Question about methanol

[Jman]

I was reading through the methanol section of the site... and according to it there is between 0.4%-1% methanol contained in wines. So theoretically... If I were to drink a whole bottle of wine I would be consuming a "safe" amount of methanol because the site says that the fatal dose of methanol is 100-250mL, and obviously this is true because i've consumed whole bottles of wine over an evening and I am still alive =). Anyways onto my question- Hypothetically, if I were to distill a bottle of that store bought wine to make brandy (a small amount obviously from 1 bottle)... and consumed the heads and foreshots, wouldn't that still be the same amount of methanol I would be consuming if I drank the whole bottle of wine? Therefore, from a safety standpoint would have little health risk- aside from nasty off tastes and fusel oils? Correct me if im wrong on this though, it isnt something I intend to do- it was just something that popped into my head that made me curious.

[Prole]

Since your distillate is more concentrated, you'd be more likely to get a headache or hangover if you don't remove the heads. It will also effect the taste. Why waste your time to make an inferior product?

[Usge]

If you backmash or use feints it concentrates even more. The purpose of tossing the foreshots on each and very run is to minimize this as much as possible.

[rad14701]

Prole us correct... While the dosage wouldn't be lethal, it wouldn't be pleasant either... If you're in doubt, go ahead and try it... Might be the only way to make a believer out of you... You wouldn't be the first person who just had to try drinking skanky hooch only to wind up with a headache...

[Jman]

It is nothing I intend on doing. Like I said, I was just reading over the methanol section and that question popped into my head. It would be foolish to actually try to consume the foreshots and the heads, it was more just a question of the safety situation that might occur if perhaps you didn't remove all of the heads when you are first learning the process. I realize if you are doing a 25 L batch then obviously if you drank the heads from that you are putting yourself at risk, I was just wondering about a smaller scale. Also, I realize it would absolutely affect the taste.

[Hawke]

No, in your example, it would not kill ya. Although, with it concentrated, you may wish you were dead in the morning.
I know of a couple of 'shiners that don't make any cuts at all. Thier stuff obviously tastes like crap, but you can't convince them that they could do better.

[smokerscully1]

Jman is correct--distillation in and of itself produces no alochol or methanol. Distilling a bottle of wine will not produce enough methanol to hurt you--anymore than what was already present in the bottle of wine.

[Hack]

Just the little bit of heads and tails I imbibe while making cuts usually gives me a headache. Leave it all in? no thanks.

[trthskr4]

That example is exactly half of the reason this hobby is illegal, the other half is taxation. Old Shiners wouldn't and didn't make any cuts but simply bottled everything that came out of the still and whoever consumed that had health problems. The hope of most on this thread is to one day have it legalized by proving it can be done safely and that the distillation process produces absolutely nothing that isn't in beer and wine. The danger lies with the concentration of substances that if given the opportunity idiots will consume. I know dumbasses that have consumed rubbing alcohol just to see if they could keep it down. There have also been dumbasses that have tried to redistill rubbing alcohol to remove the denaturant and then consume it.

What's my point you ask? Dumbasses will invent ways to kill or harm themselves so why hinder them? Now everybody give me a few minutes to climb down off my high horse.

[punkin]

That example is exactly half of the reason this hobby is illegal, the other half is taxation. Old Shiners wouldn't and didn't make any cuts but simply bottled everything that came out of the still and whoever consumed that had health problems.

That is such a crazy statement from someone seeking truth.

Are you saying you don't believe that some of those 'old shiners' thought about what they were doing or learnt things?

Do ya reckon the whole body of quality distilling knowledge just popped up with this website? No-ones ever tried to make a better jam, custard, or bread?

Man get out to the country and meet some people who love to learn and improve on pappies tradition (no matter what it is). there's enough 'old shiners' just here to put your internet knowledge to shame....





ButTheyJustSmileAndNodAin'tNeverBrewedNoShinePunkin

[snuffy]

The methanol myths persist.

* rant mode on *

ALL cases of methanol poisoning are due to methanol (or denatured spirits, methylated spirits, etc.) being ADDED to booze as an adulterant.

No fermentation process is going to produce more than a trace of methanol. No distillation process will produce a drinkable product with anything other than a harmless trace of methanol.

Methanol is not a significant contributor to hangovers. That's mainly the higher alcohols - propyl, butyl, etc.

Methanol is present in both heads and tails because it forms azeotropes with all alcohols - not just methanol.

"Foreshots" are not mostly methanol. In fact, "foreshots" are a myth and can't be found in the professional or scientific literature on distilling.

If heads cuts are done, even sloppily with a foul taste, there will not be enough methanol to be toxic.

The antidote for methanol poisoning is ethanol -- so the traces present in booze are not going to hurt you since you are also taking the antidote.

All this yap, yap, yap about methanol in moonshine is pure bunk. Not a bit of truth to it. Just because the prohibitionists keep telling these lies doesn't make them so.

* end rant *

Whew. Glad to get that off my chest. Sheesh. What next, black helicopters?

[The Chemist]

Well...snuffy 'bout covered it. But if you don't understand what he meant, FULLY, please continue to throw out your erstwhile 'foreshots'...

(foul practices can produce foul products besides methanol which will come out 'early'...)

[Ayay]

When making wine or beer there is no way to manage the methanol except by following the recipe very carefully and ageing correctly.

When distilling you can get rid of the methanol quickly and easily, so why not??

[trthskr4]

I seem to have really screwed the pooch on that statement, didn't really think it through and didn't even say what I meant to in the first place. Shouldn't have lumped all Old Shiners in the statement either. However, you cannot escape the fact that ethanol and methanol along with the higher alcohols are poisonous to the human body otherwise alcoholics wouldn't get scorosis of the liver and other such health problems. Not all the old shiners used discretion and safety with their products.

