionally some water is needed; if brine hasn’t risen to submerge the weighted vegetables by the following day, add a little water. In the case of vegetables left whole (cabbage heads, cucumbers, green tomatoes, string beans, okra, zucchini, eggplant, peppers—try anything), the vegetables should be submerged in brine.

The huge variety of vegetable ferments you can create all exist along the spectrum from shredded and salted to whole and submerged in a brine. Sometimes you use elements of each style, as in kimchi recipes that call for soaking vegetables in a brine to soften them and leach out bitter flavors, then pouring off excess brine and mixing in spices.

In some cases the liquid is what we’re after, flavored by the vegetables and fermentation. Pretty much any vegetable can be fermented. Use what is abundantly available and be bold in your experimentation. Seaweeds are a wonderful addition to ferments, as are fruits, though mostly fruit ferments go through their process very quickly.

I’ve even made delicious sauerkraut with mashed potatoes layered in with the salted cabbage, as well as kimchi with sticky rice layers. The sharp fermented starches are delicious. The spicing of vegetable ferments is quite varied, too. Kimchi typically includes red chili peppers, garlic, ginger, and scallions.

Sauerkraut might include caraway seeds (my favorite), juniper berries, apples, or cranberries. New York—style sour pickles are spiced with dill, garlic, and sometimes hot peppers. To keep cucumbers crunchy, add to the brine some grape leaves or leaves of horseradish, oak, currant, or cherry.

1. How much salt do you use? Traditionally vegetables have been fermented with lots of salt.
2. In addition to pulling water from the vegetables, salt hardens pectins in the vegetables, rendering them crunchier, and discourages the growth of bacteria other than lactobacilli.
3. By inhibiting competing bacteria, salt enables the vegetables to ferment and to be stored for longer periods of time.

Since preservation has historically been one of the important motivations for fermentation, ferments have tended to be quite salty. But for health-conscious people interested primarily in flavor and nutrition, less salt can be better. Salt lightly, to taste.

1. It is easier to add salt than to take it away, but if you oversalt, you can dilute by adding water and/or more vegetables.
2. There is no magic proportion of salt the process requires—it’s just personal preference.
3. As a starting point, try 3 tablespoons of salt per 5 pound of vegetables.
4. More salt will slow the fermentation process; less (or none) will speed it up.

Ferments with less salt may be more prone to surface molds. You can leave out the salt or use various mineral-rich substitutes such as celery juice (my favorite salt-free variation) or seaweed. Just be sure the vegetables are submerged in the liquid. Some people promote the idea that salt-free sauerkrauts contain more beneficial organisms than salted krauts.

I don’t believe that. The most specific beneficial bacteria we’re after, Lactobacillus, is salt-tolerant and abundantly present even in salty krauts; arguably, salt-free ferments are more biodiverse, but this diversity often results in mushy textures. Though it is possible to ferment vegetables without salt, a little salt results in far superior flavor and texture—and just as much beneficial bacteria.

So again, salt to taste. What kind of vessel should you use to hold your ferment? Avoid metal, as salt and the acids created by fermentation will corrode it. Heavy ceramic cylindrical crocks are the ideal fermentation vessels, though they can be hard to find and expensive.

Glass containers work well, especially those with a cylindrical shape or with a wide mouth, and so do nesting bowls. Crock pots with ceramic interiors make effective fermentation vessels and can often be found in thrift stores. In a pinch, you can use plastic, but even food-grade plastics leach toxic chemicals.

The reason a cylindrical shape is desirable is for ease of weighting down the fermenting vegetables to keep them submerged rather than floating to the top. I generally use a plate that just fits inside the vessel, weighted down by a full jug of water, and I drape a cloth over the top of the vessel to protect against flies.

I call this the “open-crock” method. Containers in other shapes can work with improvisation, or you can manually press the vegetables to submerge them in the liquid. If the vegetables float to the top and remain exposed to air, they are likely to develop mold. Sometimes, especially in hot weather, your ferment may develop a film of white mold on its surface.

This is very common and will not hurt you or the kraut. Scrape off the mold as best you can, don’t worry about particles that mix into the vegetables, and enjoy the delicious ferment beneath. Specially designed Harsch crocks eliminate this problem by creating an oxygen-free airspace around the ferment.

These German crocks are elegant but expensive. Another way to avoid mold is by weighting the ferment in the vessel with water contained in a double layer of plastic bags. The water will spread to cover the entire surface, protecting it from aerobic surface molds. The downside of this method, of course, is that your food comes into prolonged contact with plastic, which leaches chemicals into the food.

I prefer to use the open-crock method and remove mold as necessary. Whatever type of vessel you use, pack the vegetables into it with some force (unless they are whole), in order to break down cell walls and release juices. I use a blunt wooden tamping tool.

1. You can improvise with a piece of wood or your fist, or you can manually massage and squeeze the vegetables, as described in the recipe for massaged kale (see page 185).
2. Once the vegetables are weighted down, the salt will continue to pull moisture from the vegetables for many hours yet.
3. If, by the following day, the vegetables are not submerged, add a little water.

