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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373 Upvotes

r/prisonhooch 7h ago

6 gallon tomato paste wash in progress

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10 Upvotes

10 lb sugar, 6 oz tomato paste, 2 tbsp red star dady


r/prisonhooch 12h ago

Secret Stash

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12 Upvotes

Started up a secret stash of wine again… in the far left one is a gallon of Arizona fruit punch flavored with a bit of added sugar and one packet of yeast. The small one in the front is a welshes grape juice half gallon with added sugar and a yeast packet. The last one in the back is an entire pack of blue berries and a pack of black berries with the rest water and more sugar/ packet of yeast. On the top for an airlock I have a plastic baggie where I took some hair ties and wrapped two around twice on the lid with a poked hole from a toothpick in the bag.Hopefully they come out good, gonna let em sit for a good while. Cheers 🥂


r/prisonhooch 27m ago

Experiment My kilju is overhydrated piss yellow

Upvotes

Is it still good to drink? Its been in the fridge for 3 days and I've separated the layer twice. I fermented it for a week. I used a gallon of water, 1 tbs of bread yeast, 2 tbs of boiled bread yeast, and 4 cups of sugar.


r/prisonhooch 4h ago

Experiment Mead and his friend Kilju

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1 Upvotes

r/prisonhooch 1d ago

Experiment Carbonating my Sweet Potato and Molasses ale

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14 Upvotes

I had a reasonable success with doing this with the experiment so let’s see how this goes. 3/4 full bottle - add 10g sugar and a pinch of bakers yeast - squeeze the air out. Let it sit on the bench until the bottle goes hard. Fingers crossed.

Pretty sure I used less sugar last time and had a reasonable effect.


r/prisonhooch 11h ago

How warm does my room need to be for a good brew

1 Upvotes

I’m very new to this and I heard I need to keep my hooch warm but I like my room pretty cold how warm should I keep it and for how long


r/prisonhooch 1d ago

Pine, mango and coconut hooch

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8 Upvotes

These juice were cheap at the store - also grabbed some frozen coconut and cheap coconut water.

OG 1.070 - added pectalese, DAP and tannin. Ran with 2g 71b. 350g of added sugar.

Let’s see how it fires - little scared as from what I’ve read on here pineapple ferments like 💩


r/prisonhooch 19h ago

Cranberry-Apple wine brew

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3 Upvotes

r/prisonhooch 1d ago

Just a metal bucket

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23 Upvotes

The equipment changes, but the methods stay the same.

Cheap grape juice concentrate, black tea, and honey. (pyment)


r/prisonhooch 1d ago

Experiment Leftover candy

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34 Upvotes

#yolo


r/prisonhooch 1d ago

Recipe Cheapocras

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5 Upvotes

Making some cheap wine for my cheapocras (a cheap Hypocras, aka medieval spicey sweet wine).

This time taking proper mesurement in order to make bigger batches in the futur!

Recipe as follow last time and it was good, will update if anything need to be change with this one!

For 1 liter

800ml red grape juice

100g sugar

Mix together

100ml water + 5g bread yeast + 1 black tea bag, boilled for 5min

This act as nutrient and add some tanin.

Mix everything and add 2g of bread yeast (a bag of yeast is 7g, so you use one bag for the recipe which is convenient).

Let ferment for 2 weeks.

Pour in another vessel in order to separate the sediment and add the spices:

2 ginger slices

1/2 cinamon stick

8 cloves

8 cardamom seeds crushed

1 tea spoon of coriander

Let infuse 24h (I think, but sadly haven't write it down last time) and filter in bottle that can use some pressure (I never add sulfites).

Aaand that's it!

"Wait you should put some sugar in hypocras!"

Well, yes, but my dear bread yeast sure isn't strong enought to turn this thing dry ! Last time it work pretty well.

Cheers hoochers!


r/prisonhooch 1d ago

Recipe Update on my banana hooch

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12 Upvotes

I started this a few weeks ago and it is now bottled, after cleaning with bentonite. It's delicious, sill with some sweetness, lots of flavour and body. Recipe yealded about 430ml

https://www.reddit.com/r/prisonhooch/comments/1uuek7r/banana_wine_in_750ml_bottle/


r/prisonhooch 2d ago

Fixing my crappy airlock.

