r/firewater Aug 25 '19

Methanol: Some information

1.7k Upvotes

This post is meant to clarify one of the most common questions asked by new distillers: WHAT ABOUT METHANOL?

First and foremost: you cannot die (or get sick, go blind, etc) from improperly made distilled alcohol via methanol poisoning. Neither can you make something dangerous by freezing it and removing some ice. Not only is it not possible, it is a widely perpetuated myth that has existed since the days of prohibition (and not before, interestingly enough). Other than the obvious ethanol overdose, all poisonous alcohol that has ever been consumed, has been adulterated, or was in some other way contaminated. It was not the fault of poor distillation procedures. How you run your still will not affect how safe your product is. It might affect how good the end result is, but that's where it stops.

So, methanol. Everyones first fear, and the number one search subject when it comes to "moonshine". This subject is brought up a lot in this sub and elsewhere on Reddit. Everyone knows all about it, its just one of those common knowledge things, right? It turns out, not so much. So...

Methanol - What is it?

Methanol is a very commonly used fuel, solvent and precursor in industry. It is produced via the synthesis gas process which can use a wide variety of materials to create methanol. Methanol is the simplest of all the alcohols.

Methanol is poisonous to the human body in moderate amounts. The LD50 of methanol in humans is 810 mg/kg. It is metabolized into formaldehyde by the liver, via the alcohol dehydrogenase process. In excess, these byproducts are severely toxic. Formaldehyde further degrades into formic acid, which is the primary toxic compound in methanol poisoning. Formic acid is what produces nerve damage, and causes the blindness (and death) associated with acute methanol poisoning.

One of the treatments for methanol poisoning, is the introduction of ethanol. Ethanol has a preferential path in the alcohol dehydrogenase metabolic pathway. This means that if ethanol and methanol are consumed, the ethanol will be metabolized first, in preference over the methanol. This allows some of the methanol to be excreted by the kidneys before being metabolized into its toxic related compounds. There are far more effective medical treatments available, such as dialysis and administering drugs that block the function of alcohol dehydrogenase.

Is it in my booze? How do I remove it?

There is one way in which your alcohol will be tainted with some amount of methanol naturally, and that is by using fruits which contain pectin. Pectin can be broken down into methanol by enzymes, either introduced artificially or from micro organisms. This will produce some measurable amount of methanol in your ferment, and subsequent distillate. However its not going to be in toxic quantities, any more than what you may have in a jug of apple juice. In fact, fruits are the primary way in which methanol is introduced into your body. In tiny quantities it is mostly harmless, and you can no more remove the methanol from an apple pie than you can from your apple brandy. Boiling (or freezing) apple juice doesn't convert it into deadly eye sight destroying horror juice. Cooking doesn't suddenly veer into danger when you collect vapor from a boiling pot. If you've ever made jam, or wine, or fruit salad, you've produced methanol.

So, where does that leave us? How do I get rid of this nasty substance in my distillate? You don't. If it is there, you cannot remove it. It is quite commonly believed that you can toss the first bit of alcohol off the still to remove this compound, the "foreshots." This is usually considered the first 50-100ml or so, depending on batch size. It smells really bad, tastes really bad, and is something most would agree should be discarded. However, it will not contain the "methanol" if there is any in your wash. Or more precisely, it will not contain any more of it than any other portion of the run. Beside which, methanol tastes very similar to ethanol, though slightly sweeter. If your wash is tainted with methanol, your entire run will be as well. Relying on some eyeball measurement to make your product safe to consume is not going to work. This is just distiller folklore passed down quite widely. You may hear about this on a distillery tour, from professionals, on Youtube and in books about distilling. All of them are just repeating what they have heard someone else say, or read somewhere, and assumed it to be fact. There is truth here, but buried in misunderstanding of the processes involved specifically with these substances.

This is the very reason that methanol was used to poison ("denature") industrial ethanol during prohibition, as it cannot be removed easily by normal distillation processes. If you could just redistill this very cheap, legal and plentiful solvent to make drinking alcohol, it wouldn't be the very potent message and deterrent that was hoped for by those who did this. You can read more about the history of this intentional poisoning of commercial alcohol in the Chemists War. It is also during this period where we begin to hear about methanol being in poorly made moonshine. This is not a coincidence.

