Absolute Methanol Removal

[jtatarin]

I have read the main site completely and gone through most of the forum posts before I have done anything. But it seems that everytime someones mentions removing the methanol heads they say something different. I have heard a range of removing 50ml per 2 l to 200ml per 2 l. Totally confusing!

I know it depends on whats being fermented I KNOW THIS but... Its not like I can know perfectly off hand how much pectins are in a wah and how much to remove!! lol

I plan on using a valved reflux. Whats the best way to be sure I remove all the methanol. Can you determine how much methanol by what the ABV is?


I dont really understand when people say. I collected
50ml between 80-90 ABV
1200 ML Between 70-80% etc..

Where can i read more about this?

[Rebel_Yell]

There's too many variables to have an absolute.

It is best to err on the side of throwing away too much rather than keeping it for drink. This is the beauty of doing your own distilling. It is not for profit.

YOU CONTROL THE CUTS.

[The Dean]

start your run of 5 gallons wash; collect the first quarter pint, throw it away/ use it in your car windscreen washer fluid ... but anyway, seperate it from the main run. All of the Meth' will be in here.

[jtatarin]

Yah i dont mind removing X amount per liter as long as i know its ULTRA conservative. Of course i'd rather get slightly less product than get a possible tainted product. 200ml per 20l would you say be the most conservative REGARLDESS of what i distill. Strawberries, berriers, grains, rices, sugars etc? anything

Is there always more ethanol then methanol in fermentation? Even if what i distill is extremely high in pectin.. Wood for example?

[Rebel_Yell]

Dude,

When you throw wood distillation into the equation you are mixing apples and oak. It ain't the same.

I reccomend that you reread the parent site....

I'm outta this discussion. Done. Stick a fork in me...

[Rebel_Yell]

I now understand tater's signature.

I mean no offense jtatarin. I wish you the best.

[Longhairedcountryboy]

I just finished a spirit run of 4 3/4 gallons of low wines at 43% abv. This was stripped from 24 gallons worth of corn and sugar sour mash fermented to about 7%. The distillate on the spirit run started at 85% abv.
I collected 300ml for foreshots. "Why 300", you ask? Because it sounded good. Even if my yeast had made what would be considered alot of methanol, I probably got all or most of it in that 300ml. Then I collected a little over a liter that smelled like sweet solvent. That was the head cut. I'm not going to drink that. You won't want to either. So, I now have 1500ml at 85% off the top that isn't going into the stuff I'm going to drink. Due to its boiling point , methanol will be consentrated at the very begining of the run. It will be long gone by the time you start to collect the heart of the run.
Dude, you will be able to smell when it is clean. Once the sweet solventy smell goes away, you are past the bad stuff. You will not want to drink it anyway. It smells and tastes like nail polish remover. Just use your nose. Don't start collecting hearts untill it smells like something you would want to drink.
Methanol is in beer, its in wine, its in orange juice. You're probably consuming mentanol on a daily basis, already. You would have to drink many times the total amount found in anything you ferment out for it to really do more than get you really hung over. I'm not saying you should sit and do shots of it, but the amount you will encounter in a 5, 10, even 15 gallon wash isn't going to make you dead. What are you so worried about? Just use your nose and you will know when you shouldn't be worried anymore.
As for the "50ml between 80-90 ABV
1200 ML Between 70-80% etc..", It means exactly what it says.
The distillate started coming off at 90 %ABV. After 50ml had come off the still, the ABV had dropped to 80%. Then 1200ml more was collected, the abv had dropped to 70% abv. Its just saying that the abv started at one point and dropped a certain amount after a certain volume. On the spirit run I did today, I recorded the time, temp, %, volume, and volume/minute for every 200ml. The total volume of foreshots, heads and hearts was 5700ml between 85% - 75% abv. The collection rate was 10ml/minute. Then I switched to tails and collected 1 gallon between 75% and 20% to use as feints on my next spirit run.
I hope any of this helps you out. Good luck to you, dude

[Ardent Spirit]

pectin is a polymer made from long chains of an acid derived from the sugar galactose with gel like properties like gelatin or custard. There is a methyl group attached to each of the acid carboxyl groups sticking out from the polymer and it is the release of these methyl groups by catalysed hydrolysis during fermentation that causes much of the methanol in fruit based mashes.
Wood contains a different polymer called lignin which chemically, looks vaguely like polystyrene. It also has methyl blocked acidic groups, in this case phenols (like carbolic acid) and if the lignin is degraded then these again are released as methanol. Hence the term wood alcohol.

[hornedrhodent]

Wood contains a different polymer called lignin which chemically, looks vaguely like polystyrene. It also has methyl blocked acidic groups, in this case phenols (like carbolic acid) and if the lignin is degraded then these again are released as methanol. Hence the term wood alcohol.

I was under the impression wood alcohol was produced by dry distillation at a much higher temperature than you would produce in distilling ethanol.

Please correct me if I'm wrong - I'd like to produce methanol - but not for drinking.

[LONEEAGLE155]

so with a pot still when you do your spirit run do you still through out the first part as it will again contain methanol??

[furball]

hornedrhodent, if you want to distill methanol, then you need to do steam distillation of the wood. This is a process that is done at a higher pressure and temperature then regular distillation. Wood is subjected to high temperature/ pressure steam that breaks down the lignum and cellulose bonds. You end up with methanol and carbon monoxide and steam. If you do a google search for steam distillation or gasification of wood you should get a better discription of what is occurring.

Furball

[hornedrhodent]

Thanks for that furball.