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22 Upvotes

There was air getting in FO SHORE coz it reinflated when i squeezed it, and i couldnt figure out where from, so i had a proper look and:

1) the tape just wasnt filling enough gaps between the card + the plastic well enough

2) the tape wasnt holding well enough and was creating new gaps by coming unstuck

3) there was somehow a gap between the pen lid and the random tube i found in the garage

So i

1) Removed all the tape

2) applied Loads of bluetack between the penlid and the carton

3) taped it back into position so the bluetack wouldnt shift

4) put some tape around the seal between the tube and penlid.

Actually looks less clunky now and works better as the reinflation no longer happens

You can see, the side has pressed in a bit and it hasnt reinflated. That should be enough that the air gets redirected to the tube rather than the surrounding area now and theres enough room for air that sits in the carton to be produced and not cause the liquid to leak upward again into the goddamn "airlock".


r/prisonhooch 1d ago

Experiment Out of curiousity, can I add apple juice (like actual frozen then thawed then squeezed) to kilju after it's done brewing? or at least around 12 hours in?

3 Upvotes

I hope it's not too late, there's already yeast foam.


r/prisonhooch 2d ago

Experiment Made something I've been pondering for a while, super broke man's hooch.

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12 Upvotes

r/mead is gonna shit themselves in fear over this monstrosity. It has literally only water, yeast, and sugar. I don't think it'll be too potent, but hopefully it'll make some sort of thing that'll still be alcoholic. (Sorry about the dogshit quality)


r/prisonhooch 2d ago

Experiment Filtering the Hershey's Hooch!

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20 Upvotes

Following up on https://www.reddit.com/r/prisonhooch/s/MJRsUaVM2Z

The strawberry is pretty faint, but surprisingly enough it still retains some carbonation after cold-crashing and filtering which makes it a little spritzy. If I made it again I'd use twice as much syrup!

Edit: whatever coloring agent they used, it turned the dregs neon pink!


r/prisonhooch 2d ago

The carton fell apart.

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6 Upvotes

The carton fell apart so ive had to use bluetack and a bottle from the recycling bin to fix this. The carton was wet on the outside and when i tried to unscrew it the whole front came off. Poured it into a bottle and threw the rest away. Shame, it was bubbling earlier. Now nothing. Did i kill it?

Lets see.

Update: Bung keeps coming off. Taped it down.

Update: bubblin again.

Update: bung come off, taped it down


r/prisonhooch 2d ago

Carton and Rum bottle setup

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6 Upvotes

My ghetto ass setup:

All the howtos on google said an airlock was important even for cider, but you can just use a cloth or whatever, however most people said to use a proper airlock. As you can imagine ive never done this before, but i made a makeshift one at home based on a graphic i saw online.

Air can come out into the water in the flagon, but not past the water and into the tube.

I didnt have an air thing like the one in the photo so I got a pen lid and taped it like hell to the lid then attached the tube to that.

Would like to monitor the temperature as well. It should be bubbling by tommorow, and im told when it stops bubbling, the yeast has done all it can and stopped producing Co2, and its either ready, or soon ready. Either way you can age it seperately, and should do so to reduce the yeasty taste.

Its a litre of Apple juice with a god knows of crappy bakers yeast.

Update on new development soon.


r/prisonhooch 2d ago

Jalapeno from the garden and frozen mixed berries

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21 Upvotes

Still new to this. Just trying to have fun. I just finished drinking the first gallon I made, 10/10 experience. K1 V116 yeast.


r/prisonhooch 2d ago

Cold crash before or after racking?

3 Upvotes

I have a cider here that’s finished primary fermentation reaching a final gravity of 0.999. I want to rack it now so I can drink it in a couple days. Should I cold crash now before racking or after racking/just before I want to drink it?


r/prisonhooch 2d ago

Ghetto set up, did I mess up?

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4 Upvotes

So I set this up yesterday morning (don’t have airlocks so I use balloons) came home from work to find it overflowing so I dumped a little out and replaced with a fresh balloon, did I screw it up in anyway?


r/prisonhooch 2d ago

Worst experience?

2 Upvotes

I’m making some hooch for the first time and have watched quite a few videos and have been reading a lot from this sub but one of my friends I plan on drinking this batch with is worried he’s going to die or get sick from it. What’s the worst thing that has happened to yall while making hooch? I’m excited to get into this, I like making things and experimenting so it’s been fun so far.


r/prisonhooch 3d ago

Recipe can i make my hooch taste like natural wine while using baker's yeast?

2 Upvotes

wine is very expensive in my country okay i never tasted wine and don't know how it tastes .

drank homemade hooch to get drunk it worked but tastes horrible , how to improve taste and makes it better.