Sugar Wine aka. kilju

[ano]

it just needs water, yeast and water. Nothing else.

I'm in! Wait....

Seriously "kilju"? As in "Kill You"?

If Turbo Cider is made out of apple juice does that make this just "Turbo"?

 

[SnaggerMan]

Sorry about the typo, I meant "It just needs water, yeast and sugar".

Haha, actually, the english name of kilju would be scream. But kilju does sound a lot like "kill you".

No, this is not "turbo". This is kilju.

 

[Wez]

 

[Moley]

Well I thought I'd heard of most alcoholic beverages, but this is a new one to me.
It sounds awful but I might have to give it a try, on a single bottle basis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilju

Actually, the more I think about this the less I understand it. From Wiki:

Making kilju out of sugar only is illegal in Finland. Fruit or berries can be used in the fermentation process in order to avoid legal consequences and to flavour the drink.

So why not just make wine in the first place, especially if it's usually going to get flavoured with orange or something?

I am familiar with alcohol restrictions and prices in Scandinavian countries, so kilju or pontikka makes perfect sense.

 

[jamesb]

1 desiliter of sugar

Is this equal to 100g? Google isn't being particularly useful.

 

[SnaggerMan]

Yes. One pack of sugar has 1kg of sugar here in Finland and it has 10 deciliter, so 1 deciliter is 100g.

And yes, kilju is illegal in Finland. It usually isn´t flavoured with anything, people just drink it without any flavorations.

But, I still would like to get an answer to my question.

 

[tubby_shaw]

Is it correct that kilju is illegal in Finland SnaggerMan ?
If so why ?

 

[corby_brewer]

After reading this post and looking up on the inter-web im interested to find out more about kilju, so tonight when i get home from work i think ill knock up 1/2 a litre. I don’t intend to drink it :sick: just interested to see what the SG and FG will be.

 

[Moley]

Is it correct that kilju is illegal in Finland SnaggerMan ?
If so why ?

He's alread confirmed that it is, and I guess that's because in its unflavoured form it's frequently used as a base for making moonshine, although that page also says that they usually turn a blind eye towards home distillation as long as you don't try to sell it.

“Blind eye” might be an inappropriate choice of expression.

But no SnaggerMan, I wouldn't have thought you'd be getting any nasty products from your unwashed energy drink bottle.

 

[ano]

After reading this post and looking up on the inter-web im interested to find out more about kilju, so tonight when i get home from work i think ill knock up 1/2 a litre. I don’t intend to drink it :sick: just interested to see what the SG and FG will be.

100g of white cane sugar, with an extract of 375 will give an OG of 1075 in half a litre of water.

 

[SnaggerMan]

Is it correct that kilju is illegal in Finland SnaggerMan ?
If so why ?

Yes, but I´m not quite sure why. Maybe because it´s so cheap. Sugar and yeast don´t cost much here in Finland...
If everybody would make kilju, Alko(the only alcohol monopoly in Finland) wouldn´t get any money. But I dunno why homemade wine and beer is legal, making it doesn´t cost much either, you just need same ingredients as kilju + grapes or something.

 

[Moley]

I don't know about alcohol legislation or pricing in Finland but it sounds similar to Iceland, where prohibition on beer was only lifted in 1989.

The most expensive beer I've ever bought in my life was on Iceland, two small lagers cost £7.50, and that was on our honeymoon in 1990. Needless to say, we kept the ‘Viking Bjór’ glasses as a souvenir. A bottle of wine from the State monopoly cost from about £20 upwards, and spirits - thank God we took our full Duty Free quota in with us. Fabulous country, even though God's not finished it yet.

 

[SnaggerMan]

Well, I can tell you that 4.7% bottle(about 3 deciliters) of beer usually costs about 1.20 euros in Finland.

 

[corby_brewer]

After reading this post and looking up on the inter-web im interested to find out more about kilju, so tonight when i get home from work i think ill knock up 1/2 a litre. I don’t intend to drink it :sick: just interested to see what the SG and FG will be.

Well thats my 1/2 ltr of KILJU made.
100 grms sugar
1/2ltr of mineral water
2 x teaspoons of Alisons active yeast.

the OG was 1.069 with hydrometer 1 and 1.074 with hydrometer 2.
Just wait 7 days now and see what the final reading is.

DS

 

[Moley]

Ah well, I thought ano's calculation of OG sounded a bit pathetic, so mine's underway too, but tweaked.

I tend to keep nice bottles, so I had just the thing. After proper sanitisation of everything, here we go, using an old decanter-style one litre Highland Park bottle with a large diameter neck, just perfect for an airlock and bung:

Under controlled laboratory conditions, and with Sibelius playing on my iPod,
150g sugar and the merest tip of a grapefruit spoon of citric acid:

plus 500g boiling water:

Shaken, not stirred, the bottle then cooled in a water bath to 20°C,
one half teaspoon (2.5ml) of Harris 'Super Yeast' (a general purpose wine yeast) pitched,
OG 1.096

 

[SnaggerMan]

Ahh, your kilju looks so yummy...

But, for how long can I store(after fermentation) my kilju before it goes bad? A week, I guess...

 

[corby_brewer]

My Kilju experment after 14 hours fementation.

Last time i smelt somthing like this was when i changed my daughters nappy :sick:

 

[SnaggerMan]

Come on, kilju doesn´t smell so bad. You will get used to that smell.

 

[corby_brewer]

After reading this post and looking up on the inter-web im interested to find out more about kilju, so tonight when i get home from work i think ill knock up 1/2 a litre. I don’t intend to drink it :sick: just interested to see what the SG and FG will be.

Well thats my 1/2 ltr of KILJU made.
100 grms sugar
1/2ltr of mineral water
2 x teaspoons of Alisons active yeast.

the OG was 1.069 with hydrometer 1 and 1.074 with hydrometer 2.
Just wait 7 days now and see what the final reading is.

DS

well my kilju is now clear and just took a hydro reading and its 0.990, now by my calculations that make kilju about 11% abv. not such a bad smell either.

 

[SnaggerMan]

Taste it, taste it! You can handle the taste, you are a man!