Lowest effort and cheapest homemade alcohol (‘beer’/’wine’)

September 10, 2022 by Michael Kirk - Efficiency Is Everything

Disclaimer: Drugs are bad mmk? Save time, money, and increase efficiency by not using them. However if you insist, this article is for you.

The goal here is to make the active drug in alcohol, ethanol. We arent going for fancy flavors, you can figure that out yourself. I drank it with no changes.

Gather materials

• A container, I use a clean 2L bottle or empty juice container
• Sugar
• Yeast, I use bread yeast because its cheap and I already have it at home
• A plastic bag that has no holes in it
• A rubber band
• A pin

Assemble

According to some website (17g/l is needed to get 1% of alcohol). 10% is the max percentage for bread yeast. I want 10% in a 2L so, 340g of sugar. If your final product is sweet, you either added too much sugar, or the yeast hasnt finished metabolizing. Oh well, its sweeter. 340g is about 1.5 cups of sugar.

Enter your desired alcohol percentage(10 for 10%):

Enter your container size in Liters:

Calculate

Amount of sugar needed in grams =

Steps

1. Put sugar into your 2L container, fill with warm water. If you are burning your hand on the water, too hot. Hot tub warm.
2. Add 2 teaspoons yeast
3. Put cap on, shake well
4. Take cap off, put bag over the cap area, seal it with the rubber band. It should be air tight at this point. 2 options, remember to release the CO2 that builds up every day for the first few days(this is called burping). OR take a tiny pin and make a small hole in the bag. (I still burp it, its sastifying)

Wait

People say to wait 2 weeks or longer, not my style. You can get drunk in ~48 hours. Longer means stronger alcohol and better taste, so if you can wait, do it.

I imagine I had such good results with a 48-72 hour brew because I left it in my garage on ~93F degree day. At room temp, you may have to wait longer.

Last step before enjoyment

"Cold Crash"

Put it in the refrigerator, the yeast will settle to the bottom. Separate the good liquid from the yeast. You can do this multiple times if it isnt clear enough. Some people report yeast causes diarrhea. I've never had any issues, but I don't drink tons of yeast.

Variants

"Wine"

Same thing but buy 100% grape juice, just add yeast, no sugar needed. It will turn out dry, you can always add sugar to sweeten.

I personally like this the most, it is lower effort, it's slightly more expensive, but it tastes like full blown (dry) wine.

Final thoughts

The cost is a little bit of yeast, sugar, and time.

You can make "Wine" in less than 3 minutes. You can make the "Beer" in about 5 minutes. (This is active time, not the passive 48+ hours)

Now you can make drugs!