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Most of the stuff I've been brewing lately is a little complicated for beginners. Skeeter pee is absolutely fantastic once you've built up some confidence with the basics and bought a few supplies off Amazon or from a local supply store.

One of the biggest problems I had with my earliest brews was the sulfur smell and overall yeasty taste (still quite drinkable though!). To avoid that, make sure your yeast has some nutrient and do a round or two of putting your finished hooch in the fridge then gently pouring off the liquid into another container without disturbing the sediment on the bottom. For nutrient I like to either barely boil the yeast sediment from a previous batch or toss in some boiled fruit like cantaloupe or peaches. The go-to recommendations for nutrients on r/prisonhooch are boiled/mashed raisins or tomato paste. I'd lean toward tomato paste if you don't want to tinker with anything else. I haven't done A/B testing to determine how much of a difference it makes, but I like to throw in at least a quarter cup of guava nectar... at the very least it probably doesn't hurt anything.

So, a basic recipe would look like this:

1. 1 gallon apple juice - just go to Walmart or whatever grocery store is convenient and pick up whatever is cheapest (as long as it doesn't have preservatives, most don't)
   
   
2. pour out about 4 cups of the juice to make room for all the sugar you're going to add
   
   
3. add 2 cups of sugar, cap it, and shake vigorously until it's all dissolved
   
   
4. add a packet/teaspoon of yeast. If you have fancy cider/wine yeast then use that, but bread yeast will work just fine. Add whatever you have for nutrients. Boiled yeast and fruits or tomato paste/ketchup, just give your yeast a little something to chew on. Cap it and shake it again to get everything intermixed.
   
   
5. loosen the cap just enough for air to escape. You can rig up a balloon air lock (or even a real airlock) if you really want to, but I've never had an issue with just a loose cap. put it somewhere that's not too hot and not too cold. mid-70s F is ideal.
   
   
6. You should see lots of bubbles after a couple of days. Let it bubble away until there is noticeably less activity: time to step feed.
   
   
7. Add two more cups of sugar and shake until it's all dissolved. Your yeast may or may not be able to tolerate eating all of this. Baking yeast might die off as the alcohol content rises. I spent $46 for a lifetime supply of EC-1118 wine yeast and haven't regretted it in the least.
   
   
8. You should see some renewed fermentation... just let it sit with a vented cap until you're not seeing any more bubbles and pour yourself a little taste. If it's still sweet, then the fermentation is stalled and it's probably as strong as you're going to get with the yeast/techniques being used. If it's really dry then you're all set, but you might want to back sweeten it before you drink it. You can add a little simple syrup or other sweetener to taste.
   
   
9. Move it to the fridge for the 'cold crash'. Let all the sediment fall to the bottom then either siphon it to another container (vinyl tubing is dirt cheap at most hardware stores) or gently pour it off while doing your best to not disturb the layer at the bottom. You can do this a couple of times until no more sediment falls to the bottom.
   
   Another simple thing to brew is tepache, a 'wine' made from pineapple scraps. Whenever I cut up a pineapple I save the skins in the freezer. After I fill up a freezer bag (3-ish pineapples) I use them for the hooch.
   
   You'll want a decent sized vessel, 2-3 gallon size is ideal. Walmart has some beverage dispensers around this size, and they're usually on sale this time of year. It's tempting to just brew it in a bucket and make a 5 gallon batch, but this stuff really doesn't store well and you should only brew what you'll drink reasonably soon. I like a bit of a vinegary taste like you get with kombucha, so I use the native yeast that lives on the pineapple skin and just feed it as much sugar as it can handle. The final ABV can vary from batch to batch. Cover the pineapple skins with water, leaving a decent bit of room at the top for bubbles/foam. Start with 1 cup brown sugar and 1 cup white sugar, stir until dissolved then keep it somewhere warm, and once you've got a good fermentation going you can add some more sugar. There will be a foamy/scummy layer on the top but it's completely normal and harmless. You can just scoop it off and give everything a good stir.
   
   It only takes a few days- maybe a week or so. When it's ready it'll be somewhat fizzy and sweet and delicious over ice. The longer you let it sit the more vinegary it will taste, and if you just let it go indefinitely you can get a tasty pineapple vinegar if you want to branch out with your fermentation experiments. Adding cloves, mint, vanilla, and other spices can also give good results. If you search the subreddit, several people posted about making their own tepache over the summer.
   
   I just realized I wrote half a novel :P That should at least get you started...

It's going to be super fucking yeasty and might make you sick. Adding more yeast can speed along fermentation, but there's a point of diminishing returns that you're far past. IMO tiny batches are never a good idea, especially when your chances for infection are so high. I'd at LEAST use a 2L soda bottle, a better option is a gallon milk jug that you fill about 2/3s so you have enough space for the foam and it can fill a 2L bottle after it's done.

​

If you want the cheapest starting batch, this is my go-to:

(in a gallon milk jug)

2L water

1-2 cup white sugar (2 cups will put it at about 20% ABV max, but it is unlikely you will reach this level without a "real" setup. It will however add some sweetness which could be good or bad depending on your tastes).

