Yet another YouTube methanol video

[thecroweater]

Ok I know this video is either a bit of a cock and bull story or missing some vital information but it does raise a question in my mind I don't know the real answer to.
Let's say someone made a wash unusually high in methanol, let's say it was a high pectin fruit with sticks and seed in and said brewer used a ship ton of pectinase and got some dangerous amounts. The the guy runs it and does no cuts collecting the methanol with the rest as he has included the heads fractions where the greater concentrations will be. Should be not a real worry hey because it will be consumed with ethanol so virtually no methanol should be able to be metabolised yeah. Ok if ethanol is always metabolised first and by then any methanol present should have harmlessly passed through at what point, ratio is there a risk of residual amounts of methanol in the body once the ethanol is metabolised? Is there a risk of this say if the dude drinks a jar of heads last of is this video completely fanciful?

[Yummyrum]

Well shit . The bloke drunk 2 liters of 80% abv ....that alone is pure stupidity .

IMO that video smells of propaganda . They are targetting the homedistiller . Enough relative info to make you understand but introducing enough doubt to make you question what you are doing .

Drink in moderation folk . 2 liters of 80% ABV is just plane dumb

[Swedish Pride]

yeah I saw this one before too.
I reckon CS is a dickhead who drank 2l of 80 ABV% in two hours.
I would have thought that 2l of 80% is enough to kill ya stone dead

[Saltbush Bill]

Ive seen it before Crow and wondered the same things my self. It seems to open up a whole can of worms.
My first reaction was much like Yummies .....any idiot who drinks 2 liters of 80% abv in two hours is going to suffer and be very very sick.
They are candidates for the theory of "survival of the smartest"
What I will ask is, if Methanol is the big bad wolf of Moonshine as is portrayed here, why is it that most of us can produce spirits that result in little to no hangover and defiantly leave you feeling much better the next day than any commercial swill will ?
From my understanding of what he says , if we had large quantities of methanol in what we produce, we should have at very least bad hangovers.

[Swedish Pride]

did a quick calc on the numbers.
Assuming he's 100kg his bloodlevel would be about 1.9%
They reckon folks have died from as little as 0.4%

[thecroweater]

Oh yeah look I'm not retarded and do realise this video is horse shit or at least contains great shovelfuls of it but it did get me thinking under what senarios if any could this be a problem, that is you made one seriously crap wash then drank say just heads is there even a point where an amount of methanol mixed in an ethanol solution could be a danger, I'm talking about a naturally produced not added to like we read about in the third world. I suspect it would not be possible to naturally produce a ratio that would come anywhere near dangerous but just the same I was wondering hypothetically if you could what would that ratio look like and is it possible to have methanol in your system after the ethanol is metabolised, I'm thinking not but I can't say I know.

[NZBoka701]

I actually had questions about methanol myself. Recently a news article popped up about a girl who went away to Bali or somewhere like that and they served a fake vodka that contained methanol, so much methanol in fact she woke up the next day blind. According to the news it was distilled by "gangs in the mountains and wasn't certified" but you look into the full story and it turns out they were cutting it down with everything from methanol itself to isopropyl alcohol and even distilling antifreeze to get the ethanol from that and bottle it. The video seems like a massive scaremongering thing though.

I'm not sure of the ml of methanol in a normal wash but if 10ml causes blindness and 15ml is fatal assuming no ethanol is consumed it sounds like the guy who distilled it would have to be bottling straight from the start and it's pot luck if you get a bottle of heads or hearts. If he was mixing and proofing before bottling then he would have had to have a tonne of methanol in his wash.
There's usually around 329mg/L of methanol in wine for example (a fruit wash) so you would have to distill 30L of wine and drink the first shot right from the start to get enough to go blind. Beer on the other hand, comparable to a grain wash contains 19mg/l so it would take a 526L wash to create enough methanol to go blind.

My only worry with methanol is with my boka. The running instructions all say to start with the output valve closed and allow it to stabilise before taking off the foreshots but surely that mixes the methanol with the ethanol in the head. I run mine with the valve open at the start, take off the foreshots and then shut the valve and allow to stabilise before starting to draw the heads etc.