So, distillers attempted to understand this misinformation, and attempt to correct or explain why their process was correct. Thus was born the idea that tossing some portion of the run makes it safe from this suddenly present and scary substance. Cuts went from being a quality procedure, to a serious process to save lives. By "tossing the first bit." And then distillers went about their centuries old processes like always, but this time "doing it right" and hence making safe alcohol.

The reason it is so widely believed that tossing the heads works to remove methanol, has to do with the boiling points of ethanol, methanol, and water. Pure methanol boils at 64.7C. Pure ethanol boils at 78.24C. Water boils at 100C. Distilling separates things based on their boiling points, right? Yes, it does, but it is a bit more complex than that. When you boil a mixture of methanol, ethanol and water, you are not boiling any of these compounds individually. You are boiling a solution containing all of them, and they will each have an affect on the other with regards to boiling point and enrichment behavior. Methanol and ethanol are quite similar in molecular structure. Methanol can be written as CH3-OH. Ethanol can be written as CH3-CH2-OH. You'll notice that methanol lacks this extra CH2 component. This changes its behavior when in the presence of water, specifically its polarity, compared to ethanol. Rather than repeat all of this, here is a passage from this paper on the reduction of methanol in commercial fruit brandies:

A similar behaviour would be expected for methanol for both alcohols are not very different in molecule structure. There is, however, a significant difference regarding all three curves in figure 2: methanol contents keep a higher value for a longer time than ethanol contents. In figures 3 and 4 this observation is made clear: Methanol, specified in ml/100 ml p.a., increases during the donation, while the ratio ethanol : methanol is lowering down. This effect seems to be rather surprising regarding the different boiling points of the two substances: methanol boils at 64,7°C, while ethanol needs 78,3°C. So methanol would be regarded to be carried over earlier than ethanol. The molecule structures however, show another aspect: ethanol has got one more CH2-group which makes the molecule less polar. So, concerning polarity, methanol can be ranged between water and ethanol and has therefore in the water phase a distillation behaviour different from ethanol. This may explain the behaviour which is rather contrary to the boiling points. This is no single appearance, because for example ethylacetate with a boiling point of 77 °C, or, as an extreme case, isoamylacetate with 142 °C are even carried over much earlier than methanol. Therefore methanol can not be separated using pot-stills or normal column-stills. Only special columns can separate methanol from the distillate (4.3). Similar observations concerning the behaviour of methanol during the distillation have already been made by Röhrig (33) and Luck (34). Cantagrel (35) divides volatile components into eight types concerning distillation behaviour characterized by typical curves, which were mainly confirmed by our experiments. As for methanol, he claims an own type of behaviour during the distillation corresponding to our results.

What this means is that if there is methanol present, it will be present throughout the run, with a higher occurrence in the tails as ethanol is depleted and water concentration increases. Its distillation is more dependent on how much water is present rather than simply comparing boiling points between ethanol and methanol. This in conjunction with the fact that ethanol and water cannot be separated completely due to their forming an azeotrope, means water is always in the system. So tossing your foreshots or heads will not remove methanol from your solution. The good news is that methanol is almost entirely absent in dangerous amounts. Consider drinking beer, wine, or apple cider. There are no heads cut made to these products. Pectinase is routinely added to wine, and methanol is a direct byproduct of this addition. They are safe to consume in this form, and will be safe to consume after being distilled. Boiling and concentrating the liquid by leaving some water behind isn't going to transform something safe to drink into something toxic. If it is toxic after being distilled, it most certainly was toxic before being distilled.