Some fruit (Anything really, whatever's cheaply available. You can blend it if you want to go through the effort of straining it, but cutting it into small pieces should work just fine. This is for nutrients more than flavor, but if you add a bunch it will ferment faster and taste more like the fruit.)

1 tsp yeast (You said you have champagne yeast, which should work perfectly. I have some cheap distillers yeast I got off of amazon that will last me just about forever. It can reach ~20%, but the end project tastes like shit.)

A balloon (Pack of ten at the dollar store. These work just as well as normal airlocks, no need to spend anything more.)

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Simplest way is to just mix everything together in a gallon jug and put a balloon over the top (poke a few tiny holes with a needle).

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An easy way to decrease the chance of the fermentation stalling is to activate the yeast. Once it foams up about .5 cm you should be good to dump it in with the rest of the ingredients. You can also boil everything first, excluding the yeast (and balloon of course), first and foremost for sanitation, but this will also help extract the sugar from your fruit and make it easier for the yeast to use. It will also make the fruit flavor come through a bit more. None of the steps in this paragraph are required, but if you have some spare time you can experiment a bit.

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Place it in a cool area (room temperature during late fall / winter is perfectly fine) and KEEP IT AWAY FROM LIGHT! Since you're trying to be discreet in your dorm this shouldn't be an issue, I assume you've already found a place to keep it out of sight. If not, just find an empty box or tub.

​

Finally, you just have to wait. Just try and forget about it, maybe check on it every 5 days or so. Once the balloon deflates completely (probably in about 15 days), it's close to the max ABV and technically drinkable. Pop the cap on, maybe siphon it to a smaller bottle. I personally would let it sit for a week or so to let the yeast settle out, but drinking it at this stage wouldn't hurt you, aside from a bit of indigestion. I'd try to drink it within the month or refrigerate it, since there's a possibility it is infected and could slowly turn to vinegar.

​

I have a moderate tolerance, and 2L is enough to get me completely snoggered. If I left you with any questions don't hesitate to ask.

Can you please provide more information about the process you undertook?

==========

I'll paste my go to guide that was given to me by a member of this sub:

I like high ABV hooch, and I have a couple of rules of thumb for grams per liter or cups per gallon, the easiest one to start with is probably 3 cups of sugar per gallon for a 14% ABV hooch. You can adjust up or down from there, so 2 cups per gallon is around 9% and 1 cup per gallon is around 4%.

A little tip if you want to push your yeast to high ABV brews: 'step feeding' is where you start with about half of the sugar then add the rest after your yeast is well established and bubbling away. If your sugar concentration is too high to start with the fermentation can either take a very long time to start or not start at all.

So, a basic recipe would look like this:

1. 1 gallon - just go to Walmart or whatever grocery store is convenient and pick up whatever is cheapest (as long as it doesn't have preservatives, most don't)
   
   
2. pour out about 4 cups of the juice to make room for all the sugar you're going to add
   
   
3. add 2 cups of sugar, cap it, and shake vigorously until it's all dissolved
   
   
4. add a packet/teaspoon of yeast. If you have fancy cider/wine yeast then use that, but bread yeast will work just fine. Add whatever you have for nutrients. Boiled yeast and fruits or tomato paste/ketchup, just give your yeast a little something to chew on. Cap it and shake it again to get everything intermixed.
   
   
5. loosen the cap just enough for air to escape. You can rig up a balloon air lock (or even a real airlock) if you really want to, but I've never had an issue with just a loose cap. put it somewhere that's not too hot and not too cold. mid-70s F is ideal.
   
   
6. You should see lots of bubbles after a couple of days. Let it bubble away until there is noticeably less activity: time to step feed.
   
   
7. Add two more cups of sugar syrup and shake until it's all dissolved. Your yeast may or may not be able to tolerate eating all of this. Baking yeast might die off as the alcohol content rises.
   
   
8. You should see some renewed fermentation... just let it sit with a vented cap until you're not seeing any more bubbles and pour yourself a little taste. If it's still sweet, then the fermentation is stalled and it's probably as strong as you're going to get with the yeast/techniques being used. If it's really dry then you're all set, but you might want to back sweeten it before you drink it. You can add a little simple syrup or other sweetener to taste.
   
   
9. Move it to the fridge for the 'cold crash'. Let all the sediment fall to the bottom then either siphon it to another container (vinyl tubing is dirt cheap at most hardware stores) or gently pour it off while doing your best to not disturb the layer at the bottom. You can do this a couple of times until no more sediment falls to the bottom.
   
   
   Alcobase Extreme 23% Turbo Yeast 16.4 oz. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008Y0NWX0/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_mAEBDb2KZ3Y8Fó

Fantastic post overall!!!

> Remove balloon and slowly pour into separate container, careful to leave dead yeast at the bottom of container

Use a coffee filter if you're going this route. Otherwise, using a siphon or puncturing a hole near the bottom of the container is much more effective.

> 64 fl oz bottle Great Value 100% juice

Are you sure this doesn't have preservatives that may affect the wine? It's definitely usable, but perhaps Welch's or an organic brand would produce a higher-quality yield.

