Home Distiller

Hi, I am dkplayaclub or DK for short. I am 35 years old, living in upstate New York. I work as a software engineer, but most of my favorite hobbies take me as far away from the computer as possible. Hiking to a remote area where i can set up camp, hunt, fish or forage for my dinner and just enjoy being a part of nature is my favorite use of vacation time.

That leads me to why I am here. A friend and I started a local club a few years ago dedicated to survival in the zombie apocalypse. We now have 10 members and have branched off into many directions. Building a forge to make weapons or armor, making black powder, gardening and irrigation, hunting/trapping/tracking, building basic generators and so much more. One of the recent topics we have discussed was making booze and I would like to gather as much info as possible before we cover it in a meeting and subsequently begin the process of making a batch to test our theories out.

For each of our projects, we assume that we will have nothing to start with and will have to work without the use of electricity or any store bought products. Obviously, we will want to start with the easiest methods and then see where that takes us. My idea was to harvest some grapes and make them into raisins, use the raisins to produce natural yeast and ferment from there, but I really don't know where to begin. If the mods want to move this post to the proper forum feel free to do so. Can't wait to hear from some more experienced distillers.

And in case you were wondering, none of us actually believe the zombies are coming. It's just a fun way to learn and also prepares us for a wide variety of other far more likely scenarios.

Welcome aboard, lots of good reading here, sit back and enjoy. The zombie's are right around the corner, the have A T F on there shirt. Good luck be safe and enjoy

So I have been exceedingly busy the past few days. I would like to start by discussing yeast and how to make natural yeast. I do not see this specifically on the forum. Where should I start my thread?

We usually try to discourage people from using wild yeast because you never know what you might get. There's good yeast and then there's not so good yeast - it's a crap shoot. But, I think for your situation and reasons for wanting to use wild yeast, the raisins might be a good option. Others here might have suggestions for good sources as well.

DK, I moved your topic into the "Yeasts, Enzymes, Fungi, Nutrients" forum so that it will hopefully get a little more of the attention you're looking for.

Imagine society has just broken down and I can't get to a store, much less order yeast off of the internet. Someone at one point in our history did this. That's where we will want to start. Once we get the ball rolling, as with anything else, we can gradually improve the quality.
I haven't found a ton of info on making natural yeast. So far I know I can put some fruit in a jar with some water, shaking it and letting it breathe once a day for 5-7 days, until it starts to fizz and the fruit floats to the top. Then, apparently you can strain the liquid and it will contain the yeast. Does that sound about right to you guys?
Also, I am quite interested in the idea of propagating a good strain of yeast once I find it, but that's a topic for later I think.

My grandfather lived outside Watsonville California, in the pine forest up there he would ferment in a 55 gal drum. He never used yeast tell he moved to the city. He left it slightly open so it could breath each day for about a week. Once it started krazen he would seal and vapor lock it tell it was done. Sounds similar to your fruit thing.

Oh yeah he learned from his family in the Ozarks before they moved to Cali

there are plenty of sources of wild yeast- raisins as you mentioned are a good bet

however i did this with elderflowers for some elderflower champagne and got yeast plus a load of bacteria that converted all my booze into nail polish smelling stuff, so not so good

it would probably take many attempts till you hit a good strain, ie have many small jars of sugary- raisins and acidic (from citrus fruits) solution

it is a total luck of the draw, best bet in the apocalypse will be putting some baking yeast in the special cabin/land you are preparing for your group- a packet lasts years and good for making bread

Easy Peasy - what you will want to do is take a really sharp machete, preferably sterile. Early in the Zombie attack you will want to cleave the top portion of a zombies skull off - select a zombie who appears to be 'fresher' but is still partially decayed. You will notice a floral sort of growth forming along the frontal lobe portion of the brain....AVOID this part. Go for the white/gray material deeper in the valleys of the cortex. Remove as much of this 'mush' as possible and place into some sort of container (old mayo jar, tightly woven basket, base of broken beer bottle, etc.) and start to feed it a mild solution of some sort of sugar and water. Antifreeze works well. Soon, a baby zombie will be born who is both proficient at distillin' and killin'. Have this little dude make you your 'fuel' for your post-apocalyptic ATV vehicles. Easy Peasy.


Or you could pick some plums (the white stuff on the peel is yeast), mash with a bit of water (you can also add a little sugar (hopefully not from a radiator)) and watch it bubble away. Or crush an apple and watch it bubble away. It may not be great but you should be able to trade a bottle of your brew for about three heads of cabbage, a chunk of beef jerky, and 415 to 430 or so AR15 rounds. Easier Peasier...