Banana Brandy - Making Ugandan Waragi (Moonshine) 

Why do we always have to be "mad"? How about heroic? Is it the level of focus that most people don't appreciate or is it a tiny bit intimidating? Why not mad artists or musicians? I tell younger, scientifically inclined individuals that it is fine to be a geek, but only by choice and not as a fall back. Work out, learn to write and speak well, be conscientious and listen. You will make more money, get the girl (or boy) and have better opportunities to do something meaningful.

Tech Ingredients It was just a figure of speech. Thanks ill keep that in mind

Don't take it as a criticism. It was an opportunity to encourage the scientifically minded viewer.

Tech Ingredients Thanks

That is the best response to a comment I've ever read on RU-vid.

Me, but only if he bring some of this banana brandy.

Dude can be my dad!

Absolutely! Not only does he brew his own hooch, but he also built his own great sounding stereo system (and refrigerator, and freezer, and....).

He may Totally be my neighbor... and is absolutely brilliant.. We would get along beautifully and would be cooking up projects all the time together ( Pun intended, of course ).. It would be a blast... I'd learn so much from him.. and do even in the videos.. He's a wonderful teacher..

Yeah the hell with Mr Rogers. This is the neighbor to have.

I get it! Its no different than going into a store for only one item and walking out with a trunk full of groceries. Same concept, but watching 40 minutes is much cheaper.

Same I was just browsing and I ended up getting an hour education on pot distillery...lol

I have a gallon stiller just like that one but smaller than his, it only does about have a gallon of pure alcohol but I have to go buy bananas and try that LMAO

HA! I see what you did there...

Thanks! We learn from our critics, but we keep going because of this kind of support.

Yes! Please Keep up the great work! I Very much like the education without the fluff.

Thats exactly what I thought too. It is a long time ago that I subscribed to a channel of this quality!

Agreed!

Yes please keep the content coming! We need more of this and less of the other crap out there.

Heh, awesome.

More like "Wallter White",lol

MacGyver pisses his liquor. Bring your own cup.

Thats different than a Swiss Army Man, right?

useful . thanks

And thy help remove methanol

@@parimabartender no, copper does not remove methanol. Methanol removal has nothing to do with copper whatsoever. It is removed in the very first “fraction” of the distillate. Methanol boils at a slightly lower temp than ethanol does, so that is why it’s so important to discard the first few ounces of distillate coming off of the condenser, often called the “foreshots.” - those foreshots are mostly methanol, and should not be consumed.

Very informative. That said, I'm a bit concerned about the lead content in commercially available copper sheets and tubes. Maybe copper intended for utensils has been purified, but copper alloys (brass, bronze, etc.) tend to contain small amounts of lead... making stainless steel preferable.

@@nicolasuribestanko The manufacturer of this particular still says that they are "lead free"

I love him calling his son his assistant.

Heisenberg of brandy. I can’t believe they haven’t made an alcohol about breaking bad yet. He definitely is a badass. Knows his shit. See kids this is why you take chemistry in college serious. Real world problems need real world solutions! Lol.

First season was gripping....I'm just getting into distilling having made wine for years...I'd like to see his recirculating condenser and fan set up...

@@mr.phasfun6044 Just talk to your local plumber, or plumbing supplier.

Ha, of course!

That would've required a teacher that had half a clue. You might find someone in a HS like that maybe 1 in 800 chem teachers. Not good odds.

ninline2000, I graduated HS / 1983 in the Midwest USA. It was not uncommon to have a half dozen stills being designed or operating as part of the Chemistry Class. If memory serves, the concept and designs were learned in the Chemistry Classes then fabricated & tested in the Shop Classes.

@@PH_INFO_101 I graduated in 1990, not too much after that but in Canada. What a difference. In shop class about the most dangerous/useful things we made were bottlecap openers. :p Chemistry was unfortunately so boring I took biology instead when we chose our science class to study the rest of the way to graduation. If only I had had been shown then how practical chemistry was done and used instead of pure theory like we got in grades 8-9. I wish to hell I had gone to your high school.

@@cbpuzzle lol what kind of shitty highschool did you go to?

Thanks! Son.

Cameraman....assistant.....Alex

Technically still correct.. that's just how he rolls; always as technically correct as possible :)

Son is adorable hahaha.

@@TechIngredients Yep, you couldn't deny that dad.......I've been told that many times about mine as well. My best buddy is my son.