> 1 packet Fleischmann's Baker's Yeast

While baker's yeast works well, consider that real wine yeast is just as cheap, and is on Amazon. Wine yeast produces a better yield, and if you can get it for the same price as baker's yeast, I highly reccomend it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiGu6PxcSUQ

Watch this video. I just started making some based on his recipe. I would increase the speed to 1.25 the guy talks way too slow for me. You could order some airlocks and some yeast on amazon and all he would need is any 2 quart juice he wants that does not have preservatives in it.

The Great Value walmart brand is working well for me, also the Aldi brand Apple juice is working well.

https://www.amazon.com/Red-Star-Premier-Blanc-Yeast/dp/B00WFBRV18/

Air lock would be completely optional as the dudes video he shows you just to do it with the lid on.

Three piece airlock along with some sort of bung is great. Easier to clean than a two piece, but those are also good.

should work pretty well. wine yeast is super cheap on amazon, it can tolerate higher levels of alcohol. I use Red Star Cuvee to make Skeeter Pee, which is a baby step up from Kilju in difficulty.

'Super wine yeast' plus yeast nutrient from the same company. I think using something a bit more... sophisticated might produce a better flavour but it is really fast acting and tolerates high alcohol levels.

First bubbles usually occur about half an hour after adding it and within a day or two (took slightly longer this time because it was colder) it is foaming like crazy with a bubble in the airlock about every 0.5 seconds. It's become even faster now than it was when I filmed this 5 hours ago.

The price of both of them seems to have gone up by £1 since I ordered though so there may be better options at the moment.

So you basically need the following:

• Water
  
• Yeast
  
• Something for yeast to eat
  
• Something to keep the water and yeast in
  
  Water from your tap works fine, even if you live in an area that uses chlorine or chloramine.
  
  I like to use champagne yeast since it's cheap and tolerates a high alcohol percentage while not tasting disgusting.
  
  Sugar is yeast food. You can just dissolve regular sugar in water or you can get fancy and use the sugar in juices and fruits.
  
  For a vessel you need something that can withstand a little bit of pressure and have a way to let gas out. This means always plastic and never glass. Soda bottles or plastic milk cartons work well for this if you put a balloon with a pinhole in it over the top. That lets extra pressure out while not letting anything weird in since yeast isn't the only microorganism that eats sugar (you don't want mold or bacteria).
  
  That's about it! You can flavor it before or after to get different tastes. Quick disclaimer:
  
  > Recipes are undertaken at your own risk, and should be consumed only at the legal drinking age for your area. White mold is your friend, green think again. #hoochresponsibly

What you could do is mix some rice up with Amylase and then any old wine yeast should do it. Just taste it to make sure its sweet and you should be in business. Just make sure that the rice isnt to warm when doing so or you will denature the enzyme.

Rice by itself won't ferment much because most of the carbohydrates are undigestible starches. The way sake is made, is that you cultivate a special mold on a portion of the rice which produces enzymes that convert the starches to sugar so that the yeast can digest it.

You can buy a bag of this cultured rice online, and if you mix that with some cooked rice (cool it first so you don't destroy the enzymes), you will produce sugar from rice which can then be made into alcohol.

https://www.amazon.com/MIYAKO-Malted-making-Pickles-Isesou/dp/B004FH67ZQ/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=koji+rice&qid=1568574737&s=gateway&sr=8-3

You also might consider simply wrapping your fermenter with a blanket or a couple of towels - yeast produce heat when they convert sugars to alcohol (you may already know this), and by both insulating and increasing the thermal mass of the fermenter, you might do enough to allow the yeast to keep itself warm and also limit the fluctuations in temperature. I have no experience with this, though, as I use an STC-1000 to regulate my temperature with a minifridge and a heater like this one https://www.amazon.com/Homebrew-Fermentation-Heater-by-TheBrewersCorner/dp/B00TP9MLFE

Here you go-

3-Piece Air Locks, 3 Piece... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07M7TN5BY?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Red Star Red Star Premier Blanc... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00434CB74?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

ATP - Vinyl-Flex PVC Food Grade... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PXJDESI?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

HYDROMETER - ALCOHOL, 0-200 PROOF... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013S1VAM4?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

LD Carlson Yeast Nutrient, 2 oz. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0149IY8F6?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

As far as recipes, I’m still working on these first 2. Adding black tea and raisins and b-vitamins seems to have kept things bubbling.

As far as juices, I get most everything from Aldi (or Trader Joe’s if you’re fancy) very few preservatives, dirt cheap prices and unique flavored juices (Harissa Mango Pineapple juice??!?)

Hope that helps! I’ll post updates as the batch progresses. 2 days from now I’ll probably cold crash and do a gelatin clarifier.

Champagne yeast is worth it for the 90 cent price! I don't want to by all snotty here but its the one thing imo you gotta spend money on for a decent product.... that having been said I've never tried making hooch with bread yeast. https://www.amazon.com/Pasteur-Champagne-Making-Moonshine-Distilling/dp/B00WFBRV18/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1481124482&sr=8-6&keywords=champagne+yeast