Brewing alcohol at home easily, make your own rum/vodka!

Here's my latest experiment in making an alcoholic water that can be concentrated into rum/vodka which I will show the steps involved below.

Technically this is rum since it's made from sugar but the goal is just to produce a clean alcohol similar to a vodka which is usually made from potatoes or grains.

I have a bit of a head start to this because I brewed seltzer water earlier this year which fermented out well. Based on my earlier experiments I know for certain that nutrients are key if you want a clean result. All bottles are close to an original gravity of 1.09 which should produce a final alcohol level of 12-14%.

Bottle 1

1 liter water
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp yeast nutrient (deactivated bakers yeast, see my blog)
1/16 tsp Red Star Premier Cuvee Yeast

Bottle 2

1 liter water
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp yeast nutrient (deactivated bakers yeast)
1/16 tsp Red Star Premier Cuvee Yeast
1/8 tsp magnesium sulphate (epson salts)
1/4 tsp DAP

Bottle 3

1 liter water
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp yeast nutrient (deactivated bakers yeast)
1/16 tsp Red Star Premier Cuvee Yeast
1/8 tsp magnesium sulphate (epson salts)
1/4 tsp DAP
1/8 tsp bentonite

Bottle 4

1 liter water
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp yeast nutrient (deactivated bakers yeast)
1/16 tsp Red Star Premier Cuvee Yeast
1/8 tsp magnesium sulphate (epson salts)
1/4 tsp DAP
1/8 tsp bentonite
1/10 of a B multivitamin

Bottle 5

1 liter water
1-1/4cup dextrose
1/2 tsp yeast nutrient (deactivated bakers yeast)
1/16 tsp Red Star Premier Cuvee Yeast
1/8 tsp magnesium sulphate (epson salts)
1/4 tsp DAP
1/8 tsp bentonite
1/10 of a B multivitamin

Results

This is a fun experiment and funnily enough two days in and there is a noticeable difference in the fermentation speed. Bottle 1 is the slowest, bottle two a bit faster, bottle 3 is bubbling away at a good rate and bottle 4 and 5 are rapidly bubbling. Bottle 2 had larger bubbles in hindsight than bottle 3 which had more smaller bubbles but overall this made no difference in the final results.

There's also a noticeable difference in smell. Bottle 1 has a rotten egg sulpher dioxide smell. It clearly doesn't have the necessary nutrients. Bottle 2 has a bit of a yeast smell, bottle 3 has a bit of a mineral like smell, bottle 4 and 5 have a plain almost odorless smell.

Results:

All bottles failed to fully ferment but some interesting observations were noted.

Bottle 1 Final gravity 1.03 - 7.88% alcohol
Bottle 2 Final gravity 1.022 - 8.93% alcohol
Bottle 3 Final gravity 1.022 - 8.93% alcohol
Bottle 4 Final gravity 1.032 - 7.61% alcohol
Bottle 5 Final gravity 1.014 - 9.98% alcohol

This is the first time I tried adding in some B multivitamin and it appears to be a negative for the yeast in these conditions.

DAP clearly made a difference in the results between bottle 1 and bottle 2 and 3.

Apart from early clearing of the liquid bentonite made no measurable difference in the end result.

Bottle 4 which looked promising early on failed to deliver due to the B multivitamin. So much for cheap solutions but it was worth trying.

Bottle 5 fermented out furthest due to the dextrose being fermented easier by the yeast than the dextrose.

Final thoughts:

When I brewed 7% seltzer water earlier this year it brewed out completely at .988 with only yeast nutrient added to it. None of these tests came close to the final alcohol level of around 13%. This is not all that surprising since the water is lacking nutrients that fruit juice would add to the original ingredients and I learned early on that higher alcohol brews can be more difficult when the yeast stalls when it runs out of necessary nutrients.

Next up I will try again with more DAP, more yeast nutrient and one without the magnesium sulphate to see if it makes any measurable difference. Maybe a few with sugar and with dextrose and a few with a lower starting sugar content to see where the sweet spot is to get it full fermented so I can take it to the concentration stage....

If you like this please upvote and leave your comments and thoughts below. Cheers!