How moonshine was made in the 1900s

Crops Helped Make Pure Whiskey For Old Moon Shiners
 

In the early 1900s moon shine was a popular drink. One of the more popular moonshines was whiskey, because of its strong taste. Making moon shine was a long process that one needs a lot of patience to perform, but once done many found the final product to be very rewarding.
Ingredients needed:

Malted barley- a cereal grain that have been dried and processed over water at 64 degrees which needs to be stir constantly until a white leaf grows inside grain total process can take up to five days
Cracked corn
Water
Distilled yeast
Moonshine steel

The amount of time for each process varies depending on how much moonshine is being made. To start off Cracked corn gets boiled for several hours. The boiling process should take place until it becomes a cream. One this process is complete malted barley is added to the mixture. The combination of barely with the cream corn is call mash tun. Mash tun has to be heated to 45 degrees and has to maintain this heat. It is important that additional water is added at this point of the process, because lots of water was lost during the boiling process. The mash tun must stay at desired heat, because the enzymes in the grains are breaking down the starches in the grains. The starches are being slowly turned into fermentable sugars also known as the wort. Once the starch is gone the grains are separated from the wort also known as loitering, Wort was then transferred to the sterile fermenter.

Wort must be allowed time to cool off to 28 degrees before being able to proceed with the next step. When wort was cooled to accurate temperature distilled yeast was added to the mixture. Yeast could easily get bacteria so upon mixture the fermenter is sealed and fermentation began. Fermentation was a process that could take several weeks to complete. Fermentation was complete when carbon dioxide bubbles no longer existed, and where not coming through airlocks on the fermenter. The moonshine also needed to have the same temperature for 2 days before starting the next process. Once fermentation is complete the wort is than place on the moonshine steel and ran through two maybe three times collecting everything with exception of the oils that start to produce right towards the end. After the final process you have whiskey moonshine, and it should be cooled to around 88 degrees.

So we can all see that while moonshine was very popular liquor in the 1900s it was not an easy process. It required not only skills, but accuracy as well. So if you want a good bottle of moonshine one should be prepared to wait for it.

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