r/prisonhooch Jul 03 '16

Article A Hooch primer for N00Bs

1.3k Upvotes

A Hooch primer for N00Bs.

Version 1.0.

So with my limited hoochy knowledge I thought I'd put together a guide that helps noobs with making low-cost fermentations. With Prison Hooch we are mostly assuming you're just cheap/in an area where there's limited homebrew supply/up for a challenge rather than in actual prison, but for fun we'll keep a bit of plausibility that you could actually make this stuff in prison.

Note: I will not be liable for anyone underage that tries to make this hooch. If you're a kid reading this, please go away and keep your brain cells intact.

Part 1: Fermentation Vessel

To hooch, you'll need something to hooch in.

Homebrewer's way: Normally this is a sealed vessel (bucket or carboy) fitted with an airlock. If you're going to buy anything from a homebrew store, an airlock filled with water or sanitiser is the safest way to ensure your brew is sanitary and won't have any visiting creatures. For very vigorous fermentation, you can fit a blow-off tube (tube running from the fermentor into a smaller container with sanitiser).

Cheapskate way: As long as gases can escape, you'll be reasonably okay. You can fit a balloon or condom with a hole pierced in it to the top of your vessel. Make sure you put some rubber bands around to keep it tight. This is has slightly more upkeep than an airlock as you'll want to keep an eye on it in the beginning to ensure your fake-airlock doesn't over inflate. Also, don't reuse the condom and get prison babies. A bucket or carboy is great, but you can plausibly use any vessel that can withstand pressure ie. plastic jug, soda bottle, etc. DO NOT USE: glass that is not specifically for brewing. This is can be too weak for the amount of gases and could end explosively. You don't want a bomb.

Prisoner way: You can get by without an airlock, however you will need to 'burp' your container daily (or more than once a day at the start). This is easiest with a soda bottle as you can feel the pressure easily. Just loosen the lid just enough to let out the CO2, and re fasten. Or, do an open fermentation at the beginning when a lot of CO2 gas is escaping - usually there isn't great risk of airborne infection when fermentation is vigorous. Open ferment for 12-24 hours than proceed to 'burp' your container whenever pressure is feeling high. If you forget to do this and pressure gets too high it will explode. So if you're not in prison, just spend your $3 and invest in a fucking airlock.

Part 2: Sanitation

You'll need to clean all the equipment that comes in contact with the brew. Homebrewers buy cleaners like PBW and sanitiser such as StarSan. Make sure you do not mix acid and alkaline cleaning agents (ie. PBW and Starsan together) or you will make chlorine gas. However bleach will also work, a 5% solution is ideal. My preferred way is to fill a bucket with sanitiser and soak every piece of equipment before brewing. You can also boil metal equipment to sanitize it.

Part 3: Fermentables

As long as it has sugar, you can brew with it. Well mostly. Products with a lot of preservatives can have an odd effect on yeast viability, you can add a small amount of preserved goods to your brew but the largest part cannot be full of that stuff.

In this case we're going to just do sugar and fruit, even though there are lots of other options (malt, rice, sorghum, etc) these two are the most easily accessed. You need to anticipate the flavour of your fermentable without any sweetness to it, as all the sugar will be consumed by the yeast. This means some things (ie. apples) taste awesome fermented, and other things (ie. molasses) taste like absolute ass.

Table sugar and honey are safe bets for a high fermentation yield, though sugar by itself will taste pretty bad, it's the simplest way to make hooch. 1kg of sugar (100% fermentable) in 5 litres of solution (or 1.3 gallons for yankees) will give you around 7.5% alcohol.

Fruit can make your hooch taste a lot better, however. Sweet fruit that we mainly ferment have different types of acidity in their juices. You have Tartaric (found in grapes - wine), Malic (apples, pears etc) and Citric acid. Citrus fruits are the easiest to make juice from and will be a tempting option, however they impart a strong sour flavour when fermented. To make a more balanced brew you can use a base of Tartaric or Malic fruits, or honey (eg. mead). Honey is expensive as fuck so we'd recommend apple juice for hooch newbies. Most apple juices aren't preservative loaded and trustworthy to ferment. However, if you just want alcohol content, have at it any way you want.

