What non-grain ingredients have enough sugar/starch to use without adding extra sugar?

[AntDoctor]

This is a weird, probably dumb question, but what ingredients (vegetables, tubers, fruits, etc) have enough starches or sugars to make good booze without adding extra sugar? Whenever I add sugar to a ferment, I feel weirdly guilty, almost as if I'm cheating.

Like, assuming I have a ton of enzymes that can turn starches into sugar, which non-grain ingredients can I use for a 100% single-ingredient ferment? I've fermented rice wine from just rice, I've brewed beer from grains, made wine from grapes and mead from honey, but I'm wondering what else I can make that uses a single ingredient.

Specifically, I've been thinking about an all-pumpkin booze or maybe an all-yam liquor. Can I just cook, blend, and mash (with enzymes) enough pumpkin/yam chunks to make alcohol, or are they too low in carbs? In a post-apocalyptic world where we can no longer easily get heaps of pure sugar, what can I make moonshine out of?

[rubberduck71]

Before I got to your last paragraph I was thinking sweet potatoes.

[S-Cackalacky]

You can check the brix with a refractometer. Check for starch with a drop of iodine.

[jonnys_spirit]

Any fruit by the bucket or approximately ten buckets depending on your still size. I’m looking for a source of raisins or similar dried fruit in bulk.

[Deplorable]

What about Rhubarb?

[still_stirrin]

Dog food??

[NZChris]

Before I got to your last paragraph I was thinking sweet potatoes.

I've made sweet potato whiskey from ideas I found on the forum. No sugar used. You don't get much for your efforts.

Google will usually find the carbs and sugars for any produce you think might be suitable.

[NormandieStill]

There's a table published in the fruits section of the forum Fruit Chart which lists nutritional information about fruit. You should be able to find similar information for vegetables although you'll need an extra level of conversion to work out the sugar yield from starch. From that you can work you how many grams you need for a given quantity of alcohol.

16g / L of sugar gives 1% abv (roughly), so if I want to use apricots at 8g sugar / 100g then I need 200g apricots per L of must. Assuming that I need to ferment 75L of must to fill my pot for a spirit run, and that I'd like to be at around 6% abv going into the still for the stripping runs, then I need 200x6x75 = 90kg of apricots to make a brandy.

For starchy foods you need to factor in the conversion. Starch theoritically yields 110% of it's weight as sugars so you can do the same maths using starch as a base.

[Corsaire]

I'm looking at chestnuts at the moment. So far my research looks promising

[NZChris]

Chestnuts do look promising. I usually get offered them every year, but they are straight off the tree, spikes and all. I think about it, but the work and getting rid of the spikey pods puts me off.

[NormandieStill]

When I get chestnuts I reserve them for jam or purée. While prepping them for fermentation may be less grief than for cooking, I would imagine that the shells are still going to need to come off to avoid adding too much tannin to the ferment.

[Scott Tracy]

A little bit of a tangent, but I read that pectin is the key precursor to forming methanol in your wash, which leads to proper treatment of heads/foreshots being a necessity rather than a good habit. Pectin seems to be more concentrated in the skins/seeds of various fruit and vegetable ingredients.

Is this generally true? And if it is, what is the practical way to address it - is the standard 'discard XX ml/l of wash as foreshots' all that is needed?

[NZChris]

A little bit of a tangent, but I read that pectin is the key precursor to forming methanol in your wash, which leads to proper treatment of heads/foreshots being a necessity rather than a good habit. Pectin seems to be more concentrated in the skins/seeds of various fruit and vegetable ingredients.

Is this generally true? And if it is, what is the practical way to address it - is the standard 'discard XX ml/l of wash as foreshots' all that is needed?

Completely unrelated. See: https://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=40606

[NZChris]

I just Googled Chestnut Whiskey and found that it has been made and marketed in NZ, but is out of stock.

[Corsaire]

There are commercial bottlings of chestnut eau de vie. They're made in Corsica

I'm on my phone right now, I'll start a thread tonight on chestnuts with some of the links I've found.

[AntDoctor]

Weird! Chestnuts have enough sugars to distill??

Also, if you're worried about pectin, there's always pectinase or pectic enzyme, which makes breaking down pectin a breeze.

[seamusm53]

Beets. Sugar cane. Ordinary potatoes.

[Nanacooks]

I had a ton of pumpkin this year bc my 2 year old grandson was obsessed with them, and Nana can’t tell him no! I had just gotten my still, and was planning on a sugar wash to be my first run. Since my pumpkins were still solid, but starting to soften, I decided to try those to at least get some use from them. I added sugar, and some malted barley just to ensure that any starches did break down. I used some oranges and lemons for both the skin and acid, put it in and let it brew. Ran my first cook yesterday… OMG it was amazing as a white dog fresh. Had a birthday party last night and a lot of experienced shine consumers were present. I took a pint jar and I don’t think there was any left. Passed around for a taste, then, ‘can I try that again?’ It was much enjoyed by all!! I know you asked about no sugar, and I did add some, but it was amazing and I’d be curious about no sugar as well.
I want to try a small batch of a parsnip liquor as well.
Our goal is to make a liquor every year from the kid’s favorite fruit or vegetables, and present a bottle of each for their 21st birthdays.

[JAMAWG]

I have heard quinoa can make a nice vodka. I have not tried it or made any. I did have a quinoa beer once, rather tasty. Technically I believe it is a seed and not a grain. Is often used as a grain substitute. I might be wrong. But all grains are in the grass family? While quinoa is not.

[Steve Broady]

I was wondering about other grasses. So many of the grains we use are grasses, so I wonder if any others that are grown primarily as lawn cover would even make anything fermentable or worth drinking?

[subbrew]

Craft distillery near me uses sugar beets to make a rum. Sorghum can also be used, stocks pressed for juice to make a rum.

You could also investigate legumes such as peas and beans. They have starches that could be broken down but I can't say I have heard of anyone doing it.

[NZChris]

Corn stalk is high in sugar. You would need a juice press similar to what is used for sugar cane.

Prairie Farmer, 1 January 1843 https://idnc.library.illinois.edu/?a=d& ... ----------

[shadylane]

Squeezed Juice with enough sugar and/or convertible starch.
But it also needs to taste good.

[sweeps]

You could also investigate legumes such as peas and beans. They have starches that could be broken down but I can't say I have heard of anyone doing it.

There's at least one commercial vodka made from soybeans.