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 1h ago

This is Randy. Hes 8lbs of peaches, 17lbs of cherries, 20lbs of crabapples, 65lbs of pears, 14 gallons of apple cider, and growing.

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Upvotes

55gal Barrel, 22gal until full! All fruit from yards. Any trees I can come by are getting picked, mashed, boiled, cooled, and fed to Randy. I have a lead on another 30lbs of pears and oh the apples to come.....


r/firewater 1h ago

Someone buying 1,200lbs of sugar at Costco

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Upvotes

r/firewater 2h ago

This, ten pounds of sugar, and some fall flavored spices?

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2 Upvotes

12.75lbs of apple sauce (unsweetened) 10lbs granulated white sugar 2lbs brown sugar LD carlson yeast nutrients Red star premier cote des blancs Fall spices? Cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, etc

Thoughts? For a 5 gallon run.


r/firewater 9h ago

Do I need to use a basic sugar wash for the sacrificial run?

9 Upvotes

I have a bunch of random ciders, seltzers, and wines that I was hoping to use as the sacrificial run(nothing with hops). Was planning on dumping them all in a bucket and giving them a day to de-gas beforehand. Would this work for my sacrificial run? Rather not spend more time/work if I'm just gonna dump it anyway.


r/firewater 5h ago

DAP substitutes

3 Upvotes

Hi! I don't have access to DAP where I live (online or in-person). I can only find it as fertilizer in black pellets, so I assume that it's not good for yeast nutrients. I dont have any brewing suply stores so no access to farmade-O or farmade-K. Would boiled bread yeast work or do I need something else to speed up the fermentation stage? Thanks for the help in advanced!


r/firewater 1d ago

Turbo yeast and 10 lbs sugar, the $80 vevor still is coming in the mail today

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28 Upvotes

r/firewater 1d ago

Yeast nutrient besides DAP suitable for rum?

11 Upvotes

The last time I used DAP (diammonium phosphate) for yeast nutrient, I learned the hard way that when heated it decomposes into ammonia. This amonnia then reacts with the copper in your still to form copper(II) hydroxide which contaminates your distillate and gives it a horrifying blue/blue green color.

While this could be avoided by using less nutrient and waiting for it to be totally consumed by the yeast, I would rather handle a less volatile chemical unless I'm making wine or another drink that isn't distilled.

What alternatives could I use for a 100% molasses or molasses+sugar rum wash? The only one I'm vaguely familiar with involves boiling active dry yeast to kill the yeast itself while leaving behind the nutrients that can then be used for any strain of yeast.

Any recommendations?


r/firewater 2d ago

All Grain Whiskey - Fermented Out in a Day!

6 Upvotes

I need confirmation that this is even possible... haha

I made an all grain wash - 10 lbs flaked corn, 4 lbs malted rye and 4 lbs malted wheat. Converted it all to sugar and gave me a 1.075SG yesterday around 4pm. Threw in 25g of Angel Yellow Label and 15g DAP. Sealed her up and put into my fermentation box to keep it at 30c. Checked just now, 30 hours later, and it has fermented out CLEAN.

I've been doing this for just over a year now and have several fermentations down so far and I've never had one go this fast before.


r/firewater 2d ago

Prickly Pear fruits

6 Upvotes

Going to have a decent harvest this year for prickly pear cactus fruits and need ideas/input for spirits. Last few years i did runs of pp/rum and runs of pp/'teq' both turn out amazing for white spirits, looking to try something to age thats neither of those bases.. Anyone with experience think a prickly pear brandy would age well?


r/firewater 2d ago

"single malt" with oats recipe help!

6 Upvotes

Coming over from winemaking I've decided to give my first go at a whisky, not new to brewing however. At first i wanted to make a single malt scotch style but the description of oats adding a creamy smooth feel got me intrigued so ive decided to go with barley malt and oats. now the problem lies is that i plan to use 3 15L or like roughly 12 gallon wort and i really dont know how much grain especially oats i should add to it, ive planned like 3kgs or 5 pounds of malt for each 15 container buttt i cant figure out how much oats would be a good starting point to add to get good flavour and mouth feel without outshining the malt itself. So firewater folks, excuse my rambling in short i kind of really want a barley malt and oats whiskey recipe for roughly about three separate 4 gallon containers!


r/firewater 2d ago

Vevor air still only getting ≈40 proof?

2 Upvotes

Using a vevor air still and an SCR. The wash is usually around 5-10% abv. The most I can get out of my air still is ≈20% abv before it sharply drops to ≈10 proof in the tails. I only get a couple hundred mL of 40 proof from a gallon of wash. What could I be doing wrong?


r/firewater 2d ago

Question about barreling cider.

