Not sure really but my dad used to make apple cider every fall. Seemed pretty easy. He used an apple press though.

 

I've got to admit I've been thinking about and looking into Mead.

 

i hear meade is tough, though i love to drink it...

i would think bathtub brandy would be the easiest to make... fruit is generally more plentiful around me then corn is.... potato vodka might be up there as well

 

I would suspect that the easiest booze would be the technique used in prisons (No personal experience). Add yeast to any kind of fruit juice, leave in a warm place for a couple of weeks... Drink and enjoy.... or maybe not.

 

Raisin Jack ftw

 

I just threw up in my mouth a little LoL. The prison hooch sounds disgustingly gross

I like the hard apple cider idea a lot though.. Wes, any ideas on how easy it is to make?

Home-brewed beer would probably be a bit more difficult to make under adverse conditions, no?

 

Beer requires hops, which does not grow well everywhere. It definitely does not grow well in central Texas. Wine will be easier to make. Just use whatever fruit is available locally.

 

water melon wine is the easiest. and about 50 proof

 

50 proof = 25% alcohol

Sorry man, no way. Unless using a specialty alcohol tolerant yeast which would cost you about 10 - 20 bucks, there is no way to get 25% alcohol without running it through a distilling process. Champagne yeast is about the strongest yeast you will fine and that will only yield you about 16-20 % alcohol max.

The easiest basement hooch to make would be some grape juice (without preservatives) and add some baker's yeast. If there is no yeast available (SHTF for example), then crush up some apples in a bucket, put a piece of cheesecloth or mesh over the top of the bucket and secure with cord or a rubberband, and wait for nature to run it's course. 7-14 days later, you will have a hard apple cider that was fermented with wild yeast. Ain't gonna taste great, but it will do the trick.

I have been brewing for several years and I have made plenty of things for fun. The apple project that I posted is by far the easiest thing that I have found to make some hooch without access to brewer ingredients.

 

Wines.
You can make wine from lots of stuff, and it's hard to mess up.
Beer...more complicated.
Wines take little as far as skill and equipment. Apple jack may qualify as a wine-like product. Apple Jack kinda happens on it's own, if you provide the proper conditions. Lots of info in the internet.

 

Wines most definitely. You can use almost anything sweet to make wine, but usually cider is quite hard because it tends to turn into vinegar. Using apples are OK, but not alone. Using dried fruit is OK too, just can't have preservatives added because it kills the fermentation. Use what is cheap, plus sugar and wine yeast. Depending, you might make something really good or barely drinkable, but it will have alcohol. You can easily freeze distill to get a higher amount of alcohol (not legal where I am) but then you will also increase whatever bad tastes you created.

 

Wines most definitely. You can use almost anything sweet to make wine, but usually cider is quite hard because it tends to turn into vinegar.

You usually have something that wasn't clean if that happens. Vinegar is produced by bacterial fermentation. You want a good air lock and very clean equipment.

 

Apple jack made from Apple Juice Concentrate has always been a favorite of mine.
You can use almost any kind of fruit. You have to watch your ph level to get the yeast to work well but it's easy enough to figure out.

 

+1 to apple jack. Ferment a batch, strain out the solids. then leave out side on a freezing night. Take off the ice (it's water) and you've effectively distilled it.

opa!

 

Wine, by far the easiest. Anything with sugar in it will work. Chop up, add water so it's immersed and sit back and wait. (bubblers help) Pitch yeast and in about 2 weeks it's fairly high in alcohol. Rack it a few times it you want it 'clear', but that doesn't change the alcohol content.

Beer takes more work and heat.

Distilled spirits need a still. Most any beer or wine could be used to make distilled liquor. You're just separating the water from the alcohol.

There are always 'tricks' to make it better or stronger. I frequently use Champagne yeast to get the alcohol up to 18%. Just keep adding sugar when fermentation slows down and it'll eventually get there, usually in a week or two more.

