Moonshine vs Neutral Grain Spirits

[Snagglefoot]

I came across a product called Ryan’s Irish Style Cream which is basically a knock off of Bailey’s Irish Cream liquor. It was way cheaper than Bailey’s. Looking closely it said it contained “ Neutral Grain Spirits” I had to look that up. It’s ethanol. Isn’t that what moonshine is? Maybe you moonshiners can educate me on this.

 

[atikovi]

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The requested page could not be found.

 

[spasm3]

Ethanol is the alcohol that is consumable, its in alcoholic drinks. I think their term "neutral" means unflavored ethanol added( spiked) to Irish whiskey.

 

[Leo99]

To make alcohol at home, we need to ferment some sugars. The sugars in corn or potatoes or wheat work for this. Mash up some corn, mix with water and heat it to a certain temperature for a certain length of time to release the sugars. Add in some proper yeast at the proper temperature and length of time and let the yeast do its thing. When the fermentation completes, you'll get about 13% EtOH. Now, we need to concentrate it down by separating the EtOH from the H2O. That step is distillation. It's done by heating the liquid and taking advantage that EtOH will boil off at lower temperature than water. Now we have water liquid and EtOH gas. Cool down the gas and it's back to a liquid. Fermentation is mostly legal. Distillation is mostly illegal. Since it's illegal to do at home, it's moonshine. Done legally it neutral grain spirits. Of course there are flavors left over from the corn as some impurities vaporize off with the EtOH.

 

[earlyre]

Rectified spirit - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[ARCOgraphite]

I used to drink the lab grade anhydrous ethanol when things got stressful in my tech startup.
Best Vodka I've ever tasted!

From what I think I know, Moonshine, Ethanol., Grain Neutral Spirits, Everclear, Vodka are all distilled fermented mash
with varying degrees of other constituents/undesirables and contain various % of water. Multiple distallatiuons ( as in "Triple Distilled) remove more water and undesirables.

Looks like you bought some cheap stuff as Irish whiskey is usually used to provide the preferred alcohol content,
but many distillers use GNS to achieve the labeled "Proof"

BTW Carolan's Irish Cream was my preferred over Baileys in the 80's and 90's and at State liquor Stores it was about 1/2 as expensive as the recognized brand when on sale.

 

[ecotourist]

To make alcohol at home, we need to ferment some sugars. The sugars in corn or potatoes or wheat work for this. Mash up some corn, mix with water and heat it to a certain temperature for a certain length of time to release the sugars. Add in some proper yeast at the proper temperature and length of time and let the yeast do its thing. When the fermentation completes, you'll get about 13% EtOH. Now, we need to concentrate it down by separating the EtOH from the H2O. That step is distillation. It's done by heating the liquid and taking advantage that EtOH will boil off at lower temperature than water. Now we have water liquid and EtOH gas. Cool down the gas and it's back to a liquid. Fermentation is mostly legal. Distillation is mostly illegal. Since it's illegal to do at home, it's moonshine. Done legally it neutral grain spirits. Of course there are flavors left over from the corn as some impurities

And mess it up and you end up with a lot of methanol (as opposed to ethanol) in the moonshine and drinkers first go into metabolic acidosis and renal failure, and if they survive at all may be blind. So not for the faint of heart (the making or the drinking).

This is not a theoretical danger either. A childhood friend's father died from drinking a bad batch of moonshine.

 

[Snagglefoot]

Here is something on how methanol can end up in moonshine. It’s all temperature related. Kids, don’t do this at home.

 

[Trav]

Years ago there were people who drank antifreeze (wood/methyl alcohol), it made them blind, ill or die but they drank it anyway. Then there were the old spice and high proof everclear drinkers.

 

[ARCOgraphite]

The rich lady's prefer Channel #5.
Hic! Oh My, was that ME ?

 

[SpitFire6]

The Blue Flame.

 

[Trav]

Meths drinkers. LOL