[Swedish Pride]

I actually had questions about methanol myself. Recently a news article popped up about a girl who went away to Bali or somewhere like that and they served a fake vodka that contained methanol, so much methanol in fact she woke up the next day blind. According to the news it was distilled by "gangs in the mountains and wasn't certified" but you look into the full story and it turns out they were cutting it down with everything from methanol itself to isopropyl alcohol and even distilling antifreeze to get the ethanol from that and bottle it. The video seems like a massive scaremongering thing though.

I'm not sure of the ml of methanol in a normal wash but if 10ml causes blindness and 15ml is fatal assuming no ethanol is consumed it sounds like the guy who distilled it would have to be bottling straight from the start and it's pot luck if you get a bottle of heads or hearts. If he was mixing and proofing before bottling then he would have had to have a tonne of methanol in his wash.
There's usually around 329mg/L of methanol in wine for example (a fruit wash) so you would have to distill 30L of wine and drink the first shot right from the start to get enough to go blind. Beer on the other hand, comparable to a grain wash contains 19mg/l so it would take a 526L wash to create enough methanol to go blind.

My only worry with methanol is with my boka. The running instructions all say to start with the output valve closed and allow it to stabilise before taking off the foreshots but surely that mixes the methanol with the ethanol in the head. I run mine with the valve open at the start, take off the foreshots and then shut the valve and allow to stabilise before starting to draw the heads etc.

if you drink all your foreshots and heads only from a single wash you'll get the mother of all hangovers. thats it.

[Saltbush Bill]

I run mine with the valve open at the start, take off the foreshots and then shut the valve and allow to stabilise before starting to draw the heads etc.

In my opinion you don't need to do that. Wont do any harm letting it go for a while at first with the needle valve shut.

[Kareltje]

Some years ago a new student died because he was forced to drink 1 liter wodka.

Without adding extra methanol it is impossible to make a drink by fermenting and distilling that has a lethal dose of methanol in the first liter of 40 % ethanol. I do not believe one can make a fermentable mash with so much pectin and the like, that it produces a wine with so much methanol, that this kills before the ethanol does.
Contrary to (still) common belief methanol is not completely concentrated in the foreshots or heads, but smears out during the whole run until the very end.

[thecroweater]

Firstly if there is a measurable amount of methanol the consentration won't be in the fore shots as I know them but in the mid heads. The boiling point of methanol if a bit less than ethanol 63.7 v 78.3 but I read somewhere that most methanol would come off below that due to mixing of higher volitiles just as ethanol comes off higher generally due to the water azeotrope. Not saying some trace amounts couldn't smear through the whole run just pointing out where the consentration would be. Like I said real world conditions this couldn't really ever be an issue but I was just wondering hypothetically where the safety parameters were etc.

[NZBoka701]

I mainly do all-bran washes and do proper cuts etc so I'm not really scared of it per say. It just raised the thought in my mind that running it with the output shut and then stabilising would lead to methanol being mixed back in, defeating the point in the foreshots. If I did a lot of fruit washes, almost like wines where a 30L wash could make you go blind if you drank the first drips and stored up say 25L of low wines for a spirit run, that could potentially be a large amount of ethanol if it was mixing back in because the needle valve was shut during start up.

If it was mixing back in because of the valve being shut at the start then say I get 5L of low wines from one 30L "wine" wash, each 5L containing maybe 8ml of methanol, that's a potential 40ml of methanol that could be mixed in with the final spirit run. Still probably not enough to cause more than a really bad hangover once cuts, proofing and mixing has been done but still, makes me think...

[Pesty]

Its youtube and that channel and video is monitized. They dont care about accurate content, just that you click and watch so they get paid.

[HDNB]

are the hillbillies in buttfuck mexico or upper rubber boot india using grain or fruit to make booze? maybe they are making with cellulose and sulfuric acid? dunno the chemistry myself, but it does exist...then the chemist screws the pooch...voila dead people.

i had my voddy tested on a mass spec. it shows 0.0ppm of methanol. mind, i'm only using wheat water and yeast. left out the antifreeze and paint thinners. i'll post a pic later of the results.