To be clear, however, this is not to say that making cuts is unnecessary. There are other compounds that you certainly can remove by cutting heads. Acetone, ethyl acetate, acetaldehyde and others. None are present in dangerous amounts, but the quality of your alcohol will be greatly enhanced by discarding these fractions. Making cuts is one of the most important activities a distiller can learn to do properly! Cutting and blending is making liquor, not only the act of distilling. Just understand that it isn't a life or death situation should you undershoot your foreshot cut by some amount. It will just taste bad, and might give you more of a headache the next day. You can taste test every single bit of alcohol that comes out of your still, from the first drops to the last.

Removing the foreshots does not remove "the methanol." You can just consider the foreshots part of the heads, because they are. There are hundreds of thousands of hobby brewers, vintners and distillers around the world who have been making and consuming fermented and distilled products for centuries. If this were actually a real problem, we would be awash in reports of wide spread poisonings. Instead we have reports here and there of isolated incidents, which are always traceable back to some incident unrelated to how much heads somebody did or did not cut.

The only way to know if there is methanol present is via lab analysis. Smell, taste, color of flame, vapor temp, none of this will tell you any meaningful information about methanol content and are just old shiner-wives tales. If you would like to have your distillate, beer or wine tested for dangerous compounds, there are many labs available that offer these services. This way you know what you are producing and are not relying on conflicting information found online. Here is one such lab offering these services, and there are many more servicing the public and industry. No need to take my, or anyone elses, word as absolute truth. If you really want to know what is in your product, this is the only way.

Having said all that...

So, CAN methanol be removed from a mixture of methanol, ethanol and water via distillation in any way? Yes, it can, contrary to everything I just said, there are even specialized stills called "demethylizer columns" which can do just this. They are very large plated columns (70+ plates), which can operate as a step in the distillation process in very large industrial facilities. This is a continuous middle fed column of high proof / low water feed, with steam injection at the bottom and hot water injection at the top, which has the sole purpose of moving a more concentrated cut containing methanol into a particular take off point with the treated alcohol taken off as the bottom product. This is largely done to ensure compliance with the laws about methanol content in neutral ethanol production, or in other processes in which reclamation of these substances is desired. There are other methods that can be used to remove methanol from an ethanol/water mixture, but that goes beyond the scope of this post and generally do not make consumable results. None of these procedures are properly repeatable at home or at moderate scale commercial distilling, nor are they even really necessary at any scale unless you have a badly tainted input feed.

On small scale reflux columns, there will be a small spike of methanol in the heads if the column is left in equilibrium (100% reflux) for a long while, and only if methanol is present, as the state at the top of the packing/plates is very low water and boiling point separation can occur more easily for methanol. In general though, these columns are too small, and methanol quantities far too low, for this to be a major concern. Methanol will spike in both heads and tails on this kind of column, leaving the general heart cut with a steady amount throughout. Even with huge industrial columns, the specialized demethylizer column is additionally used in the process because you cannot reliably remove methanol using the normal procedures typically done when making cuts for quality purposes. Methanol removal is treated separately and requires its own process to concentrate and extract using specialized equipment.

In conclusion, or TLDR

ALL cases of methanol poisoning attributed to "improperly" made ethanol, are the result of contaminated product. Not due to improper distillation, but due to intentional (either misguided, or malicious) adulteration of the ethanol, or some other contamination due to environment or ingredients. Commercial ethanol products are generally poisoned either via methanol, or via flavor tainting, or both (usually both, so you know its not to be consumed). Every report of methanol poisoning via "moonshine" was due to this contamination. If you can find evidence to the contrary, I would love to see it. Please let me know if you believe this info to be incorrect, and have evidence to that effect. That is, other than unsourced speculative news articles, television shows and Youtube channels. What I have presented here is how I understand the facts, but I am always open to learning something new.

Its unfortunate that we still have this lingering stigma based on sensationalist press beginning during alcohol prohibition, but this is where we are. So you can relax, have a home brew, and get on with your new hobby or business, and not fret about the big scary monster that is methanol. Now you just have to worry about all the other stuff that you can screw up :-)


r/firewater 11h ago

Finished the build and did my first run with it.

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26 Upvotes

Thank you everybody who gave me advice and helped in planning out this build and how to run it, finally got my first run through it. Ran a sugar wash through with 2 plates and 4” of copper packing in column. I will be running an all grain wash next weekend and plan to only run two plates. The build is so far on a pony keg (7.75 gals) at the base of the column is a 6” piece of 2” copper pipe then two inline sightglasses with one 2” bubble plate in each, above that I have a 18” piece of 2” copper that I can choose to partially or fully pick with copper mesh, or choose to not use at all. Above that I have a 2”x7” shotgun dephlag, and at the top of the column is a small piece of flanged 2” copper pipe with a thermometer and on the other top is a reducer 2”x 1/2” that goes to a 1/2” 90 then has a union to connect the condenser. The condenser is 1/2” x5’ jacketed with 1”. Currently running on propane but would like to upgrade to an electric heating unit. If anybody has any inexpensive suggestions concerning that I would appreciate to hear it. Cheers


r/firewater 3h ago

Looking for a Master Distiller to Help build a rum project in Zambian 🇿🇲

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3 Upvotes

r/firewater 6h ago

TPW vs WPOSW vs Birtwatcher’s sugar watch.

2 Upvotes

I’ve been making tpw for a while now but thinking of maybe trying something a little different for a clean neutral. Anyone have any experience with the birdwatchers or wposw?


r/firewater 14h ago

How do I get flavorful spirits out of my reflux still?

6 Upvotes

I built a 4" stainless bokakob column.

No sight glasses. Propane heat. CSST condenser (corrugated stainless steel tubing, a 24" propane appliance line).

I had stripped 6 gal of ouzo to about 50% in my previous still. I ran it, got 90%, and not much flavor!

What do I do differently to keep getting clean, precise cuts, which is supposed to be the benefit of a wide reflux column, right? But also keep all the herbal flavors that I paid for and carefully measured?


r/firewater 18h ago

Barely Malt Supply?

3 Upvotes

Where is the best place to order barley and wheat from that doesn’t charge an arm and a leg for shipping? New to this hobby and trying to dial in supplies without braking the bank.

Looking for delivery.


r/firewater 14h ago

Fruit maceration with 40% neutral alcohol - question about dilution

2 Upvotes

Hello, I'd love a bit of help here as someone who has very little experience with strong spirits.

A neighbour has welcomed me to come pick his sarsaparilla berries when they are ready next week. He gave me a recipe for a maceration that he has made in the past. Fruit, 94% neutral, sugar and water. He said that with the amount of water added dilutes the resulting spirit down to 40-ish %. Sounds great!

Only trouble is that I can't get 94% neutral where I live, 40% is the highest that is sold.

I have determined that I can reduce the amount of water in the recipe (and still keep the same amount of sugar), thus diluting the alcohol less than if I used the amount called for. What I would like to know is how to determine the alcohol percentage in the finished product if I use 40% and less water than the original recipe.

The recipe uses 500ml 94% neutral to 500ml water. The maximum I can reduce the water and still use the same amount of sugar is 250ml. So how can I know the alcohol percentage of the finished product if I use 500ml 40% neutral to 250ml water?

Thank you!


r/firewater 18h ago

Building a Power Supply

3 Upvotes

Looking for some help/guidance on building a power supply for my still. I currently run on steam but unfortunately need to relocate my system.

I have a jacketed 50L (13 Gal) still which I run in pot and reflux modes. I will fill the jacket with heat transfer oil.

I have ports for 2 elements and will plug into 240v NEMA. (14-50) outlet. I’d like independent control over both elements with readout. Any information including plans, parts lists, do/dont’s, etc. would be greatly appreciated. Thanks dudes.


r/firewater 19h ago

5 gallon copper still, plan to run off induction burner with diffuser plate. Time not a factor considering I’ll be cooking BBQ all day as well.

3 Upvotes

Before I buy this induction burner and a diffuser plate (about $100) anyone have any success with this method? I’ll use induction burner for other cooking as well. I also have a large cast iron pan I could fill partially with oil to keep a more consistent temperature, so may not need diffuser plate, however would still come in handy for copper cookware. Will be used in basement kitchenette I’m building.


r/firewater 23h ago

Help needed for a Scotch Style

6 Upvotes

I am making a go at the Scotch Style recipe from "Joy of Home Distilling." My problem is the mash has the consistency of oatmeal, and I don't think that is right.

The recipe calls for 9 pounds of crushed malt, 1 1/2 pounds of peated malt, and 6 gallons of water. I don't have the hardware to do this all in one go and so I had to divided it. But I did get through cooking the malt to convert the starches into sugars. And the mash is about as thick as oatmeal. So, I can't get a specific gravity reading on it.

Guidance and suggestions are welcome.

Edit: The recipe as written says to boil the grain but doesn't say anything about amylase.


r/firewater 20h ago

Polar bear water distiller

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1 Upvotes

Does anyone know anything about using bigger water distillers for distilling alcohol? I keep seeing these in my kijiiji searches. I know airstills run too hot so people use a voltage dimmer to regulate them but what about something bigger like this? I can’t find anything anywhere.


r/firewater 1d ago

Texas cornbread

2 Upvotes

20# Amanda Palmer 60 oz agave syrup 3# honey 2 oz Serrano pepper 2 oz jalapeño pepper 2 liter starter kviek hothead (my favorite thos year) For Missouri hot ass summers Will be running thru a 8 gallon milk can still 3 gallon thumper this labor day Will repot back results next weekend


r/firewater 1d ago

Flour paste seal not working

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12 Upvotes

I have recently built a still and my boiler is not sealing Does anyone know what is wrong, I think I might have used the wrong type of flour. I used plain flour can anyone help me

The bowl on top was to weigh it down


r/firewater 1d ago

Duh moment? (Striping and Blending)

1 Upvotes

Hey all, I understand completely that this may be a dumb question or realization. I just did a 25% (10 Gal) wash of rum and have already completed (I think successfully) geting a little more than 2.2 gallons out in a initial stripping run. I currently use a basic Air still (yes, i invested 25+ hours - will look at better options in future - this is my first ). I do a fair amount of home brewing beer on my own and have the tools to test the alc by volume.

When i dropped it in the tube it hit the bottom - no float......does that mean what was taken out of the wash was 100% alc by volume or am I missing something?

I am planning to run again the stripping run alc. to get my blending run down which will narrow down what final product will be (heads, hearts , tails) , do I assume this is 100% alc. and then proof down from there?


r/firewater 1d ago

Grok Unhinged

0 Upvotes

So been playing with grok for last few days. Run across unhinged... So for a 25 gallon ferment We are doing 3 gallons blackstrap 21# light brown sugar 6# honey 3# lactose 5 gallons backset Will report back in a few weeks will brew on labor day


r/firewater 2d ago

Store Bought Liquor Proofing Higher than Stated?

5 Upvotes

Just got my hydrometer and tested on some Gentleman Jack, 80 proof. Hydrometer says 90 proof. Water was right at 0 as expected. Is this normal?

Edit: 6:30 am and alcohol is about 73°F, still showing 90 proof. Think I'll try the vodka route as suggested at this point. Thanks for all the suggestions and help.


r/firewater 3d ago

Distillation report for Angle Yellow Label all grain cracked corn with no Gelatinization and no grinding

34 Upvotes

I'm putting this out there so that information I found hard to get will be more readily available.

I did a large batch of plain cracked corn with no grinding and no heating as a lazy man test. The TLDR is I'm very satisfied with the only downside being a slight drop in efficiency vs using enzymes but I would consider it worth it from a time saving perspective.

I used 75lb of cracked corn and went straight from the bag to a 25gal barrel. To this I added warm water at 110 till it was full and pitched 100grams of Angle Yellow Label once the water cooled to 100°f. I should note this is less then angle recommens, which is something like 1/200, or for this recipe 158grams. But for $35 for 500gram that's expensive and the difference between 3 runs and 5, so fuck it.

This was left in my garage, its summer so it was between 90-70 day and night. I believe heat is very important so if you are doing this under less then ideal conditions you should put the vessel on a pice of foam and use a pond or aquarium heater to keep it warm.

