Home Distiller

You could drink all the methanol and it would not kill you, unless the whole bottle of wine would kill you in the first place.

I get the feeling that its not quite that simple... Concentrated methanol is going to be much worse on you. No thanks... bad head or dead...

Pints concern that someone might think they can safely distill and drink denatured alcohol is a bit of a stretch. I don't doubt it could happen, but if someone finds this thread and gets that idea then the herd needed some thinning anyway... Drink your fores if you wanna. Not for me... Some people do this to make better 'cleaner' tastier booze... Its not unlike having a homegrown tomato vs a store bought one... Careful cuts are an important part of making good tasty shine...

junkyard dawg wrote: ...then the herd needed some thinning anyway...

I love it One learns a lot in this forum.

blanik

Drinking forshots is just plain stupid.I dont know if it would kill you or not,but you know its going to give you a hangover.Have you ever ran some forshots into a plastic hydrometer tube?If it can eat that tube,just think what it would do to your liver,and kidneys.
I dont know about everybody else,but the main reason I started distilling was to make clean,hangover free booze.
I think this thread has gone far enough.We dont want to give anyone any bad ideas!

Just one more

BUT FIRST IT IS "Drinking forshots is just plain stupid"

I for one am not promoting drinking any methanol.
but
hypo and theroteically your are not concentrating it you are condensing it!
Yes it may be worse, may burn more etc...

Thats like saying turning the bottle of wine into brandy, will get you drunker. it wont.

"Pints concern that someone might think they can safely distill and drink denatured alcohol is a bit of a stretch."

I dont think that Pint said anything about drinking denatured methanol or ethanol of any sorts.

I hope this comes across as discussion and not trying to poke a fight.
I dont think that anyone sensible reading this discussion would drink any methanol, just from what is being said and it is being brung up.

blanikdog wrote:

junkyard dawg wrote: ...then the herd needed some thinning anyway...

I love it One learns a lot in this forum.

blanik

LMAO mother natures way of weeding out the dumb ones.

Its called natural selection!

Just an observation, that pothead's original post, which was a reply to my question about his alarmist comments, have either been removed or edited.

When he asked me if I was necessary, I was a bit offended. He removed that after I e-mailed him asking what was his problem and his pretty violently worded PM to me was one of the reasons I pursued this topic. Also He removed his comment about how all the methanol was removed with the foreshots because "aren't they lighter?" asked pothead.

Some recent news about service men distilling brake fluid, some teenagers going blind at MIT after believing that Fuel ethanol could be made safe to drink and other stories that have appeared in then news really pissed me off.

First of all, methylated spirits cannot be made safe.
A complete ignorance about Raoult's law of miscible liquids and vapor pressures leads me to believe that this person only knows the superstition and thouroughly believes that all the methanol comes off with the foreshots.

The final thing that pissed me off was the alarmist comment about methanol being poison and that any small amount would kill you, which is definitely not true because fruit juices in particular sometimes exceed the FDA recommendation about the daily intake of methanol.

I am allergic to formic acid which is the end product of methanol metabolism. Fire ants have sent me into Anaphylaxis but yet I have never had a spell due to metabolizing juice or home distilled spirits because of the ethanol protection, which is 1000 time more attracted to the alcohol oxydase than methanol. I simply piss the methanol out. If you do not believe any of this, research it yourself.

But I will not stand by when an out right lie such as "all the methanol goes out with the foreshots" or "methanol is POISON and it will kill you dead even in small amounts" is posted to the new people.

Hell in my early years I wondered "Can I distill methylated spirits and get rid of the methanol with the foreshots" Seemed logical since methylated spirits is used to be cheaper than sugar.

Bullshit scare tactics an out right lies are not conducive to the safety of our hobby no matter how sensible the true outcome might be. At least tell the truth.

Sure I don't like the taste of foreshots no more than anyone else. But I certainly am not afraid of any of the stuff I ferment and distill, including the black moldy stuff that smells like vomit or anything else I make, foreshots or not. Hell the post about horse shit wash has my curiosity up. You guys see horse shit I see nitrogen and potassium just like the mule shit I put on my garden.

Here here Pintoshine - nice that makes a lot more sense now. And I mean that literally. Blind superstition pisses me off right up there with "I told you so".

Pretty heated discussion. I’ll add my nickel if ya don’t mind.

I started in the 70’s, ran 10 gallons sweet corn mash in a copper pot still. Was told to keep it all until it wouldn’t burn on a spoon. Anything left in the pot was something ya didn’t want and out it went onto the garden. Never did keep anything past that point and it pains me to know that all that time I’d been abusing alcohol! Didn’t know anything about foreshots, tails, middlins, nothing but what I was told originally.

After a year or so and dozens of runs I had a recipe and the process down pretty good. I started experimenting with different parts of the runs. I’d pull off quart jars instead of everything into a carboy. The first jar had a bite to it, chalked it up to being much stronger than the others. The last jar had a ton of flavor and wasn’t near as strong or pleasant as the middle jars. You could definitely tell the differences in the jars. Well, spent a few evenings sipping off the different jars. Not getting to the point of stumbling but feeling good. We did notice that the first jar off gave you a bit of a hangover, the other jars not. Not a head thumper but you knew you’d been drinking.