[NZBoka701]

are the hillbillies in buttfuck mexico or upper rubber boot india using grain or fruit to make booze? maybe they are making with cellulose and sulfuric acid? dunno the chemistry myself, but it does exist...then the chemist screws the pooch...voila dead people.

i had my voddy tested on a mass spec. it shows 0.0ppm of methanol. mind, i'm only using wheat water and yeast. left out the antifreeze and paint thinners. i'll post a pic later of the results.

Will be interesting seeing them! I wonder if anyone has ever tested say a 100L wash for methanol with no forshots or cuts taken and done a comparison between a grain and a fruit wash. I have seen someone did it with a sugar wash and found absolutely no methanol. I agree about the chemistry thing though, it seems that all the fake stuff is cut with methanol itself or iso-propyl alcohol... I don't understand why though, I get the profit side but why kill off your customers? Seems stupid to me.

[Fiddleford]

I get the profit side but why kill off your customers? Seems stupid to me.

People in my area will drink iso-propyl willingly straight out of the hand sanitise bottles, one of my buddies fell into that.

I had to calm all my friends and family in the know after that damn video was put up, I ended up leaving a comment about it. and damn HDNB at that point any methanol there would be wildly insignificant, must be some crazy set-up you got going there

[NZBoka701]

It doesn't make any sense. He got a home distillation kit and made some grain vodka and somehow made a lethal amount of methanol... Sounds fishy to me anyway...

[Pikey]

yeah I saw this one before too.
I reckon CS is a dickhead who drank 2l of 80 ABV% in two hours.
I would have thought that 2l of 80% is enough to kill ya stone dead

That's pretty much what I said the last time we saw this rubbish ! That wa 80% abv then btw ! ie 160% proof !

[jog666]

I sense a shot of truth & a metric fuck ton of stretched out thin bullshit.

So just over 2 quarts in two hours, he was trying to commit suicide. There has been some days since I started this hobby that Ive thrown down pretty damn hard & years ago I was a fish (coffee at work & booze the rest of the day) that I could drink people under the table left & right. Ive paid for it but that video is pure propaganda.

[6 Row Joe]

Geez that guy is smart! Not as smart as the young lad that drank all that hooch in such a short time. Yep,drinking a half gallon of 160 proof in a short time? He's lucky he isn't dead! He forgot to read the chapter about "Making the cuts". He said the stuff tasted like butt! Ya it does. You don't mix the crap with the hearts, and there will be a distinct difference between the heads and hearts if you do it right. So there's a lesson to be learned here. Don't do a half gallon stripping run and take it to a power drunk party unless you have a death wish. Can't fix stupid!

[NZChris]

Methanol concentrates in the tails according an EC study discussed here earlier. Therefore, you are more likely to have high methanol levels in repeatedly recycled tails than in your heads.
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=40606

Methanol is eliminated from the body at a slower rate than ethanol, so if you repeatedly drink large amounts of likker over several days it is possible to overdose on the methanol, regardless of whether it's moonshine or off the shelf. One of the things this video doesn't discuss, is what CS had been doing in the days prior to this stupidity. If he'd been sucking down largish amounts of his 160 proof in the days before drank 2l of it, he more than earned his punishment.

[thecroweater]

Yeah Chris if seen those studies but don't buy it, I'm willing to believe that methanol like ethanol forms compounds that induce small amounts to smear through the run but you can find stacks of evidence all over the net that shows the concentration of methanol comes off right about where logic says it would .
That said hour other points are what I was asking and in that case could make the CD case plausable even if the assumptions of the commentator are way off the mark. I don't suppose you have and links to show that methanol is processed slower than methanol as not only would that make an interesting read but probably should be posted as safety concern for any wannabe soaks out there.
With this actual video as reported there are a bunch of tell tale signs that don't pass the sniff test and not least is the report that CS drank 2 ltrs at 160 proof in 2 hours, methanol would be the least of his problems, the guy would have rigga mortus and be trying to recover from an autopsy

[NZChris]

There was a brief mention of the metabolism half life of methanol in the video.