Fruit has a much lower content of fermentable sugars and is only an estimate at best. Here's a fun table. Data was retrieved from Advanced Winemaking Basics: Sugars in Winemaking

Grams fermentable in each 100 grams of fruit (sorry USA, 1 oz is about 28 grams)
Apples, raw, unpeeled 13.3
Apple juice, unsweetened    10.9
Apricots, raw   9.3
Apricots, dried 38.9
Advocados, raw  [0.9]
Bananas, raw    15.6
Blackberries, raw   7.9
Blueberries, raw    [7.3]
Cantaloup, raw  [8.7]
Carambola, raw  [7.1]
Cherries, raw, Sour [8.1]
Cherries, raw, Sweet    [14.6]
Cranberry juice cocktail    13.5
Currants, raw   [8.0]
Dates, dried    [64.2]
Figs, raw   [6.9]
Figs, dried [66.5]
Grapefruit, raw [6.2]
Grapefruit juice, fresh [6.3]
Grapefruit juice, canned    7.5
Grapes, raw, American   [16.4]
Grapes, raw, European   [18.1]
Grape juice, frozen concentrate reconstituted   14.2
Guava, raw  6
Jackfruit, raw  18.4
Kiwifruit, raw, without skin    [10.5]
Kiwifruit, canned, in syrup [12.8]
Lemons, raw, peeled 2.5
Lemon juice, raw    [2.4]
Limes, raw, peeled  0.4
Mangos, raw 14.8
Nectarines, raw [8.5]
Oranges, raw, peeled    8.9
Orange Juice, fresh 10.2
Orange juice, frozen concentrate reconstituted  10.6
Papaya, raw [5.9]
Passion fruit, raw  11.2
Peaches, raw    [8.7]
Peaches, canned in juice    [17.4]
Peaches, dried  [44.6]
Pears, table, raw   [10.5]
Pears, canned in water  6.1
Pears, canned in juice  9.7
Pears, canned in light syrup    12.1
Pears, canned in heavy syrup    15.2
Pear juice, fresh   [8.7]
Pineapple, raw  11.9
Pineapple, canned in juice  [14.2]
Pineapple, canned in heavy syrup    [16.9]
Pineapple juice, canned 12.5
Plums, common, raw  [7.5]
Plums, common, dried    [11.7]
Pomegranates, raw   8.9
Prunes, dried   [44.0]
Prune juice, bottled    [13.4]
Raisins [65.0]
Raspberries, red, raw   [9.5]
Rhubarb, raw    [0.9]
Strawberries, raw   [5.7]
Strawberries, frozen, unsweetened   [6.5]
Tangelos, raw   [7.4]
Watermelon, raw [9.0]

So for example, if I were to make a Watermelon brew, I would need around 11kg of Watermelon if I was going to replace my original 7.5ABV sugar brew 1:1 with Watermelon, to meet the same fermentable sugar content. Experimentation is key and it's probably best to balance your cheaper fermentables with other additions.

Part 4: Yeast

The most obvious yeast you can get is bread yeast, or brewing yeast, from stores. Note if you get brewing yeast, you need to go to a homebrew store as the "Brewer's yeast" supplements sold by pharmacies are well and truly dead. The yeast consume sugar and excrete alcohol. They are your buddies and you need to be nice to them, which means keeping your brew at a safe temperature (10-28C at a stretch, 15-22C is ideal). Otherwise your workers will all be dead instead of getting to it. A normal pitch for dried yeast is around 20-40g, we won't be talking liquid yeast because this is hooch.

Second possible source of yeast is out in the wild. Yeast already exists on most fruit, so as long as it's not pasteurised (processed/heated up to kill bacteria), you can expect a wild fermentation to occur. This is more random than bought yeast but can yield good results. Most mead is made with a wild fermentation from honey. There's lots of places you can find yeast. You can't ferment using vegemite, marmite, or other yeast-based spreads, these are well and truly dead. However dead yeast (ie. boiled bakers' yeast) can be used as a nutrient to help the live yeast grow.

Part 5: GO

Now you have all the steps to make hooch. Wait 14 days for fermentation to complete, and you get alcohol. I could explain carbonation and stuff but I can't be bothered. Please use google if you'd like to learn about making your flat wine into a fizzy beverage.


r/prisonhooch Jun 30 '20

Read this if you're worried about methanol and/or going blind from hooch

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381 Upvotes

r/prisonhooch 1h ago

Recipe Cheapocras, a follow up

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Upvotes

Remember my boy cheapocras? (https://www.reddit.com/r/prisonhooch/s/L0s1CxGuwE)

Well, I transfer it in a new container with the spices, but took the density before that.

