Originally posted by: edro13
According to the History Channel special on moonshine, moonshine is 50% alcohol, or 100 Proof. I was always under the impression that it was like 90% alcohol, or 180 proof... but I guess not.
Maybe there are different kinds... who knows?
Maybe I should try google.
The amount of alcohol depends on how many times it's distilled. The distillation process removes water from the corn beer (if you're making corn whiskey). The more you distill it, the stronger it gets.
Me and some of my buds in college decided to give home brewing a try and we started with 5 gallons of corn beer. After distilling 5 gallons of corn beer, we ended up with about a quart or so of "moonshine". It was cloudy and really tasted bad, but it worked. The more you distill it, the clearer and stronger it becomes.
That's my knowledge based on experience. In our case, we got tired of distilling and wanted to drink up, besides, we didn't think we'd have much left if we kept distilling until it came out clear. We were doing this with just a hot plate, and it was very unscientific. We knew that alcohol boils at a lower temperature than water, so we were just guessing on what the setting was to evaporate the alcohol but not the water. I suppose real moonshiners know exactly what they're doing.