[shadylane]

did a quick calc on the numbers.
Assuming he's 100kg his bloodlevel would be about 1.9%
They reckon folks have died from as little as 0.4%

2 liters in 2 hours is definitely too much.
2 liters in 24 - 36 hours is just about right for posting on the internet
On a side note
Ethanol is the antidote for Methanol poisoning.
It takes a long while for the body to get rid of Methanol
Therefore Ya need to drink continuous amounts of antidote to keep your immunity built up
Especially when mixing good shine with store bought fruit juice that contains methanol

[thecroweater]

Sorry about the messed up post, my poxy fruit phone died last night and I am using Maxwell Smart's shoe phone. Well almost, it is a 10+ year old tradies phone with a ridiculous autocorrect settup I can't seem to disable.
I have often wondered how even with adulterated spirit how the methanol causes health risks but if it outlasts ethanol in ya system well I guess that answers it and is something to keep in mind. Virtually a non issue though as you would have to make a monumentes fuck up for this to be even a minor risk

[shadylane]

Just a thought about the video in question
The tittle for the next video produced is --- get ready for it ---
"A Dad Didn't Brush His Teeth For 40 Days. This Is What Happened To His Kidneys"
posting with TCE

[NZBoka701]

I've been having a read of that study and it's numbers, even though it takes FOREVER to load. The tests etc lead to what look like very scary figures when actually they aren't scary at all. The test figures aren't showing the true amount of methanol in the wash but comparing it to the alcohol output. Obviously the amount of methanol per 100 ml of pure alcohol will rise at the end because there is pretty much no alcohol being output. Its a comparative scale which is why they so perfectly mirror eachother. The graphs in the post and in the research isn't showing ml/100ml of alcohol in the still output compared to ml/100ml of ethanol in the still output. The graph shows the alcohol output in %abv and the mg of methanol per 100ml of pure alcohol. In other words if you have no alcohol being output and maybe 0.05ml of methanol being output then the ml of methanol per 100ml of alcohol is going to be off the chart high.

You get more methanol off the start of your run than at any other point but because they compare it to alcohol output in their measurements the table looks like you are getting less. You will always get a small amount of methanol in the output but the research shows it as mg of methanol per 100ml of pure alcohol so if you have a steady amount (all be it tiny) of methanol being produced throughout the run then the lower your abv goes the higher the mg/100ml P.A. You aren't getting more methanol at the end of the run, you are just getting more methanol for the amount of alcohol you get as the ABV drops off. Both the post and the research are misleading.

I don't 100% understand the study anyway. It says in the pretext the legislative maximum for Methanol in Eaux-de-vie is 1500g/hl which is 15g per litre of pure alcohol. That works out to 19.07ml of Methanol per litre of alcohol meaning that proofed down to 40% it would have 7.62ml of methanol per 1L? So you drink a bottle of the stuff and go blind?? Great...

[thecroweater]

Yep I had forgotten but that is how I read it when it was posted, it called matching your findings to your preconceived notion and there is almost always way to get your figures to do that. You see it all the time and even in here there are many many links to studies with pretty ridiculous conclusions drawn from looking at results one dimentionally where it be methanol, CE studies etc etc etc which is why it pays to read all the results of several independent studies

[HDNB]

Yep I had forgotten but that is how I read it when it was posted, it called matching your findings to your preconceived notion and there is almost always way to get your figures to do that. You see it all the time and even in here there are many many links to studies with pretty ridiculous conclusions drawn from looking at results one dimentionally where it be methanol, CE studies etc etc etc which is why it pays to read all the results of several independent studies

psychological anchoring. people tend to believe their first "belief" no matter how ponderous the evidence to the contrary.

[6 Row Joe]

If methanol is so bad, so poisonous, so brain eating like the video makes it out to be, it's a wonder that more people don't end up in the hospital or worse yet the morgue while drinking store bought liqueur. I find it hard to believe that all distilleries produce such a pure product so that doesn't happen. What do they do with all the methanol, sell it to the cigarette lighter companies? You know damn well they don't just pour it out and only the finest, most expensive spirits are all hearts and nothing more. There's a good chance the lad didn't do proper cuts and there was a higher percentage of methanol in his shine but it's the quantity in a short amount of time and the proof that just about killed him.