Shine, vodka, white whisky... what's the difference?

[Matty]

No! vodka has no taste and by western Europe standards should be made from the starch from potatoes. Shine is a corn based licker when made properly is full of flavor, history, and care for the art. It also should be made in the dark in the woods to bare the name moonshine.

Oh, I see. I always thought shine had no taste, I've never had any before so I really have no idea.

Btw, got some Islay single malt, thought I'd give it another go, it ain't as bad as I remember. Goes good with a cigar by a campfire

 

[DonH]

Oh, I see. I always thought shine had no taste, I've never had any before so I really have no idea.

Btw, got some Islay single malt, thought I'd give it another go, it ain't as bad as I remember. Goes good with a cigar by a campfire

Which Islay did you get?

 

[Smokin Harley]

What do you get when you mix 80%corn-12%barley-8%rye+water heat to 210*F then let sit 3-5 days then run throgh steam distiller then filter throgh hickory charcoal then put in oak barrels for 8-12 years??

not hickory...sugar maple

 

[Smokin Harley]

I call everything I make Rum. I don't see any need to waste perfectly good grain and go through all of the ritual to extract sugar when I can buy a 5# bag of sugar for $2.59. I use a reflux still and achieve 180 proof consistently. After diluting to 90 proof, I age it with charred White Oak strips in mason jars. People tell me it the best bourbon they ever had.

As far as I know...(which isn't a lot) the spirit takes its name from the sugar source from which it is derived.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum

 

[Smokin Harley]

Oh, I see. I always thought shine had no taste, I've never had any before so I really have no idea.

Btw, got some Islay single malt, thought I'd give it another go, it ain't as bad as I remember. Goes good with a cigar by a campfire

shine has a definite taste. a little yeasty , a little sweet and upon a taste, a little warmth on the back of the throat . a co-worker and good friend of mine made some the other day and called me over to watch the process after which he handed me most of the yield ,which was nice. Clearer than water , shake it in the mason jar and watch the thousands of tiny bubbles (ok ok ,sing the Don Ho song about now) slooowly dissipate . Supposedly this drawn out bubble dissipation is used to guesstimate how high the proofing is without the use of an actual hydrometer(floaty thingy actually used to calculate the proofing). I got it home and stuffed a generous handful of Jack Daniels Oak barrel wood smoking chips in a pint jar ,added half the yield to that and only 7 days later the color and taste is more of Jack Daniels Old No. 7 than its recent previous self- corn squeezins,moonshine. ...not sure if this is the same as White Lightnin or not.

 

[ArizonaDave]

Has anyone tried to run an old truck yet on the shine? I know in WWII they used to make wood gasifiers. Similar concept, but non-drinkable, wood based.

 

[ProfessorPangloss]

Has anyone tried to run an old truck yet on the shine? I know in WWII they used to make wood gasifiers. Similar concept, but non-drinkable, wood based.

That's methanol, I think. It eats hoses and gaskets if you don't use the right kind (of gasket material). Not as efficient in terms of BPU per unit of volume, but with as much green waste as is produced in most cities in temperate ciimates, you'd think we could make something of it.

 

[Smokin Harley]

I'm sure it has been done...it definitely burns . It's what the moonshiners refer to as the "heads" of a batch run. not-drinkable at all...well, I guess you could but maybe only once, I wouldn't recommend it., but it will sure clean a paintbrush or degrease something.
Theres the heads-which are these distillates that come off first, basically fuel or cleaning fluid
The hearts which is the drinkable part of the batch
and the tails which is the liquid left over after the run after the alcohol has distilled off. Its pretty much sugar water and used in the following batch(this is where sour mash comes in)
I can remember a show on PBS when I was younger , the short video shown was of a farmer who showed how his corn was seed started , harvested then he took his corn and made fuel out of it to run his farm tractor...looking back I wish I had paid better attention. He basically made moonshine out of the corn and what he was using as fuel was the heads, or what former President Jimmy Carter pushed off as Gas-ahol. I think now it is more like E-85. Thankful for the education aspect of PBS...lol

 

[SmokesAhoy]

These days people just do sugar washes.

