Home-made Distill Fragrans Liquor by fermentation and distillation processes. The alcohol brew have been an old process. But if one want different taste and flavor, only home-made liquor can do.

This instruction shows how to make one light liquor by with
fragrans flavor. It is not so difficult, but patience is a must. For many famous liquor, the brew process takes at least 3 months or even a couple of years. During this period, bacteries and chemical reaction are taken place with exquisite.

In most cased, after fernemation of rice, the combination of light ahcohol and sweet taste can be savory to tougue. But after distillation, more complex flavor can be added as your Patented beverage.

Osmanthus fragrans, variously known as sweet osmanthus, sweet olive, tea olive, and fragrant olive, is a species native to Asia, which is famous for its unique franrance. Fragrans flower bud can be picked up and dried to make the flavor lasting for a long time.

Your can dilute it, cool it in ice-box or fridge. Then take it as refresher or beat the heat with more vigor.

Cheer!

Step 1: Preparation

Ingredient:

sticky rice,
yeast for alcohol ( not yeast for bread)
dry flower bud of fragus

Apparatus:

steamer pot
water seal fermentation pot
thermometer
alcohol burner
iron stand
test tube clamp
distillation flask
condenser pipe
beaker
measuring cylinder
weight scale
test paper
heat-resistant gloves
goggles

The apparatus here are what is available to. You can use yours if it can be properly sealed and keep hygiene.

For distillation, much bigger ones shall be used instead. Here is for demo purpose, so transparent laboratory glass containers is used.

Step 2: Precausion

Since there are high temperature and flame, during the process, eye protection and gloves are necessary.Another fact is hygiene issues. Since bacterial involves in fermentation process, every tools shall be clear of contamination. Direct hand touch for food and tools may bring about harmful substances or even terminated the bio-chemical process.

Step 3: Explain the Chemical Science

The home-brew fermenation process include two stage of chemical reaction

1. Chemical reaction

Stage one, starch in grain is turned into glucose,

The chemical equation is,

(C6H10O5)n + n H2O ——enzyme——> n C6H12O6

In this equation, the (C6H10O5)n is starch and C6H12O6 is glucose.

Stage Two, glucose is turned into ethanol, main part of liquor.

C6H12O6 ——酶——>2 C2H5OH + 2 CO2↑

The change happen under the effect of enzyme. Carbohydrates in form starch takestakes 78.3% of sticky rice.

2. Distillation

Base on different boiling point of ethonal and water, the ethanol can be separated ethanol from original mixture liquor.

Distill can make high concentration of liquor. When distillation, customized flavor from flower-fragrance can be added to your DIY light beverage.

Step 4: Soak Sticky Rice

Soak the sticky rice in pot for at least 3 hours. Or it will take longer time to cook.

Step 5: Step 5 Cook the Rice

Take out the soaked sticky rice and put it in support plate of steam pot, water under the plate. Then cover the pot and put it on stove. Cook the rice in steamed pot for about 15 minutes until it is ready for eat.

But, be patient, not now. You have to wait until it turns into your favorite beverage.

Step 6: Mix the Yeast

You shall wait for the cooked rice to be cool to about 30-40 Celsius degree. In the mean time, dissolve the yeast in mild warm water.

Be aware, the yeast will lose agility if the temperature is over 40 degrees.

Then Mix the dissolved yeast with rice after it cools down. Stir the mixture until the solution distributed evenly.

It shall be noted that the yeast is quite different from what is used for bread-baking. In fact, it is still unclear how the yeast contributes to the diversity flavor of large amoun of liquor or wine. For example, some clever merchants have stolen yeast sample from one Exquisite Liquor-Maotai, but even every chemical analysis proves eact copy of the ingredients and process, the flavor is totally wrong.

The answer is very clear. The factory of Maotai still has only manufacture site by a small river bank with uncomfatable humidity and warmth, together with unknow co-exist bateries. No matter how hard they try to expend the lucrative products.

Step 7: Fermetation

Now everything is ready. What you have to do is wait for the magic begin.

Put the pot with rice in a warm place. This pot has one water-sealed upside cover. This make it exterior bacterial away and keep the liquor inside. The CO2 generated in chemical process can be released easily as bubbles from gaps.