Different yeasts can only handle so much alcohol before it dies. Bread yeast being the lowest, then beer, then wine, then champagne. (don't know any yeasts that'll take it higher.) That's where stills come in.

 

Distilled spirits need a still.

While this is true, you don't need heat to distil something. :thumb:

 

The easiest way to make wine is, put grape juice or other juice, can be made with juice concentrate, in a gallon jug and add bakers yeast. put a large balloon on the jug. The balloon will inflate and then deflate. When it has deflated siphon it off the degrees into another bottle put the balloon back on and wait until it clears then drink or bottle. You would be better off going to a home brewing store for advice and supplies. You can also get info., books and supplies online. Libraries usually have books on home brewing as well. If you want to distill alcohol get the book “The lore of still building” you can get it at home brewing stores or online. I got mine in the early 80’s but it is still in print. It is a very good book and will tell you how to make everything from simple stills to stills for gasohol.

 

wine is easiest and least start up expense- expect 12-14% ABV
distilling moonshine is illegal, stills expensive to make- expect 90+ % ABV
mead with champagne yeast can approach 20-21% ABV

bakers yeast works but the alcohol will kill the yeast before optimum alcohol can be produced- stick with wine, champagne or turbo yeast for higher yields and better taste

IMO, the most bang for the buck is mead with a high alcohol tolerance champagne yeast

 

This thread should be made a sticky!!!

 

I have seen both raisin jack and apple jack listed here. Many moons ago when I was working in Alaska on a crab fishing boat (yes, the deadliest catch type!) The cooks assistant had an ongoing batch hidden that he added any sweetened fruit juice or peeled and cut up fruits with water and bread yeast. He havested about 5 gallons a week by siphoning the liquids off the top and adding new water and fruit. Keep the thing going for several months until he tried potatoes when the fruit ran out on a long extended 35 day run out of Dutch Harbor. batch went bad and stunk the place up so he had to dump it. High octane and had a funky taste but you can get used to anything if you want to...:upsidedown:

 

I had a cook in the Navy that did much the same thing, except on a larger scale. I'm not sure how many stashes he had but in each of the engineering hole (4 on the ship) he had 4 - 5 gallon containers with a trash bag inside them. Rubber band on each to seal and allow gases to escape. Once a week he'd come down, siphon off what he could and added another case of fruit to start a fresh batch. Figure he was making about 15 gallons a week just from the ones in engineering.

Cloudy and yeasty tasting but it did the trick.

 

Gold miners used to drink the hooch of the top of sour dough starter , Its not that tasty LOL I've tyred it

 

5 gal water
5# sugar
5 cans fruit cocktail
1 small packet yeast.

mix and store for at least a month, two is better. Cap it off while stored.
strain out the fruit and prepare for a hang over. Would make good trade/barter stock when the chips are down.
A friend is stock piling pints and half pints of store bought booze to barter with when the time comes.

 

It all depends on what you learn first. None of them are that hard to make, you just have to jump in and start making them.

There's some good videos on YouTube about easy moonshine:

Making your own alcohol just takes a person taking their time to start doing it. From there it's easy.

 

Prison Wine is very easy to make. I've made it on 3 seperate occasions, with 2 of the batches being actually good (said some alcoholics ) but just be careful not to poison yourself with food poisoning (botulism and such). Here's a recipe, warning kids, dont try this at home unless your an adult and you have little regard for your own saftey caused by a lack of sanity. Enjoy. http://www.blacktable.com/gillin030901.htm FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, do not put ketchup in it, i know what it says but dont. (I made a very nice batch using half grapes and half black cherries w/o pits, both aged as whole fruit and then mashed)

 

Easiest?

1pkt unsweetened kool-aid
2-3 cups sugar
1 gal water
yeast

Mix together and loosely cap and let sit until you feel like throwing it out.

You didn't say "good", you said easiest.

