In accordance with distillery traditions, quite a few different techniques have to be employed in order to make Whiskey, such as malting, distilling, and prolonged aging in oak barrels. Various grain ingredients can be used to create this elite Scotish liquor—wheat, barley, corn, and even rye. But skilled craftsmen have found a way to make whiskey from Beer at home.

Distilling Beer into Whiskey

Firstly, what you need is beer malt. You can purchase it online or in stores. Top off at least 2 kilos with 10 liters of water and heat it up to 65°C using a steam generator. To achieve the desired result, reduce the power of the steam generator and then keep the wort at 65°C for 1-1.5 hours. Once you’ve made it past this stage, it’s time to heat the beer wort to 75°C and then let it cool down.

After that, all you have to do is add yeast—about 25 grams of dry or 100 grams of pressed yeast—and run the Distillation process. The first stage is carried out without removing the heads and tails. This yields about 2 liters of raw alcohol, which has 40% ABV. Water it down to lower its potency to 20%. After this, run the second distillation in a distillation still. Gather the heads fraction into a separate container. After that, carefully increase the power, which will remove the hearts and once again increase the potency to 40%. Doing that will enable you to properly gather the tails in a separate container. At last, it’s time to water down the obtained distillate and perform the third distillation.

If you don’t have a steam generator at your disposal, you can boil the wort and perform the distillation using an electric stove. Although, you’ll have to thoroughly stir the wort during the boiling to prevent it from burning at the bottom of the stock pot. In addition to that, strain the mash through a colander in order to successfully finish the process of distilling beer into whiskey at home.

How to Make Whiskey From Beer Using Homemade Malt

By the way, in the US this Scottish drink is made from beer wort which consists of roughly 51% barley malt. The following is the recipe for this drink.

Sort out the barley malt and soak it in water for 24 hours. After one day simply pour off the water and once again thoroughly wash the barley. Now lay it out in an even layer 5-cm wide. Make sure that the temperature does not exceed 25°C. Optionally cover the barley with cheesecloth.

This is important: moisten the grains a few times throughout the day, but make sure that the water doesn’t go stale and that the grains at the bottom are not covered with water.

After a few days, you’ll see that the barley has sprouted. The best way to succeed is to stir the barley from time to time.

Once a few days have passed, and you see that the sprouts are almost as long as the grains, you need to mash them using a meat grinder. If you don’t plan on using the obtained malt right away, it is necessary to dry it and keep it in a solid state.

Other stages of distilling whiskey into beer are the same as described above.

How to Make Whiskey From Beer Using Moonshine

The following recipe will let you distill beer into whiskey using moonshine

The technique of distilling beer into whiskey is described in the first part of this article. Three distillation sessions allow to get rid of the unpleasant flavor completely. You can add a pleasant taste by diluting the raw alcohol with distilled water and adding activated carbon in a volume of 10 grams per 1 liter of liquid prior to running the third distillation.

Once you’re done with distilling, you should age the homemade beer whiskey for 5 days. Shake it at least once a day during this time period. The third distillation yields a drink that has 75% ABV. You can add about 4-5 grams of oak chips per 1 liter of liquid. Keep in mind that oak chips should be pre-roasted.

After one month of aging and straining, you can serve your homemade whiskey distilled from beer.

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