How long do you ferment the vegetables? I wish I had an easy answer to this question. “Ferment until ripe,” many recipes advise, but ultimately you will have to decide when it is ripe. Sour flavor—from lactic acid—develops over time. Longer fermentation translates to tangier flavor.

1. This happens more quickly in warm temperatures than in cool ones.
2. If you start your ferment at harvest time, in the autumn, as temperatures are dropping, it can ferment for six months or longer.
3. This is how people survived before refrigeration and globalized food.
4. Many people, however, prefer the flavor of a mild ferment to that of a strongly acidic one.

When you are first experimenting, taste your ferments early and often. Serve some after three days, then three days later, and again three days after that. Familiarize yourself with the spectrum of flavors that fermentation can create and see what you like.

Does warm water speed up fermentation?

Dare I say it, but it looks like here in the UK we’re summer weather has reappeared. And fingers crossed, there are some warm days ahead of us. But was does summer weather mean for your ferments? And what might you need to do differently when fermenting in the summer? Like us, the microbes love being warm.

1. Warm, but not hot—to visualise this, think sitting in the shade in your back garden in with a nice breeze blowing, rather than baking on a black sand beach in Greece in the middle of August.
2. Optimal temperatures for fermenting range between 18-22°C/65-72°F, so if a ferment is too cold, it will still ferment, but just take longer.

It if gets too warm it will speed up the rate at which the bacteria work, meaning your ferment will ferment quicker, which sounds good but isn’t necessarily the case. Or if say left in direct sunlight in a suntrap of a kitchen it could get too hot (above 42°C/107°F), the beneficial bacteria will die.

When a ferment ferments too quickly, it can mean that the different beneficial bacteria may not have enough time to do their jobs in terms of lowering the pH of the brine, creating the associated by-products and at the very basic, persevering the food. Generally, the bacterial fermentation process takes place in two stages, but more on that another time, and each stage needs to provide the bacteria with adequate time.

Another downside of fermenting too quickly in warm weather is Kahm yeast. Kahm yeast crops up in a ferment when all the starches and sugars are used up by the bacteria fermenting at a faster pace. And this can also happen when the external temperature is warm and the pace of fermentation is sped up by the heat.

Try to find a fermentation spot with the ideal temperature range. You can check the temperature with a thermometer, leaving it over a couple of days to get a consistent reading.

Always keep your ferments out of direct sunlight and avoid storing in places that retain lots of heat in warm weather.

Promptly refrigerate a ferment when it’s had it its fermentation time. Try not to leave anything at room temperature once it’s ready, particularly if the room is warm.

Find a cool spot to do your fermenting. Fermenting in your greenhouse at the height of summer isn’t a good idea.

Remember to vary your fermentation spot may vary by seasons, and also note that different ferments can also work better in different environments and different temperatures. I get a much less explosive kimchi in my ferment cupboard, but my water kefir prefers a corner spot on my kitchen worktop. But working this out is very much about trailing and taking note.

If you do get Kahm yeast, scrape it off, transfer the ferment to a clean jar (I wipe around the inside the jar with a bit a kitchen roll soaked in ACV to clear off the residue before transferring) and pop it in the fridge, this will stop the yeast from growing.

Free feel to share another other warm weather fermentation tips you use or are thinking of trying out! And if you want to troubleshoot any of your ferments or start a new one and need a bit of support, you can now book a Fermentation Power Hour. These sessions help you to boost your fermenting confidence and ask all the questions you need.

What makes tap water undrinkable?

Private well owners are responsible for testing their water – Unlike public drinking water supplies, private wells are not regulated by EPA. Owners of private wells are responsible for testing their water to make sure it is safe to drink. If you have a private well, test it at least once a year for mechanical problems, cleanliness, coliform bacteria, nitrates, and any other germs or chemicals of local concern.

Does distilling water get rid of bacteria?

Distillation is one of the oldest methods of water treatment and is still in use today, though not commonly as a home treatment method. It can effectively remove many contaminants from drinking water, including bacteria, inorganic and many organic compounds.

Is tap water OK for homebrew?

Treating Tap Water to Prevent Off-Flavours – Most tap water that is good enough to drink is good enough to brew with straight out of the tap. If your water is treated with chlorine however, you may need to take steps to strip it out, as chlorine can cause medicinal off-flavours in beer. Chlorine alone is not too big an issue, as it will generally dissipate during the boil.

The main problem is chloramine, which is far more persistent and is used in some areas to keep the water bacteria free. Chloramine levels can be greatly reduced by using a carbon filter for your brewing water, however, there’s a quicker, easier and much cheaper method. Campden tablets (potassium metabisulfite or sodium metabisulphite) are readily available at homebrew stores.

The active ingredient is sulphur dioxide, which reacts with the chlorine and chloramines and effectively strips them out of solution. A single tablet will treat up to 75 litres of water, so for most homebrewers, half or even a quarter of a tablet, dissolved into your brewing water a couple of minutes before use will do the trick.