First thing first — it is important to note that brewing distilled spirits including bourbon or any other type of whiskey, vodka, gin is illegal and potentially dangerous in all of the states in the USA. Please read this article from a hypothetical perspective, and use the info for your own knowledge.

The law will come after you if they think you are making bourbon or any other spirits.

Brewing beer at home is fairly easy, because all you really need is a good beer making kit. But many home brewers ask if making their own spirits is the same or more difficult than brewing beer at home.

Short answer is it takes much more time and effort, and specialized equipment to make bourbon at home. The Joy of Home Distilling book provides a comprehensive view into the home bourbon distilling world, so be sure to pick up your copy today for a full guide. My guide below will go over the basics and highlights on how to get started.

There is also a great training course at Distillery University on how to start your own craft distillery business which is also good for learning about home distilling.

Or jump into the next MasterClass, Feb 18-20, 2022

You may also want to consider a Bourbon of the Month club membership and get introduced to different craft bourbon/whiskey each month.

Here are the steps that I’ll go over in this guide on how to make bourbon at home:

• Step 1: Start with the proper hardware and still
• Step 2: Gather up your bourbon mash ingredients
• Step 3: Make the bourbon mash
• Step 4: Fermenting the mash
• Step 5: Collect the distillate
• Step 6: Ageing & Barreling

HOMEMADE BOURBON RECIPE INGREDIENTS

Bourbon Making Hardware List

Please check the distilling laws in your state before trying to assemble any distilling unit. Some states make it illegal to even own a setup. With that said, let’s continue.

• Start with Two 5 gallon jugs
• One 5 gallon oak barrel- (All bourbon is aged in oak barrels, which can be new or aged, and from a European, American, or Japanese oak tree. Without time spent in oak barrels, bourbon would remain dry and fiery, and devoid of the delicious toasty, vanilla, caramel, and nutty notes that gives bourbon its unique physical and chemical nature.)
• A corona corn and grain mill– (You will need this to crush the grain products quickly)
• A funnel
• A food thermometer
• A 10 gallon copper still (didn’t know you could buy these, did you?)

Ingredients for your Homemade Bourbon Mash Mix

• Start with 5.5 gallons of water
• 7 lbs of corn maize
• 1.5 lbs of rye
• 1.5 lbs of barley
• Some nut milk bags
• toasted oak chips
• Some distillers yeast

How To Make The Bourbon Mash

Mash in the world of Bourbon is the process of combining milled/crushed grain with water. The water should be warm enough to activate the enzymes, and so that it can break down the starches into short-grain sugars.

It is worth noting that bourbon mash is different from beer mash because it’s thin, sour, and usually quite boozy — which is not something you’d be happy to drink by the pint.

A traditional bourbon mash is a combination of at least 50% corn, rye, and wheat, but you will have to play around with the grain’s ratios.

Pro Tip: A recommended blend to start with for bourbon is 75% corn, 15% rye, and 10% barley.

To get started with making the mash for your batch of homemade bourbon at home, grab your corona corn and grain mill, and add all your grain to it. It will take roughly three to four passes for the natural enzymes found in grain to break down the grain’s starches.

After your grains have achieved your desired mil texture, throw the grain’s starches into a pot of boiling water, so that they leach out of the cracked grain. Stir the mash until the mixture reaches near boiling point, which will help convert the starches to sugar. The sugary liquid that results from the mash is known as wort.

Fermenting Bourbon Mash

COLLECT THE BOURBON DISTILLATE

This is where things can get a bot tricky, because there are four stages to it — foreshots, heads, hearts and tails.

 

Being able to detect the subtle changes between each of these 4 stages takes lots of practice and experience.

FORESHOTS

these are the first vapors to boil off during distillation during heating, and contain methanol and other undesirables. Foreshots account for 5 percent of your total distillate, and should always be discarded and never consumed, as it can make you blind.

HEADS

Next, the heads follow the foreshots, and even though they won’t make you blind, they do contain “lighter” compounds such as Acetone, Acetaldehyde, and Acetate. These chemicals not only taste and smell like solvents, but can give you a terrible hangover.

Heads are far from smooth, and account for 20 percent to 30 percent of the liquid collected during the distillation process. They are absolutely not worth keeping, and just like foreshots should be discarded.

HEARTS

The hearts are the good stuff you want to keep, and make up 30 percent of your bourbon distillate. Hearts are regarded as the “sweet spot”, and account for 30 percent of your bourbon distillate. Hearts are full of flavor, extremely smooth, and are noted for their sweeter taste.

Your skill as a home bourbon distiller will come into play, because you need to gauge the beginning and end of the hearts portion of the distillation run. You can do this by tasting not swallowing a small portion of your distillate to ensure that it doesn’t taste like solvents.

TAILS

The tails come after the hearts, and is more bitter than sweet, as they contain fusel oils such as propanol, butanol, and amyl alcohols. Tails typically comprise of 35 percent of your total batch, and generally feature a slight oily sheen on top of the distillate. You can save the tails, and used in future distillation runs, which are referred to as feints runs.

AGEING BOURBON AT HOME