 

I used to make beer from a kit, but to me, using a kit is contrary to my self-sufficiency goals, besides I just don't like beer like I used to. I've also made homemade wine a few times. It's really not hard, but takes a lot of fruit... not a big deal if you find good in-season deals at a farmers market or grow your own. As someone else pointed out, there is plenty of info online. I really should get back into it. Maybe I'll try making some from apple cider soon.

 

I dont have any guide in English unfortently!

Just remember to get a proper filter, a good Coal Filter! This was my first mistake, I had a good taste, the next day still doesnt excist! The headace was some of the worst! Sooooo remember good filter!

Moast my buddies and mine production contained of 2 buckets bowls, thoose you store rice & beans in connected with a tube! Next is a heater from aquarium! (the ones you use in your fish tank)

Far from that; Water, sugar and yeast! ::

Check theese links to see if they can give you a pinpoint!

http://easystill.com/
http://www.home-distillation.com/
http://www.partyman.se/

 

Dude made the simplest of basement boozes. Sugar. Water, Yeast. Fructose works better than sucrose, regular table sugar. Ferments purely, sucrose leaves a bitter aftertaste. I suspect source of headache that a good carbon filter or a triple still run would remove if you have that option. Maybe a slag box or thumper... I would not drink coolaid wine!

Mead, juice wines, beer- all tasty.

 

I brew beer and mead. Mead is definitely the easiest. Basically it's honey and champagne yeast. You can add spice to make it a methglyn or fruit to make a pyment. My favorite is to use lemons or oranges and ginger. The only thing with mead is that the longer it ages, the better it is. After one year it's pretty good, after two it's really good, after 4, it's excellent. But it's drinkable after a few months. Beer is quicker. I usually use a liquid yeast from the brew store because I'm really picky about beer. There's tons of into on brewing both on the web. And even more if you go to a brew store and talk to someone. You can get malt in cans and add a "tea" made of specialty grains to brew different kinds of beer. I think both would keep for a long time, as well as dried hops. I don't know how long the yeast would keep. I need to do more research...

 

I'm going with wine being the easiest to make with beer a close second. You have to make one of those first to distill into spirits anyway. Rum is the easiest spirit to start making.

You can boost the alcohol ratio in wine very easy by freezing it and skimming the ice off of the top until there is no more. The resulting "fortified" wine will make you think that you can see around corners and shyt like that.

 

I have made wine for many years and have made some that was fantastic and some that was less then wonderful.

A very very basic SHTF way to make wine....

get a 5 gallon glass or plasitic carboy (water jug).

Cut up a bunch of apples or crush grapes, or cherries, or choke cherries, or pears, small enough to fit in the carboy cover bottom to about 2-4 inches

add 5 - 8 cups of sugar

fill jug to within 4 inches of top

add 1 -2 packages of yeast

put a balloon on the top of the jug... poke 2-3 pin holes in balloon (this will act as a one way valve)

keep bottle warm (not hot)

sit back and wait 21-45 days...
---------------
The best way to get a grasp of wine making is to get a kit and following the directions, after that - experiment

 

Damn, I've read all these post an come to the conclusion that most of ya'll got no taste buds! Prison wine? really??? YUCK! Go on ebay and search "Still". For about $200 you can get a nice still. Make your beer with corn meal and make REAL Corn Whiskey. Not only will it get ya drunk but it can also be used to make tinctures. Could be very handy to make medicinal alcohol when shtf.

 

Yes mtnman, a still is nice an all however, i can make my prison wine with left over fruit and fast food sugar packets should i need to and i can heat it with my body to ferment it!!! I honestly dont even need to use sugar if i can get a sugary enough plant/substance for the natural yeast to feed on. But i will say this, i have thought about and seen many different methods of making real corn whiskey and i can say that it all looks tasty : , unfortunately i cannot drink whiskey thanks to a bad experience with Jack D and a turkey sandwich.:taped: