alt Hacker NewsMissed in the previous discussion: methanol is irrelevant. Grain based ferments have essentially zero methanol.(And methanol risk is a function of its concentration relative to ethanol — the treatment for methanol poisoning is… ethanol!) even fruit based fermentations with significantly higher pectin concentrations only produce trace methanol, and it’s not all that well concentrated in a distillation due to azeotropes (which also says that throwing out the heads doesn’t help that much).
Methanol poisoning stories in the news almost exclusively result from people trying to sell denatured or industrial alcohol. The biggest risk in home distilling is fire.
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> even fruit based fermentations with significantly higher pectin concentrations only produce trace methanol
From https://actamedicamarisiensis.ro/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/...
> Only 18% of the tested 56 samples met UE regulation regarding methanol content of alcoholic beverages (0.4% in alcoholic drinks containing 40% ethanol). The highest concentration of 2.39% was found in a plum brandy. Plum brandies contained significantly higher amounts of methanol than brandies made from other fruits (0.91 vs 0.52%, p = 0.01)
> Methanol poisoning stories in the news almost exclusively result from people trying to sell denatured or industrial alcohol
Pretty sure this was a relic of prohibition right? The feds would contaminate ethanol with methanol to keep people from drinking it, but then they hurt a bunch of people and never faced any consequences...
> the treatment for methanol poisoning is… ethanol!
I looked this up, it is directionally correct but if you are in a hospital setting they have better options https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK482121/
As someone living in the Balkans, home brewing is a national passtime for every nation around. When every family has its own recipe for brewing alcohol, killing ourselves would've been achieved many centuries ago if it was a real concern. Methanol is an issue when some dumbshit decides to cell chemically produced trash on industrial scale instead of buying the expensive ingredients.
Was it missed or intentionally downplayed/ignored because people came into the discussion with priors that they were eager to maintain?
Seems like these sorts of "yes it could be unsafe in theory but the reality of physics and incentives make this mostly irrelevant" type things get missed far too often certain parts of the internet to be coincidence.
That said, the fact that it dropped on a weekend did it no favors the first time around.
I did mention all of that. When the same topic came up a few days ago.
> even fruit based fermentations with significantly higher pectin concentrations only produce trace methanol
Would using pectinase to break it down first reduce the risk?
> the treatment for methanol poisoning is… ethanol!
My grandpa drank a shot of schnapps every night and called it his medicine. I thought it was a euphemism but apparently he was actually taking an antidote prophylactically. You can't be too careful. He never once got methanol poisoning.