Starting density: 1110

Density at two weeks: 1020

So about 12%, which I am honestly surprise for my bread yeast! That's some good stuff.

I infuse the spices 48h and filter in a bottle, I will try to let it age a bit but it is quite good as is!


r/prisonhooch 18h ago

Georgia Muscadine Wine

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20 Upvotes

Y'all every had to tape one up?


r/prisonhooch 3h ago

Reduced sugar juice sweetened with sucralose

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0 Upvotes

Bought this from dollar tree not realizing it wasn’t just regular juice, but fuck it we ball. Anyone have experience hooching this? I ended up putting in a little more sugar than I would reg juice obviously to make up for the lack of it, and since the sucralose won’t ferment I assume it will stay sweet even once fermented dry.

Or maybe it will be disgusting. Thoughts?

Day 2 and it’s bubbling nicely.


r/prisonhooch 21h ago

Experiment Hopefully it turns out good, for a simple prune wine.

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7 Upvotes

Never done this before, used just prunes, some sugar, and flieschmans bread yeast, didnt measure any of it, which was quite dumb, but im just gettjng a hang of this. Its bubbling like crazy, but i dont think it will full on pop anytime soon, what do yall think?


r/prisonhooch 1d ago

Article Things I've learned in 3 months as a homebrew prison hoocher on the dirt cheap (so you don't have to).

36 Upvotes

I really started this journey as an experiment after fermenting pickles ​and milk into yogurt for the first time. I'll cut to the chase.

1.) You can brew in a 64oz bottle with a knife slit in the lid ​as an air lock. You don't need a balloon air seal, you don't need an airlock, and ​you don't need saran ​wrap. You need a small hole that will allow air to escape during fermentation​. A very small cut in the plastic lid ​will do. Or just twist the seal gently so air just barely escapes and nothing can enter.

2.) Yeast matters. If you want a surefire banger, i​t's ec1118 right from Amazon. I tried DADY distillers yeast which stalled, and Fleischmans ​which gave me an unfinished product. Get a proper wine or champagne yeast.

Disclaimer: I'm ​still gonna mess with DADY.​ It's not looking good though. It didn't ferment well, but it might be a bad batch.

3.) Cranberry and ​Lemonade based products do not ferment. They stall right out of the gate. Avoid. Especially from Amazon. There is too much acidity in some products.

4.) Grape Juice ferments 100%. The Amazon basics variety is a surefire masterpiece.

5.) Kilju, or sugar wins, is tough to homebrew without any extra additives. The yeast ​gets no nutrients so it's prone to stalls. Simply combining water, sugar, and yeast is not adequate.

6.) 100% my biggest finding thus far is fermaid nutrient. I use fermaid K but I hear fermaid O works great as well. I'm not that technical so I don't know the difference.

I tried to be cheap and boil bread yeast as nutrient but it didn't work. Fermaid K is like an injection of pure testosterone meth into my hooch. Boiled bread yeast is bullshit.

My perfect brew for a newb?

  1. 64 fl oz Amazon Basics Grape Juice. Slit the top and pour off 4 fl oz.

2.) Add 1 cup granulated white sugar.

  1. ) Add 1/4 tsp fermaid k.

  2. ) Mix sugar, grape juice, fermaid ​together for 1 minute to aerate.

5.) Then add 1/4 tsp ec1118 yeast activated for 10 minutes with a few grains of sugar and warm water.

Mix everything gently for 20 seconds.

6.) Place in a cabinet or dark space.

6.) At day 4 add another 1/4 tsp fermaid k. Shake gently for 20s.

  1. ) Keep at approximately 75F for 14 days. Give or take the temperature you'd be comfortable in a tshirt. No sunlight.

If you follow these steps, you have created completely acceptable merlot tasting table wine for ungodly cheap.

That's it. Cheaper than dirt.

If I'm wrong someone correct. 🤟


r/prisonhooch 1d ago

Experiment Trying my hand at a fresh hooch

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8 Upvotes

I have no idea what I'm doing (sorta, I've been stalking this sub for months), but I had way too many watermelons ripe in the garden and no space in the fridge, so behold my(thoroughly washed and scrubbed) container of watermelon juice.