All corn would be sprout the corn, grind it, mash it, ferment and distill.

The most popular was a hybrid, crack corn sugar wash, corn for flavor sugar for etoh. If using a reflux just do sugar wash.

Be sure to watch out for them revenuers!

 

[DistillingJim]

Has anyone tried to run an old truck yet on the shine? I know in WWII they used to make wood gasifiers. Similar concept, but non-drinkable, wood based.

I've not but there's an old Moonshiner called Popcorn Sutton who has told a story about using it to jumpstart his car when it was out of fuel. That said he did drive a Model-T

 

[deluxestogie]

I've not but there's an old Moonshiner called Popcorn Sutton who has told a story about using it to jumpstart his car when it was out of fuel. That said he did drive a Model-T

Running an internal combustion engine on ethanol requires an extremely high cylinder compression ratio (like 14+:1) to work well. I'm not sure what the bottom is for simply limping along to the nearest gasoline, but a Model T engine had a really low ratio (less than 5:1). Most of today's auto engines run at compression ratios in the range of 8.5:1 to 12.5:1.

Bob

 

[Jitterbugdude]

You can run alcohol on a "normal" compression engine but I don't think a modern, computer controlled engine would work. I played around with alcohol years ago. You have to add a small weight to your float (in the carb) and you also need to drill out your jet(s). Your steel gas lines will begin to rust and your rubber gaskets will turn to mush. You will not have the power you normally would and your fuel mileage will decrease. Best to just drink it

 

[riverstone]

What they produce from green waste is actually methane and a council in London still uses it to power it's trucks. I have seen land fills with gas bleed pipes after they have been capped to collect the methane. We have one locally that runs a generator and the surplus power the site does not want goes into the national grid and they get paid for it.
The problem of running a vehicle on home produced alcohol is getting rid of the last bit of water.Alcohol is hygroscopic and the highest proof you can get at home is 96% ABV which leaves you 4% water. To get 100% (industrial grade) it is done under vacuum to stop moisture uptake. Methanol come off the still at a lower temperature that ethyl alcohol (good stuff) and then the heads,(drinkable, sweet strong and a headache in every sip) then the middle cut(body) which is the stuff you really want and then the tails( smells like wet cardboard and is low in alcohol). The heads and tails can be diluted and mixed in with the next still run. I keep my methanol and use it as methylated spirits in my workshop.

That's methanol, I think. It eats hoses and gaskets if you don't use the right kind (of gasket material). Not as efficient in terms of BPU per unit of volume, but with as much green waste as is produced in most cities in temperate ciimates, you'd think we could make something of it.

 

[chillardbee]

I've been reading up on spirits since I'm going to try my hand at some. I know that there are different sources for the various types of liquor. Cane sugar for rum, rye/barley for scotch/wiskey, corn for bourbon, ect. But the real flavour comes from the oak barrels from wear they are stored and aged. I read the barrels are charred (right down to charcoal on the inside) and the distilled liquor of about 160 proof is stored in it (they water it down after aging). anyway the colours come from the wood/smoke residues from the charring. The liquor also mellows out from the action of passing in and out of the charcoal from fluctuating temperature and barometric action. there's always a loss due to evaporation through the wood which is known as the 'angels share'.

After these barrels are used for this, they would be used for some types of wine. From what I understand, it was the barrels that had been used for whiskey then wine that would then be used for the pressing of the perique tobacco.

so this is what I'm recalling from my readings and such. could be some mistakes or misunderstandings.

 

[DistillingJim]

Oak barrels get reused quite a lot. To be a bourbon the barrel needs to be new and previously unused (I believe this was done to support industry at the time). Because of this, there is a high turnover of once used barrels and most UK distilleries import old bourbon barrels to use for scotch. Cant say if the same is true for wine and perique although I would imagine it pretty likely in both cases.