Can I say again how much I appreciate having someone here who knows this shit? I didn’t even know enough to be worried about anything beyond methanol poisoning!
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Blindness seems a necessary qualification for MAGGATs.
Sure. Sort of. Assuming it is either distilled right away or refrigerated (and you’re using a K yeast that depopulates other microbes). However, the methods employed by “moonshiners” are usually far beyond rustic and don’t employ any form of fermentation controls. The sugar ferments out rapidly, then the corn, which is almost never properly saccharified, is left to co-ferment with the remaining microbiome while the yeast drop out and begin producing mercaptans (spoilage).
The documentary The Last Run about “Popcorn” Sutton is perfectly illustrative of this. I have the video cued to the moment he and his buddy are targeting the ferment that has been left out in the woods for “7 or 8 days”. That sugar fermented in the first 24 hours in those atmospheric conditions. When he tastes it, he refers to it as “bitter” and pulls a grimace. There is absolutely no reason for a decent ferment to taste bitter, yet they managed it.
He also references other moonshiners adulterating product per my original comment. I don’t recommend this film, not least of which because it is exploitative and led to his suicide (by prompting a Federal investigation), but it is highly informative regarding absolutely everything you should not do. Lead solder? Check? Spoilage? Check. Contaminated fermenters? Check.
In the nearly two decades I have been a distiller I have met two home distillers who had any clue what they were doing. One was from Brittany (originally Ireland distilling Potchean) and the other from Poland (sliva). There is a rich history of home distillation in those areas (as @anonotwit alludes to) with tradition and knowledge handed down generationally. That tradition died with prohibition in the US and nearly everyone left doing it was doing it for nefarious purposes. The craft was lost.
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