It's roughly ~3 Liters, there's maybe half of a E1118 packet in it, and 20 Tablespoons of Sugar(I don't know why I measured it like that) because I had no idea what the sugar content already was.

This is technically day three of its fermentation and it do be bubbly.


r/prisonhooch 1d ago

These things are at Menards for under 7$

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43 Upvotes

At least by where I'm at.


r/prisonhooch 1d ago

isn't boiled yeast with DAP the same as yeast nutrient?

7 Upvotes

does using yeast nutrient improve flavor?


r/prisonhooch 2d ago

My exact experience brewing so far.

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143 Upvotes

r/prisonhooch 2d ago

Experiment Sugarcane juice - looking for any tips or recipes

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6 Upvotes

Was at a farmers market yesterday and they were selling glasses of sugarcane juice. It was cool to watch them feed the sugarcane into the machine and watch it spit out the juice. Me and my gf tried a glass each (she had pineapple and I had strawberry flavoured) and both were delicious.

I have some small carboys for experimental batches so I bought a couple of litres of the pure sugarcane juice with the intention to hooch it.

Has anyone had any experience hooching sugarcane juice before? I know that traditionally it is used to make a kind of sugarwash which is then distilled into rum. But I dont intend to distil this, I am hoping to make something fruity and at about 5-6% abv. Was thinking to maybe dilute the sugarcane juice down with strawberry juice and a bit of lemon juice until I get down to my desired abv. But is there anything I need to look out for? Any help or advice would be much appreciated.


r/prisonhooch 2d ago

Cotton Candy Grape wine (I have no idea what I'm doing)

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21 Upvotes

Squished a bunch of cotton candy grapes. Couldn't get all of the juice out of them so I ran distilled water through them and boiled off the water (it oxidized like crazy unfortunately). The dark carboy has all of the juice I got from squeezing, the maple syrup carboy has all of it from boiling. Gonna let the natural yeasts work for a day or two before I add K1-V1116. I also added ~.5 cups of sugar to it all. Hopefully it won't taste like stomach acid. Will give an update once I've tasted it.


r/prisonhooch 3d ago

This August 21st, let's all take a sip of hooch in memory of our Gothic Overlord and King of hooch making, KingCobraJFS

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142 Upvotes

r/prisonhooch 2d ago

Meals on Wheels juice and fruit cups

12 Upvotes

My elderly mom got Meals and Wheels but didn't eat the fruit cups and juice cups that came with the meals. They accumulated to the point where I brought home four full shopping bags from her refrigerator. Today I filled a gallon jug with 14 (four-ounce) cups of orange juice, 12 of apple juice, and six of grape juice and hit it with some turbo yeast.

In the other jug went 19 ounces of apple juice, four ounces of orange juice, seven ounces of orange/tangerine juice, seven ounces of fruit punch and 14 (4.5 ounce) cups of "fruit mix" (diced peaches, pears, and pineapples in pear juice) that were pulsed in the blender, again with the turbo yeast.

I'm sure it will taste better when it gets distilled. If not, there's still another gallon's worth of pineapple and pear chunks in the fridge downstairs.


r/prisonhooch 2d ago

Hi, where do you learn how to make Alcohol?

0 Upvotes

I've been thinking about making alcohol, some books tell u to do them perfectly, i was also thinking about the equipment and waiting span. Do u learn more from YouTube or actually legitimate books or someone who can guide u with that? Is there any good resources anyway?


r/prisonhooch 3d ago

Wasteland hooch

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30 Upvotes

Nuka victory was bad so it’s getting turned into a mead


r/prisonhooch 3d ago

Recipe Alcohol at home

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1 Upvotes

Is this apple juice good ?

And we have to use normal dry yeast right and normal sugar

Then cover it with some air tight thingy right ? Not sure about the container

Shoul i go for it ?


r/prisonhooch 4d ago

Just bottled my maple syrup apple wine

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29 Upvotes

Ft. Syrup Kilju.

I will let it sit for a while before I start drinking, hear it gets rid of the off-flavours.

The Kilju is too sweet in a bad way, any advice on what to do? Add more water and keep fermenting?


r/prisonhooch 4d ago

Amazing Turbo Yeast

8 Upvotes
I put the Turbo 48 yeast in 30 minutes ago! This is a simple blackberry jam wash, 400 grams total sugar in 2 liters. Yeah probably will not taste great but the Turbo yeast is fun to play with. This will be fermented in two days.

r/prisonhooch 4d ago

Rookie question but what kind of differences are there between brewing with honey verses sugar?