You could smell the difference also, first jar just didn't quite smell as sweet, again I chalked it up to being the strongest part of the run. Anyway, after that I always pulled the ‘first jar’ and mixed the rest together. Had one friend who loved the first jar so it was always his. Maybe just a macho thing because we thought it was the strongest part? Rest of us liked the main batch. Never did try and get it refined further as to how much of the beginning was not to my liking, just pulled the first jar off. Tried keeping different parts of the middle and end separate but I liked when they were mixed.

these boys pa always pulled some off maybe a pint to make sure it wont pukein to ck bead an clean worm/condencer an such an added back in next run. thats just the way he done it an the way he was showed. if it was last run he poured it on the ground he didnt no nothin bout no methonol that they no of or didnt say ifin he did. hell mostly thought methonol was from workin trees an such til i got here.

pint how you tratin for viromites if you aint use formic acid

I don't give a crap what you think about it, you are wrong, and possibly setting some noob up for a disaster leading them to believe that they are eliminating all the methanol by tossing the foreshots. What you are saying will lead them to believe that they could grab some denatured alcohol and toss out the methanol with the foreshots which is proven to not be true.

Thats the money quote...

why would anyone be stupid enough to try to get ethanol from brake fluid or fuel ethanol? are we that desperate to get drunk? it's just so stupidly ridiculous it's hard to fathom.

grainhopper wrote:One more time.

Lets say you buy a bottle of cheap ass wine you distill it, and hypothetically you can separate every bit of methanol from the rest of the wine. You could drink all the methanol and it would not kill you, unless the whole bottle of wine would kill you in the first place.

That's right. But, again, why would you WANT to? Any whiskey (or other distilled spirit FTM) has lots of really nasty things in it, that will kill you dead if you ingest enough of them. The ethanol will get you first, though. Making your own, you can control at least some of them, methanol being one. If you can lessen your exposure, and still make killer booze, why wouldn't you? The "Oh, it's just a little methanol, it's OK," attitude is not one to be encouraged.

The Chemist wrote:

grainhopper wrote:One more time.

Lets say you buy a bottle of cheap ass wine you distill it, and hypothetically you can separate every bit of methanol from the rest of the wine. You could drink all the methanol and it would not kill you, unless the whole bottle of wine would kill you in the first place.

That's right. But, again, why would you WANT to? Any whiskey (or other distilled spirit FTM) has lots of really nasty things in it, that will kill you dead if you ingest enough of them. The ethanol will get you first, though. Making your own, you can control at least some of them, methanol being one. If you can lessen your exposure, and still make killer booze, why wouldn't you? The "Oh, it's just a little methanol, it's OK," attitude is not one to be encouraged.

It's true what they say; you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

I hope you dont hink I drink methanol or suggest it. I for one do like, I think its Junkyardog, I over kill my cuts.

On my stripping runs I run really slow into the over kill cuts. then run hard and fast.

Then I do a spirit run and do a large heads cut.

I've been pulling 200mL off of the front of my runs and then catchin' about 550mL of product with each run. Of course I'm running a doubler(thumper, whatever you want to call it) so I only need to make one run to get about 160 proof out of my pot still. After I cut it back to 100 proof I end up with about 750mL of finished product with very, very little methanol in it. Personally, I'd rather throw away a bit more then drink any methanol because that crap can and will give you a nasty headache and mess with your eyes. Better quality, not more quanity.

I'd just like to ask. The distillation apparatus they used to produce those results was a Christian-Carl still and *appears* (but someone please correct me) like a 4-plate still. I can't actually tell from the CAD diagram where the vapour flow actually is, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the type of apparatus used would maybe affect the methanol content. Finding a direct *proportional* methanol:ethanol ratio at all points surely is interesteing, as it suggests an azeotrope (ternary? cant find any binary methanol ones in our wash that are consistent with their results). But mainly I am thinking that if they are doing fractionation from that unit, its possible that the new vapour is bathed in the methanol/heads vapour on its way up to its outlet.

Basically, these results are useful so long as you have a Christian-Carl still.

I don't think anyone does. Unless the chemist gets around to it, when i finish my new still, i'll take a standard run-of-the-mill potstill run and reflux run and run some GC's on it.

hi all,

wasn't going to respond to this post, but, must say i don't understand the point of a vote on a subject which i would consider
best practise vs bad practice. I have no doubt the outcome as most people on this site have pride in their product and have been advised and guided through this forum to produce a quality sprit by its members .

cheers.

a) a lot of people who first get into home brewing are greedy. lord knows i was. over time you get more efficent and less greedy, so it works out.
b) not everyone has been informed. also, the host site is confusing at times. plus people may have joined this forum having already distilled a lot, being taught by a very old-timer who didn't toss. I'll agree - they dont taste very nice, high concentration of lower BP stuff. As to the methanol issue, that remains to be seen with proper scientific testing (im debating those brandy results vs potstill)