Poor distilling practices (using lead and such) and greed is I guess what I was trying to get at there. I just let a friend sample my UJSM for the first time the other day and he had just came in from a job where someone had gotten some shine locally. It had no cuts done on it and with a couple sips he had an instant headache. He refused at first to sample mine but after that went through the entire cabinet trying out everything and stumbled back to the vehicle (My dad was driving). Point being, it does happen still today and gives shine a bad name.

As for the production and consumption of lethal or harmful products, it is true that for hobby size batches we produce little methanol. Is it also true that just because you drink poison and with it the antidote that there will be absolutely no harmful health side effects?


I'mSeekingTruthDidn'tSayIHadItAlready.

[trthskr4]

Well...snuffy 'bout covered it. But if you don't understand what he meant, FULLY, please continue to throw out your erstwhile 'foreshots'...

(foul practices can produce foul products besides methanol which will come out 'early'...)

I must admit, while I haven't fully woken up, I'm not sure if I understand "FULLY".
Are you guys saying it's basically pointless to worry about tossing fores or that we're doing it for all the wrong reasons?

I understood it as it's for all the wrong reasons but thought it worthwhile to clarify.

"Ignorance is bliss", maybe that's why I'm so happy all the time.

[rad14701]

What next, black helicopters?

Snuffy, are you seeing them too...???

Are you guys saying it's basically pointless to worry about tossing fores or that we're doing it for all the wrong reasons?

We're saying that you shouldn't worry about the lethal aspect, just the off tastes and other associated aspects... As stated previously, there will never be more of anything in the final product than in the wash, it will just be proportionately more concentrated...

I seem to have really screwed the pooch on that statement . . .

Gather up your women, children, domestic pets, and small farm animals folks - trthskr4 is in the neighborhood...

[snuffy]

Now that I'm over my rant...

Toss the so-called "foreshots" because they taste like ass. Likewise, don't be drinking the heads or tails - or anything else that tastes like nail polish remover, paint stripper or household cleaning products.

They taste bad because God wanted it that way -- think of it as a hint from high above.

[trthskr4]

Thanks for the clarification, that's what I thought.

I wouldn't worry about anything but the women.

[punkin]

True, truth. Certainly gotta agree there's bad practises all through the distilling community (home and commercial) now and there certainly woulda been in the past.

Just can't lump some of the past craftsmen in with the moneygrabbers and cheap drunks

There'd be some substaintial parts of the craft known to the old shiners that we are still waiting to relearn here....






AfterAllThat'sWhereOurSkillsAndRefinementsAreBased

[Samogon]

Methanol is present in both heads and tails because it forms azeotropes with all alcohols - not just methanol.

I was curious about this one, since the last word appears to be mis-typed.

I tried to find a listing of all methanol's azeotropes and found this: http://eweb.chemeng.ed.ac.uk/chem_eng/a ... _bank.html, which lists few (if any) alcohols. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azeotrope_(data) displays the info a little better. Ethyl acetate and acetone are the only ones I recognize as being likely to be present in distiller's wash, but my chemistry knowledge is weak. Would anyone care to elaborate/correct?

[FeralPig]

"Just can't lump some of the past craftsmen in with the moneygrabbers and cheap drunks "

Why you gotta dawg us cheap drunks? Doesn't mean I don't wanna learn...

[snuffy]

Methanol is present in both heads and tails because it forms azeotropes with all alcohols - not just methanol.

I was curious about this one, since the last word appears to be mis-typed.

I tried to find a listing of all methanol's azeotropes and found this: http://eweb.chemeng.ed.ac.uk/chem_eng/a ... _bank.html, which lists few (if any) alcohols. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azeotrope_(data) displays the info a little better. Ethyl acetate and acetone are the only ones I recognize as being likely to be present in distiller's wash, but my chemistry knowledge is weak. Would anyone care to elaborate/correct?

Check out Kris Berglund's Artisan Distilling
http://www.distilling.com/PDF/artisan.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow


P 62 - list of different spirits showing cherry as very high in methanol
P 66 - graph showing distribution of congeners during a distilling run - methanol has two peaks. One in the head and one in the tails.

The wiki page is not as useful as it might seem - the list isn't exhaustive. But looky here: propyl and butyl shows up in the list as salts. These are two of the "higher" alcohols (aka fusel oils) found in tails.

In Germany, there is a minimum legal level in apple brandy. Too little methanol means the mash or the spirit was adulterated. In the US, it's the other way around. So US applejack is illegal in Germany and German apple brandy or eau de vie is illegal in the US. Clever, eh?

Think about this one: there were no cases of methanol poisoning until there were revenuers. Denaturing alcohol is an excise issue, it has nothing to do with fermenting or distilling.

Now you've got me confused about confusion with a typo - which word is the last one? In this case, it would be one.

[Ugly]

All this talk about methanol getting tossed down the drain makes me cry. Do you know how many times I've tweaked my catalyst to get a better methanol run during prolysis? Me neither, I lost count and I've mixed everything from copper to plantinum combinations in dozens of different configs just to get those few extra scraps of methanol.... sigh...

I guess you could all mail me the stuff you dump and I'd never have to process again....

Ones man garbage is anothers fuel supply

[punkin]

"Just can't lump some of the past craftsmen in with the moneygrabbers and cheap drunks "

Why you gotta dawg us cheap drunks? Doesn't mean I don't wanna learn...

I dunno what 'dawg' is.
And i'm too lazy to google it.
You're too sensitive to be a cheap drunk.

Seems to me, the one's i've known have had pretty tuff hides....












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