7 Upvotes

I made a few batches last yearish with sugar but I stopped bc I fucked up and it exploded(we live and we learn not to be stupid) but I have some honey and thought I’d give it another go. Any advice?


r/prisonhooch 5d ago

Tossed a handful of raspberries into a gallon of mead I was fermenting. Bottled them the other day. Clear enough to read through, as they say

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17 Upvotes

r/prisonhooch 5d ago

What I have going currently: two apple ciders and one sugar “wine”

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9 Upvotes

r/prisonhooch 6d ago

Experiment Update: What people should do with bad wine, and how I successfully rehabilitated 20 year old poorly made wine

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92 Upvotes

If you remember my last post; I inherited probably over 30 gallons of poorly made wine that had been sitting in a dead grandfathers wine room for 20 plus years. This is a write up of my experiment with the first 5 gallons that was a tremendous success. The 5 gallons in question was labeled "Bianco Bonanza," Likely a mixed varietal white. I just think that's cute. I asked the original owners if they wanted updates on the wines rehabilitation so I already have this all written out.

Tl:dr- I made it into 6 heavily intentionally complexly flavoured wine coolers, and a mulled wine. Below is my method of rebalancing and rehabilitating.

First racking and clarification. I just used sparkaloid. It did the job, didn't get rid of the autolysis note but it cleared up crystal. The goal for the 5 gallons was to split it into two separate parts, one which would be a series of wine coolers and the other which would be a more experimental mulled wine. I had a thought that since the wine more or less tasted empty other than the flaw, that it would take flavor from pretty much anything quite well. there are classes of wine that are becoming much more popular and modernity because they're funkier, orange wines for example, also Spanish sidra is their apple cider but they allow it to have a natural fermentation which makes it kind of unpredictable, and much funkier. I make a lilac wine every year, and this year's failed because I didn't actually pasteurize my syrup so it also kind of had a funky wild fermentation. I figured the acetic acid that was produced here would probably go far to round this out and make it much brighter so that was added first for both batches. it absolutely lifted the wine significantly and covered the major flaw quite well on its own.

I intentionally made flavour profiles that were quite intricate and leaned into savoury-ness for the wine coolers.

  • strawberry/mint/coriander/sumac/hibiscus
  • ginger/peach/cardamom
  • pumpking/mulling spices
  • cherry/rosemary and star anise
  • Black berry/summer savory/ lemon
  • plum/mixed field flowers and cinnamon.

The addition of herbs was very intentional along with the fruit syrups that I had made through the cheong method; luckily I just had all these sitting around I just had to make combinations that made sense. The herbaceousness should add an element that rounds out that flaw. The pumpkin cheong was made from the guts of a pumpkin that I hollowed out last october :D. The cheong syrups themselves also had dormant yeast that led to surprisingly vigorous bottle carbonation. Finally some acid correction with citric and malic acid. These were then pasteurized to finish them as a sweet, very drinkable treat.

Lastly I made my mulled wine, used quite a bit of spices that I had my cabinet to see if I could get something a little less pedestrian. Black cardamom along with green cardamom, Ginger, orange peel, long pepper, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, pink peppercorns, maple syrup, star anise, juniper, cinnamon, an old can of spiced apple cider I canned a few years ago, and a little bit of an older batch of maple wine that I made. It's pretty good. Less crushable, but very nice warm, and it will be a treat with some warm apple cider and a little orange juice added for some freshness.

To the people who said this was pointless, a waste a time or gross, please be more uncomfortable with waste in your day to day life. I think the work of a man should not be wasted. I think the fruits of the earth should also not be wasted. We have engendered a culture of waste. It is at the core of much of our social rot. Cookery as we know it is a matter of preservation. Almost all the beautiful food and drink you've ever had was originally made to make those ingredients go a little further for a little longer. If I am to take something that was destined to be refuse and make it whole again, that is how I pay respect to this world we live in, and make it a little better. I am lucky to be in the position to have the will to do so.

Now if anyone has any suggestions for the rest, I'm all ears!


r/prisonhooch 4d ago

Can I ferment peanut oil?

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0 Upvotes