Keep it at least for three days. In hot days, just leave it as it shall be. But if you do this in winter. You can cover it with some clothes.
As you can notice, the fernemation process realse heat.

You need 3 days to notice the difference. It took me seven days. You can see the change is obious.

Step 8: Distillation Arrangement

The distillation process includs that of Mixing the flower with fermentation rice, Putting them into the flask, Arranging them into the iron stand, and lighting up the alcohol burner. You will see the start the distillation.

This is kind of standard distillation instrument in chemical lab. There are two iron stands needed, one for distillation flask and the other for water-cooling condensor.

Clamps on iron stand A shall hold the neck of distillation flask, with mixture to be seperated. The top is sealed with a rubber cap centering on thermometer to monitoring the steam temperture.

Clamps on iron stand B shall hold the condensor, with slightly downward against the direction of steam flow. If it is even or upwards, the condensed solution with not be collected. If it leans too much, the steam flow with be blocked.

High end of the condensor is connected with the branch duct of distillation flask by a elastice band duct. The other low end of the condensor shall be connected with one collector and feed the condensated solution into the conical beaker.

In my demo, only one iron stand is used. The triangle iran stand support the flask and the collector is not used, since this condensor has integrated with one end as collector. The problems is that the collector is liable to be broken. And there have been clevis due to impact on transportation.

Step 9: Distillation Demo

Now take the fermetative rice mixture out and fill the distillation flask with funnel. It is fluid now instead of rigid sticky rice.

Then fill the flask with dry flower bud of fragrans, as you can see the yellow material float above the mixture.

Now, you can light up the alcohol burner to heat the flask through asbestos lining. This can keep the heating process slowly.

Then fill the outer layer of condenser with cold water from bottom inlet and keep the cold water flow and out from top outlet. Since the warm water rise to the top layer, cold water shall be fed into the condenser slowly from low part.

It is known that the boil point of ethanol is 78 Celsius Degree, far below the boil point of water (100℃). That means the ethanol evaporates first before the water is boiling. You can control the burner to keep the water from boiling. Then you can get high contend liquor. If you think keep observing is bore-some. You can use water bath, that is a bigger pot holding water to be heated by burner, and put the distillation flask in it.

According to physics rules, the flask shall never be over boiling point of water.

But this part of demo fails. Observing a couple of hours, there is not sign of condensing drop from the outlet collector of condenser.

The explanation is simple. It takes me only 7 days, the concentration of alcohol is not enough for distillation now.

You can find this demo work if you can wait for several months. The rice in the mixture is missing, most of which is liquid. You can retrieved ethanol easily.

Experienced brewer has told me that the output ratio of ethanol is about 5 to 1. That means you can get 1kg of alcohol from 5 kg of cooked stick rice.

But patience is one of import ingredient too.

Attached file in mp4 format shows the process of heating and condensing.

Step 10: Distillation for Light Liquor

But, do not be frustration. You can still make it.

Now filter the fermentation mixture with sieve. Fill the dry flower bub as well.

Then remove the thermometer and heater the flask directly with full power.

Now you get it, a large amount of condensing liquor mixture drops from collector of condenser.

The attached file is mp4 file for the process.

This is the mixture of distillation water, evaporated ethanol, and fragrans oil. The mixture is clear but the tasty is good.

Now savor it.

VID_20170722_162030_baofeng.mp4
Download

Step 11: Extra Work Can Be Done!

First , you can test if there is any ethonal product.

Potassium dichromate can detect ethonal by Oxidation-reduction reactions, and the color of Potassium dichromate solution changes from orange into green according to the following equation

Cr2O7 2- + 3CH3CH2OH + 8H+ = 3CH3CHO + 2Cr3+ + 7H2O

In fact, this is the same chemical reaction used for drinking test. It is very sensitive.

For glucose test, if the fermetation is not so long, you can taste it with your tougue directly. It is totally safe if you can keep the process clean.

Sencond, if you can get high concentration of ethonal, you can measure it easily with one weight scale and one measuring cylinder. You can divide the weigh with volume, get specific weight X.

Since there is a small physic trick. The mixture of ethonal and water is less in volume than the sum-up independently. Because the molecule can accept each other and co-exist very well. You can not get the thought-to-be foumular of (1-0.2X). You shall refer to the following chart for exact ratio.