I had a very active fermentation within 12hrs and I followed instructions on stiring the first few days and every couple of days after. It never really stopped but I had to cut it early at 16 days as I have a party in a few weeks and need the liquor for several drinks I'm making.

My vinometer was fucking useless, I have found them to be reasonably accurate with both wine, beer, and mash. But whatever yellow label does makes them worthless.

I estimate I got to 12-13% abv, which is very good considering a theoretically perfect would be 15%. (This is based off a 2.4gal of ethanol off one bushel)

I just used a pot still with no thumper, I had two stripping runs with enough mash left over to water out my low-wines to my final distillation. I was able to destill on grain for the first run, but the second was too thick and I used a brew bag as a streainer. Using a fruit press I was able to extract an extra two gallons of mash from the cracked corn. But I still estimate most of my loses come from such a course ground material. So with all that I got

Half gallon of heads at 160proof, 1gallon of flavorfull hearts at 155 proof, 1 gallon of less flavorfull and more clean at 145 proof, a half gallon of tails that was starting to get that distinctive paper taste at 130proof, and then I just cranked the still up and got another gallon of 60 proof of dregs that I'll use for something. Thats about 2.4 gallons of measuring just alcohol.

Note: I had a leak in my final run I didn't catch until I already had a few cups of heads, but no hearts lost so ehh.

So for my efforts I got two good gallons of hearts and a gallon that will probably be getting rerun for some vodka.

Costs, cracked corn $16.50, yellow label $7, propane $12. For a total of $35.50.

I'm very happy with this lazy and cheap as possible run. Hopefully this information finds it's way into hands that need it.


r/firewater 2d ago

First run

4 Upvotes

So I’m fermenting my first UJSSM. 7lbs flaked corn and 7lbs of sugar in 6 gallons of water. It’s been fermenting at 70* for 6 days and the gravity has only dropped from 1.055 to 1.050. How long should fermentation take? Airlock burps about every 7-10 seconds. At this rate it’ll be a month before it’s ready to run.


r/firewater 2d ago

Would this work hypothetically

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0 Upvotes

It’s made from a 24 oz mason jar, some copper tubing, and of course a milk jug.

I am curious to see if this design would work or if I need to make modifications to it.


r/firewater 3d ago

Lemoncello question

10 Upvotes

What the hell do y'all do with all the lemons afterwards!? And don't say lemonade.... There's only so much of that I can drink!


r/firewater 3d ago

First all grain whiskey question

6 Upvotes

Question for whiskey makers, I’m thinking about making my first whiskey, still haven’t settled on a grain bill. I did an all molasses rum a while back and kept some dunder in storage. My question is could I use dunder in place of backset for the first whiskey ferment? Have any of you tried it before and if yes what differences or flavours have you noticed?


r/firewater 3d ago

Fresh corn mash

11 Upvotes

Looking to do a fresh sweet corn mash and was wondering if anyone has just ground up the entire ears of corn (corn and the cob itself) and mashed it instead of just stripping the corn off the ears and grinding it up and throwing the cob away.

Thoughts or suggestions?


r/firewater 4d ago

Looking to get into this

8 Upvotes

Heard some stuff about pressure cooker stills and other diy stills where ppl drilled into pots and spddered on copper tubing. Any ideas or suggestions. Thanks


r/firewater 4d ago

Couldn’t figure out why my burner wasn’t lighting!

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21 Upvotes

Eventually took the whole thing apart and banged in on the ground. All of this rust came out!


r/firewater 4d ago

Is this worth it to start distilling

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11 Upvotes

From what I can find the still alone is $200ish so it seems like a far ask with the 3- 27gal barrels (sounds like with heaters for those as well) and some other equipment.

Did confirm it is set up to be 110v and talking to the guy says it takes about an 1hr-1.5hr to get up to operating temp and then about 12hr for him to run a full batch


r/firewater 4d ago

Budget

3 Upvotes

If I'm trying to make homemade "spirits" but am really broke could I use freeze distilling I know it makes sub par product but would it still be able to be enjoyed a bit?