Translate in Tamil

If we only had students like the commenters to his videos.

Stay safe and don’t forget to ditch the foreshots 😂👌🏼👌🏼

@@oliverrosenkrantz7603 - Exactly... one can even go so far as test the 1st, 2nd and even 3rd draw by pouring some into to a flat dish then (safely) setting it on fire in the dark. Orange flame BAD/Blue Flame GOOD. Regardless, always dump the 1st & 2nd foreshots ... better yet, dump them into the fuel tank of your lawnmower or car. If added to your car's fuel tank during the Winter months, it will help drive off any excess water/condensation from the fuel system ;)

That is a fantastic way of explaining this.....

you be funny CMAC

psycho stalker profilers at youtube secret headquarter : Them right we did!

I agree.

i disagree there was some things that are not really 100% correct for example i facepalmed when i saw him mix the yeast (beginner mistake) not even hydrating it

That enzyme is amylase, exactly the same thing he added.

Dogfish Head makes a beer like that, their team chews on corn and spits it into a container. I'm good on that, I know they boil it and its disinfected but it sounds nasty haha.

in amazonia the amazonian tibes di this with corn cew it an d split it in largue anforas i was luky )and unluky= to go there and taste it

Yes, in Peru they have "masato" = yuca (cassava) beer, where the enzyme comes from saliva.

Do you know how natives made curare poison for their darts? It is an incredible, multi-step extraction process. One of the extraction steps involves spitting on the shaved bark of a vine, held in a cone of leaves (a funnel)...It is an enzymatic breakdown....Now HOW did natives in Ecuador learn this process hundreds of years ago?? Ancient Aliens?

Thanks!

swangelok 210 iq

Yes. I visited some “palenqueros” (backyard mezcal distillers) in Oaxaca, and they clean the copper parts between each batch they distill- the reason being to have a fresh, reactive copper surface that will bind sulphur compounds from the distillate and thus remove them from the liquor (although they use different terms to explain it).

@@tiny180 idk why you want to teach this to your kid daughter? or why you dont have much time? but there are vids online that show how to make a simple pot still,,i made mine using the pot and lid of pressure cooker and some 1/4" cooper tubing and a plastic bucket to hold it inside with cold water as the condenser,,you just have to figure out how to attack the tube to a port on the lid of the pot and you can find any large stainless steel pot or container with a lid ,,good luck

It removes sulfates the more copper your product comes in contact with changes flavor of finished product also copper holds flavor so a dedicated still all copper will be like grandma cast iron frying pan quality of ingredients produces quality of flavor it’s not easy but it is not hard

stfu boomer u smell like sulphur

Was thinking exact same thing... adds a few extra steps but saves $$$

L

Great post! I think he was teaching this lesson based on the fact that a lot of people are not patient enough to wait until the bananas are ripe enough. But this method which you describe is how I make banana bread. This starch-filled fruit has many applications!

Thomas Shue's World Love it, thanx. Also, bananas that are “off” are available for free. Collecting them in the freezer till proper amount is collected, and baam 😁

So the 2 ingredients he was adding were intended for less ripe fruit? I've used bananas as an extra in my wines and meads but never used the converters. Just waited till they were nice and brown, frozen, then added. Freezing ruptures the cells BTW, but I have a feeling you already know this.

Thanks.

Thanks! I think there is a suprisingly large number of people that would appreciate what we're doing, but in part it's the lack of promotion by RU-vid. Spread the word, it helps.😘

Adding additional enzymes just speeds the process up, because as you said, the yeast will take care of this eventually. For cider, that's not always a good idea, because the yeast will tend to over-exert and produce volatiles that aren't tasty if you're running a short and fast fermentation. Going slower, and on the cool side of what your yeast will tolerate will allow for the tasty flavors to be produced in quantity and avoid things like sulphury overtones. I've found that if you let it ferment in primary for around 8 days using english ale yeast at room temp (63F) then another 22 days in secondary around room temp before you cold crash you'll wind up with a really tasty, complex cider that clarifies with just a little gelatin and racking. The specific yeast I like for this (wlp002 from whitelabs) is in it's sweet spot around 68F, so I'm purposefully under-shooting that number. For the banana hooch in the video, you don't need to worry about all the subtlety, because most of the tasty volatiles are going to get cooked out (denatured) by the distillation process. That, and the champagne yeast is going to push to probably 15-18% in 4 days, so plenty to distill. Leaving it longer will net you maybe a percent or two, but with a much greater risk of contamination if not racked into a sanitized secondary fermenter (which carries a risk of it's own).

