How to Make Watermelon Moonshine
As I mentioned, it’s entirely possible to turn raw watermelon juice into (nearly) pure alcohol. The procedure for making watermelon moonshine from scratch is as follows.
Please note that this article is for educational purposes only. When we conducted this experiment we had a federal fuel alcohol permit and were also compliant with state and local requirements. To distill alcohol at home in the United States requires federal, state and local permits. Our distillation equipment is designed for legal uses only and we don’t advocate or condone violating the law.
Mashing Equipment
The first step is to make a sugary liquid with watermelon juice. The following items were needed:
Cutting board and a sharp knife
Blender
A fine cheesecloth
A couple of 5 gallon buckets
Large pot for mashing
Hot plate
A large paddle or spoon for stirring
Wort / immersion chiller (for cooling the mash)
A hose for siphoning
Thermometer
A glass carboy or food grade plastic bucket for fermentation
An airlock
Ingredients
5 large watermelons
2 pound of raisins
4 pounds of cane sugar
2 packets bread yeast (or wine yeast)
Mashing, Fermentation, and Distillation Procedure
First, we extracted the sweet, sweet watermelon juice from 5 large watermelons. We found that the easiest way to do this is to cut the Watermelon in half and then into quarters. Once quartered, we cut into slices and removed the rind. Next, we reduced it to chunks that will fit into a blender.
