Home Distillation of Alcohol (Homemade Alcohol to Drink)
Which Wash to Make
It depends on what sort of still you have, and what you are trying to make.
If you have a reflux or fractionating still, only use whatever is cheapest
(usually sugar), as the refluxing
will strip out all the flavours anyhow.
If you have a pot still, and are after a bourban or whiskey, then you need
to go the grain route,
or mollasses if after a rum.
If you are trying to make a neutral spirit for flavouring, go for sugar.
See Mikrobios' pdf Wine for Distilling
on this topic - you still need to take some care to get a really smooth neutral spirit.
You can also use fruit, if have it available.
Again, using a pot still will result in a brandy/grappa/schnapps,
whereas a reflux still will just strip it down to neutral spirit.
Unfortunately (maybe fortunately ?) , there is no rule of "if it can rot it
can be fermented". In order for the
yeast to work, it needs the sugar available to it in its simplest form,
usually glucose (sometimes dextrose). The enzymes like alpha & beta amalyse do the
breaking down of the starchs & sugars in grains & fruit to this form.
Unfortunately there is no way of breaking down protein (meat) like this, so there
is no way of utilising animal byproducts etc for alcohol (drinking or fuel).