Makes sense! Thanks!

where bananas are more of a staple they tend to be starchy varieties. maybe this is why amylase is standard in uganda. i'd expect cavendish bananas have enough sugar to ignore the amylase, although the secondary effect of lowering viscosity can make the brewing process a lot easier. definitely want to look up polysaccharide content in banana now

You don't need a particularly alcohol tolerant yeast for this. Even if you just mashed the fruit without adding water and applied the enzyme dry, the must (it's a wine so I guess it must be a must) would only be around 23 Brix or 1.092 SG. Thats fairly high for beer, but not too high if you've got a healthy pitch of yeast. He's substantially diluting his must so I think it'd be under 1.040. It'd be interesting to see what a Hefeweizen yeast would do. Banana on banana.

I'd be a bit worried about bacterial contamination during the early part of the ferment if there's too much starch around. Perhaps with apples the low pH of the juice keeps bacteria in check. With banana you'd have a pretty high pH relative to apples. Leaving a lot of food around which some bacteria can eat, but yeast can't sounds risky.

You sound like a hell raiser. Please tell me they at least begrudgingly admitted your moonshine was good and that your still on good terms with them?

I swear that's the best line ever and encapsulates everything awesome about this channel

Turning almost anything into liquor is remarkably easy. Buy a still on EBay and make the absolute best moonshine (legally) you have ever had.

distilling alchohol is a powerful skill, you can make fuel and cleaners in a s*** hit the fan situation, and its a good bartering tool for supplies

Yes! So I'm not the only one. It would be great to see a blending/aging video!

Me Too!!!

Hey.. Jesse..you here too..? Hope you have some time to run your equipment now and then..?

From the Whisk[e]y Tribe saw how alpha and beta amylase was used to convert starch into sugar with corn meal. Are amylase used in your or Daniel and Rex's work?

That's good, you can produce ethanol, which is a disinfectant. Make sure it is at least 60%, as per U.S. CDC guidelines.

please share the method and a bottle or 2

Mark Arca My germaphobe wife’s anxiety kicked into overdrive and asked me if I had any alcohol to make hand sanitizer a month ago. Unfortunately I had none stashed away, but I told her I would find some. 4 weeks later, I am the proud owner of a homemade pot still I fashioned with materials I had on hand. I’ve made two batches with just a sugar wash. Today I mixed a batch of corn mash, and in a week, I’m going to try this banana recipe.

Jarvis Lundy w

Jarvis badassss🙌🏾

you're easily impressed.

I was using one these. 20 years ago making wine in wintertime .

It’s good, but where I live, the problem is keeping the mash from overheating and killing the yeast, not keeping it all warm. There are such things as aquarium chillers, but they are mondo expensive.

agreed!

@@censusgary root cellar maybe or a storm shelter

Thanks!!

here in the states you can distill ethanol for use as a fuel as well but it must be denatured to prevent consumption. You also can't sell it and you must apply for a license and there are limits on how much you can distill in a year i think. Still a pretty cool concept and for a hobby chemist the license would be well worth the price and hassle if you had a cheap source of starch.

@1kal nah that's just what they want you to think....

I mean it could be called that just need to add ice XD although it would still get you rekt if you can't handle this at all

bananna scented hand sanitizer.

Feds to busy with way more serious shit then him making booze! And if your a fed, let this man make it damn it, go find some terrorist or somewhat and leave us to learning how to make our own booze sorry fuckers

He's obviously Canadian

@@_Clem_H_Fandango_ You're wearing a sweater vest right now aren't you? You're wearing a sweater vest.

Don't read those comments.😀 This is as easy as it seems.

Lol, 😂

Hahahaaaaa yessssSsssss

Science is science Ingredients for meth are more controlled

Great!

that term come from bananadine wich is a phychodelic drug derived from dried banana peels

Also the term drinking piss

@@nickcavanaugh9586 that's a myth

@@pacman10182 read the anarchist cookbook 1st edition its verymuch no myth

@@nickcavanaugh9586 you know half the shit in that book is bullshit right?

indeed, if he stood on a high chair the light would glow all the colours of the rectum.

Dude, this hobby will take you down the rabbits warren and not let you go! It is INSANELY satisfying.

East Coast of NC right here, We have a few shiners over here...Apple pie flavor, holy shit is it good!