Beginners Moonshine Recipe

This is the most basic moonshine recipe.  It is easy to make, ferments quickly and tastes great.  Unlike all grain whiskey recipes that require converting starches in grains to sugar, this recipe uses table sugar to create the alcohol and the corn simply provides flavor.

The neutral flavor also works well for flavoring post distillations.  I will be adding a collection of some of my favorite flavored moonshine recipes.

This recipe can also serve as a great start for a sour mash that can be used for many runs before you need to start over.  Read the section at the end for more details on sour mashing.

Moonshine Ingredients

This moonshine recipe only has 4 ingredients:

Water

Any water you would drink will work great for making moonshine.  Spring water, well water, city water are all fine.  The only thing I would avoid is water with off flavors or odors.  If you have very high chlorine in your tap water or a strong sulfur smell you might want to look for a different water source.

Sugar

For this recipe use white table sugar, it’s inexpensive and easy to get.  You can get fancy with brown sugar, raw sugar, panela or corn syrup, but I suggest starting simple and then you can try other variations later on.

Corn

The last option is to use fresh sweet corn, canned or frozen would work, but this corn contains a lot of water so if you use fresh corn add 1.5-2x as much.

Yeast

DADY (Distillers Active Dry Yeast) is a very hearty strain that can tolerate high alcohol concentrations.  You should be able to find if your local home brew shop or Amazon.  For a beginner’s recipe this is a great place to start, and the yeast I most commonly use in my fermentation.

Yeast Nutrient

This is optional, but just gives your yeast a little boost to make sure they are healthy and fully ferment your mash.  Diammonium Phosphate is a common nutrient and should be at most home brew shops on online at places like Amazon.

Enzymes

If you want to take full advantage of the starches in the corn they need to be converted to sugars for the yeast to ferment.  This is usually done by adding enzymes from malted barley.  To simplify the process we can add enzymes directly to the mash and get the same conversion.  You will want to add both Alpha Amylase and Gluco or Beta Amylase both of these are also available from your local home brew store or online.

Moonshine Equipment

This list includes everything you need to make the mash.   Some of these items you will already have, the others can usually be purchased at a local home brew store, or I included some links to Amazon if you want to order them online.  If you don’t have a still checkout the beginner series of articles especially Lesson 3 about selecting a still.

• 6-gallon fermentation bucket
• Air lock
• Large pot to boil 3 gallons of water
• Heat source for pot
• Mixing Paddle
• Thermometer
• Triple Scale Hydrometer

Moonshine Recipe

Ingredient List

This recipe will be for a 5 gallon batch, but you can scale it up or down as needed.

• Water, 5 gallons
• Sugar, 5 lbs (1lb per gallon)
• Corn, 5lbs (1lb per gallon)
• Yeast, 2oz by weight
• Yeast Nutrient, Diammonium Phosphate (optional), 5 tsp
• Optional Advanced Process Ingredients:
  • Alpha Amylase, ½ tsp Glucoamylase, ½ tsp
  • Citric Acid, 2-1/2 tsp

Process

I will include 2 options in the process section.  The first is the simple version just using corn to add flavor to the mash.  The second will include inverting the sugar to improve the flavor and using the enzymes to convert the starches in the corn to sugars that will increase the specific gravity and yield of the recipe a little more.

Simple Moonshine Steps

1. Heat about 3 gallons of water to a simmer.
2. Add the water to a 6-gallon fermentation bucket.
3. Stir in the sugar until dissolved
4. Slowly stir in the corn make sure there aren’t any dry clumps of corn
5. Check the temperature of the mash and add the remaining 2 gallons of water either hot or cold to get a final temperature between 80-90 degrees F.  If the mash is a little hot, just give it some time to cool down.
6. Using a hydrometer take a specific gravity reading.  You should be around 1.050 or 6% potential alcohol by volume.  Remember to correct your reading for the temperature of the mash.
7. Add the yeast and yeast nutrient and give it a good stir.  Using a paddle mixer on a drill works great to mix the mash and add some oxygen to help the yeast get going.
8. Cover and install an airlock

Advanced Moonshine Steps (Inverting the Sugar and Converting the Corn)

For this recipe we will add the optional ingredients, and I suggest using flaked corn.  Flaked corn will still make it a little easier because we don’t need to grind or boil the corn to gelatinize it.

1. Bring 3 gallons of water to a boil
2. Add the sugar and citric acid, stir occasionally return to a boil then simmer for 15-20 minutes
3. Add the hot inverted sugar mixture to a 6-gallon fermentation bucket
4. Slowly stir in the corn make sure there aren’t any dry clumps of corn
5. Check the temperature of the mash for the Alpha Amylase to work the best it should be between 145-190 degrees F.  Add the remaining 2 gallons of hot or cold water to get the mash in that range
6. Stir in the Alpha Amylase
7. Once the mash cools to 135 degrees F stir in the Glucoamylase
8. When the temperature cools to between 80-90 degrees F use a hydrometer to take a specific gravity reading.  You should be around 1.080 or 10% potential alcohol by volume.  Remember to correct your reading for the temperature of the mash.
9. Add the yeast and yeast nutrient and give it a good stir.  Using a paddle mixer on a drill works great to mix the mash and add some oxygen to help the yeast get going.
10. Cover and install an airlock

Fermentation

Yeast doesn’t like the cold, so try to store your fermenter in a warm place ideally over 70 degrees.

The fermentation should be going strong by the next day and finish up in less than a week.  Once the bubbles slow down way down on the airlock you can take another gravity reading to see if fermentation has completed.  If you used the simple steps your reading should be just above 1.000 and for the advanced it may be below 1.000.

After fermentation is finished I like to let the wash sit for about 1 more week to settle out.  That way when you transfer the wash to the still most of the solids will stay in the fermenter and minimize the risk of burning during distillation.

Distilling the Moonshine Wash

Using a pot still with a thumper would be the best way to keep with tradition for this moonshine mash.  If you don’t have a thumper I suggest using a single pass with a column still and 1 plate or a double pot still distillation.  If you’re not sure what a column, plate or double distillation is check out this article where I talked all about multiple distillations.

Take a look at the recipe page for more ideas on what to try for your next batch and make sure to leave a comment and let me know what you like or what you’ve done differently.