Methanol Test Kit

[JeeterBee]

Hello Folks,

Hope y'all have had a good start to the new year. I have had the urge to test my stored alcohol to see the actual level of Methanol in it.

I have a gallon of heads I would like to test as well just for the sake of science.

I looked for a reputable test on line and I found this:

https://foodsafety.neogen.com/en/alert-methanol

I am trying to get a price check from them but haven't yet. Has anyone ever used this test or one like it?

I am pretty confident with my distilling abilities. I pull more fores than I should and usually go past heads and deep into hearts before I consider it acceptable product.

My wife on the other hand is giving me the side eye and saying, "When Bob goes blind or ends up in the hospital... You will be the one to blame". I have drank gallons of my product and I'm fine.

I would like to test some of my current and future batches.

Any thoughts on the link above?

Thanks,

Jeet

[NJen]

Looks interesting, but I don't know of how much value it would be. It is a simple determinate test, meaning it won't give you any saturation values, just a simple yes or no. From my understanding there is some levels of methanol throughout an entire distillation cycle, as noted on this page https://homedistiller.org/wiki/index.php/Methanol about methanol on the main page, as well as this thread; viewtopic.php?f=33&t=40606

[JeeterBee]

I will have to look into it more. I thought that it gave you a specific color range kind of like a pH test strip that indicated a percentage of methanol by volume.

[Kareltje]

I don't know what is in the test you linked.
I once did a test on methanol with several (about 6) reagents, that ended in a pink colour of different intensity: the more intense, the more methanol. But as my tests all showed very little methanol, even less than samples of commercial drinks, I lost my interest.
Some months ago a member of two Dutch forums started an action to have several samples tested by gaschromatography, but the results have not come, yet.
But taking it all together: methanol is hardly a problem, when you do a normal ferment and distillation. Alls the stories about poisoning by methanol have one and the same cause: addition of much methanol to an otherwise normal distillate. And of course: one can add strychnine to a normal distillate and that will make it lethal. But there is no need to test our distillates for strychnine, is there?

[JeeterBee]

Yeah I get that. I am pretty positive that my recent and best spirits have very little methanol in them. I think I had my initial greedy stage where I wanted to keep and hoard as much drinkable alcohol that I could. Now that I have a decent stock to age. I now only want to produce and save the very best spirits that I can.

The main reasons for wanting to test my alcohol are:
1. Proving to my wife that I'm not making poison and blinding our friends and family.

2. Knowing just how much methanol is in my heads to hearts transition. To be completely honest I am pretty scared of methanol. I would prefer little to none in my spirits. I know that some is inevitable. I would personally feel more comfortable widening my center cut range and getting more flavor from brandies if I knew where the actual line was. I have a feeling that I am being way too conservative. For example, if I collect into pint jars and end up using 60 jars for a run. I will generally take the first 20 jars and call them heads.

I have a gallon of what I consider a strong heads jar. It was from a recent feints run. I would think it has a high amount of methanol in it. I am only going to use it as cleaner and lighter fluid. However I would not be surprised if it had a far lower level of methanol that I think it does.

The scientist in me is very curious.

[Tummydoc]

Well, that kit is probably cheaper than a new wife, but the latter might solve a multitude of issues!!

[JeeterBee]

Well, that kit is probably cheaper than a new wife, but the latter might solve a multitude of issues!!

Lol yeah definitely. I haven't got a price quote for the test yet. Plus I would like more info from the company or people that have used the test. I want to make sure the price reasonable and it gives quantitative values.

[HDNB]

no friends that know someone at a lab? bio chemists at uni's need practice... Maybe a liquor factory would do a test for you if'n you asked nice?

[NJen]

I've been doing a bit more reading about this test... I see that MileHiDistilling sells this kit as well at https://milehidistilling.com/product/methanol-test-kit. The kit they have on their website is almost 300 dollars ($290 currently out of stock, but it's the same brand as the one you provided a link for in your OP).

As far as quantitative values, as I said before, it is a simple yes or no test. It will give some variations on color, but that is determinate only by your own perception. There are no scales, nothing to base off of. There is clear, and purple, and "somewhere in the middle".


I've been doing a bit of looking around, however, and it appears that the best test that someone at home can do, is likely to perform a sodium dichromate test. There is a link to it, here, https://sciencing.com/test-alcohol-meth ... 14279.html
and a short description of how to perform the test, here;

To do so, mix 8 mL of a sodium dichromate solution with 4 mL of sulfuric acid. Swirl gently to mix, then add 10 drops of the mixed solution to a test tube or other small container containing the alcohol. ... Take note of the scent: If it is pungent and irritating, methanol is present in the alcohol.

Again however, there is not much as far as determining values, it's either a yes, or a no.

I also came across this http://www.jbc.org/content/42/2/311.full.pdf paper, written around 1920, in which various tests were performed to attempt to detect levels of methanol. Most of them were color changing tests, as is the one you linked, based off of oxidizing the methanol in solution. It didn't seem to contain an extremely large amount of useful information, but there was some, and so I thought I should link it.

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear as if there is an EASY and CHEAP test that we can manage to perform as hobbyists in which we are able to understand the values in the results we end up with. We have methanol, or we don't. If you're looking to spend thousands of dollars on a test, then you might be able to get statistical values from it.

[JeeterBee]

NJen thanks for doing the research. I might try to get my hands on some of those chemicals. I have a friend who works in a lab. It would be interesting to send a sample into a lab and have them tell me some legit levels.

I just wasn't satisfied with the blue/yellow flame test. I was getting yellow and blue and in no predictable fashion. I will keep digging some more until I get bored.

Jeet

[Corsaire]

Send out samples to a lab that does gc/ms. That'll give you more data than yes or no.
I'm not bothered, but I get tired of telling everyone there's no reason to be afraid of methanol in home distilling.

Clairin got launched and got pretty well received by the rum crowd. Look up pics of the stills these clairin producers use in Haiti. I'm guessing they don't do lab tests on their product.

A flame test is worthless.

[cayars]

Not really a good test as if you aren't burning "pure" methanol or ethanol you'll get "off colors" from other contaminants/coginers in the fuel source.
Methanol looks almost clear with no flame in daylight which is why Indy moved away from methanol as it was a safety issue.

If you use a spoon you will get funky results. Most people tend to use thin drops of ethanol to burn , that doesn't get yellow but will burn blueish. If you use a bowl like in the video and pour more though , it does burn truer.


Methanol is on the left and Ethanol on the right.

If you do something like this do it out in the driveway at night on in a sink or something safe! But because you won't have "pure" alcohols it's not going to be a great test.

What I'd recommend is always start each run out slowly and do a foreshot dump on every run (spirit or strip) before speeding up the run if appropriate. This will always contain the most methanol and other early volatile you really don't want. On your spirit runs if you end up NOT using the first 20% of jars you've eliminated the need to even remotely worry about any thing methanol related as you just won't have enough in your spirits to care about.

Realistically unless you are doing freeze distillation (removing only water) and concentrating other things you won't have nasty headache alcohol. Unless you do something stupid like they used to do in the old days adding other products like antifreeze, rubbing alcohol, or methanol itself you won't have to worry about poisons at any level worth being concerned about it. If you don't put it there and take very reasonable foreshots you can stop worrying about methanol. You'll then just concentrate on removing the other nasty "heads" that come over you don't want because they are rank or smell like nail polish remover (acetate). When you get past this "nail polish" smell in your heads you're in the clear for much better produced alcohols especially when you take cuts around the center/hearts section.