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How to Make Honey "Moonshine" - AKA: "Honeyshine"
How to Make Honey "Moonshine"
Here is one of our favorite recipes of all time: Honeyshine. It's basically a no frills distilled mead, but it packs a powerful punch and tastes great. We've grown accustomed to using wildflower honey because it has more complexity than clover honey. However, clover honey will lend its own unique taste to the final product and may taste even better than wildfower. Giver er a try and tell us what you think.
We purchase honey from a local producer and get it for roughly $75 per gallon. This makes honey whiskey about the most expensive home distillation project one can undertake, but its darn good and is definitely worth the cost and the effort.
Honey Whiskey Recipe
Ingredients:
- 1 gallon of wildflower honey or honey of choice
- 5 gallons of water
- Super Start distillers yeast or yeast of choice
Procedure:
- Heat 2.5 gallons of water to 160° F and stir in 1 gallon of honey until completely dissolved.
- Add an additional 2.5 gallons of room temperature water to the honey solution.
- Cool to 70F using an immersion chiller.
- Aerate by pouring mash back and forth between two buckets.
- Add yeast of choice
- Add 2.5 teaspoons of yeast nutrient (Follow the directions on the label)
- Transfer to a glass carboy, install air lock, and allow to ferment around 70 F for at least 2 weeks or until it is finished fermenting. Check out 'Making Moonshine - How to Know when Fermentation is Finished: Part 2' for information on fermentation.
- After fermentation is finished allow to settle for 10-14 days.
- Siphon (do not pour) into a 5 or 10 gallon copper moonshine still. Do not fill vapor cone with liquid.
- Distill, making sure to toss foreshots, heads, and tails.
- Make extremely tight heads and tails cuts if you plan on drinking un-aged.
- Be tight with heads cut but more liberal with tails cuts if you are planning on following aging instructions below.
Finishing:
- Age for 2-3 weeks using lightly toasted american oak chips
- Add a tiny bit of honey to the finished product
- Note, this will make final product slightly cloudy. Lightly filter to remove haze (only if you absolutely must).
just started my first batch of mead using bakers yeast. It is the opposite of slow. Did a start in warm water and molasses. I think this may be the key to getting honey to ferment quickly because it was bubbling from the moment I put the airlock on the carboy. It smells like it’s probably already 2% ABV after just 24 hours. I expect to start bottle conditioning in 2 weeks and drinking in 3.
You have to overcome the antimicrobial properties of the honey and if the yeast isn’t going strong when you put it in, it never will.
I believe that active dry bakers yeast is the best yeast to use to ferment honey based on what I have seen with people using beer or wine yeast on youtube. I suspect it has greater resistance to the antimicrobial nature of honey. It has an alcohol tolerance of 14% which is plenty whether you are distilling it or not. Nevertheless, you can screw up with any yeast if you don’t handle it right.
Hello
Excuse my ignorance for I am new to disrilling. I have an 8 gallon stainless pot connected to a 40 inch tall 3 inch copper column stuffed with copper pads. I have made a few simple recipes that I think turned out well. Of course I don’t have anything to compare it to. Finally my question. If I were to also suspend copper plates into my mash when cooking off the alcohol would that simulate a copper pot and would it matter since I have a copper column with pads.
Thanks in advance.
Dave B.
Thank you
I will be ordering a 5 gAl still in the next. Couple days. I’m building it for a friend and master of distillery old school maker who is teaching me. He wants a worm on his still this is possible with your still is it not ???
I’m using “fleischmans active dry yeast”, how much should I add?all recipes say “a packet”, I bought a 4 oz. bottle. Also will be adding yeast nutrients, how much of the nutrient? Thank you in advance.
do you have any special pricing for veterans.
I know what the Heads and Tails are, but what is the foreshots?
Started 2 batches of honey shine and 1 does not appear to be fermenting. Have air lock on it and there is no bubbles coming through. The other is bubbling good. Any idea what is going on. The one not bubbling I used distillers yeast on, the one that is working good I used Baker’s yeast on.
Can you reuse the wash off of honey shine and run it again if so what do you do. I don’t see how inless you are putting more honey in it.
Honey is a very slow fermenter, I know because I make a lot of mead. 2 weeks may not be nearly long enough for it to complete fermentation. Two months would be better.
Great recipe! What would be the proof of the finished product? Thx.
When using honey, do you use raw honey or pasturiezed honey. I have access to both.
Thank you for your help in advance
While my product is fermenting in carboy, am I supposed to stir or just let set?
what and how much are head and tail cuts
The slow people should go back to school and learn how to spell.
P
some people must be a little slow
1st. Total revipe is on this page
2nd 2 Tbls yeast a
lso lidted in recipe
If you use 48 turbo yeast and your fermenting in a bucket with an airlock and the turbo yeast says to not use an airlock how do you tell if your wash is done? And also when it ferments is all the mash and yeast suppose to be at the top of your bucket?
If
one part of your article says heat till 160 and one says heat till 120…which one is it? thanks
We make a commercial version of this kind of product that we call prairie sunshine™. We do it as a single distillation on a 4-plate pot still. we use wildflower honeys, which seem to work much better than clover, which gets a bit of an anise and gasoline flavor. but just as important as the honey is the choice of yeast. flavor can transform using one type over another. try different wine yeasts. we have also tried rum yeasts. but avoid so-called turboyeasts.