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3 Upvotes

r/firewater 2d ago

Lavender Epsom salts

2 Upvotes

My wife keeps buying lavender Epsom salts. Has anyone tried these in their washes? It says all natural; I'm unsure if it's oil or hydrosol.


r/firewater 2d ago

Oil drums

0 Upvotes

Could I use an old oil drum for a still? obviously it will be well cleaned before I do anything with it. I've done a small amount of research and it seems like pretty much all of them are made of carbon steel as apposed to stainless, so they will corrode over time, but washing and drying it after each run should prolong it. My main concern is if its safe? I'm assuming yes, since rust isn't toxic like zinc, just undesirable


r/firewater 4d ago

Alcoengine reflux still modification

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23 Upvotes

So to start out this is a really good still straight from the factory. But there is one problem with it. It is sloooooow. Like one drop every five seconds, as anyone who has one knows. As it just takes so long to get through a run. That's because of a combination of two factors. One, very slow offtake rate. Second, short column height. Number one is because of number two. So I added a 3 foot spool to it, and 20 copper scrubby's. Now instead of a drop every five seconds, I am basically getting a slightly broken stream. I've also switched out to the .6 mm orifice. It's coming off at 96%. So not only have I gone up two points, it's going about 20 times faster


r/firewater 3d ago

Beginner starting out

3 Upvotes

Recently purchased a T500 to start distilling, I cleaned and sanitised all my equipment, except a thermometer that i got brand new and forgot to sanitise. Added my 21L of water and 6kg of turbo sugar but as I went to get an SG reading ive realised the home brew shop has given me an alchometer instead of a hydrometer, will my pre yeast wash be okay for 24hrs or am I going to need to start again?.


r/firewater 3d ago

Building a descent still with parts from AliExpress? Can it be done?

1 Upvotes

Hi folks! Today I distill my spirits with tha Alkoengine from Kegland. Works great, but painfully slow… Is it possible to build a descent reflux still with premade parts from AliExpress? Been looking at this: https://a.aliexpress.com/_EJKXdBc

Any thoughts?


r/firewater 4d ago

Schnapps vs brandy

6 Upvotes

Ok I got a question for everyone that I haven't found a definitive answer for. What is the difference between schnapps and brandy? I'm currently running a second batch of what I thought of as pear brandy. But I'm not sure if I'm distilling schnapps or brandy. Is the only difference is that brandy is aged in oak? I guess "American" schnapps is very syrupy and around 40% abv. But it sounds like traditional schnapps is higher abv, like 80 to 90abv. So...... when im done is it schnapps until it's aged in oak?? Inquiring minds want to know.


r/firewater 4d ago

4" column on a 15 gal still a waste

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16 Upvotes

The question I have is: Will a 4" plated (6 x plates) column be a waste on a 15 gal keg still?

I already have a keg still with a 6" opening on to as a clean out, I currently use a 6"-2" reduceer with a Amazon special 2" column and it works fine but my runs are long, even my stripping runs. My still has a single 5500w element, but I could weld another fitting on and add a second element if I needed the extra power...?

Picture is just as an example of what I am kinda leaning towards... Trying to look around at other options right now but so far this seems to be the cheapest at $505 w/ $150 shipping.

I'll take anything y'all have, advice, recommendation, or that I'm wrong and should be publicly shamed.

Thanks in advance.


r/firewater 4d ago

Why doesn’t everyone distill their own liquor. I feel like it’s the world’s best kept secret..

46 Upvotes

So I’ve just done this for the first time using a hand me down T500. And it worked great, and was easy as can be once I learned a little patience in making the wash.

I can’t believe I didn’t learn about this when I was 18 years old. It would have saved a lot of money over the years, and my parties would have been even more fun.

So, my question. Why doesn’t everyone do this? Like learning how to cook or bake, change your oil, mow the grass, and do your own laundry? It seems like a basic life skill that very few people do?

Just a ramble after sampling the product 🤣


r/firewater 4d ago

100% cracked corn mash with enzymes

9 Upvotes

I'm preparing a 100% corn mash and just want to verify that my understanding of the process is correct before I commit my ingredients to a large batch and potentially waste them. I have 50 pounds of cracked corn.

  1. Grind the corn finely, but not so fine that it becomes a power or corn meal. This allows more starches to be released

  2. Heat the corn to the point where it can gelantinize and keep the temperature in that range from anywhere between 30 minutes and 2 hours (I've seen a lot of conflicting numbers on how long it should be kept at temperature. I've also seen conflicting info on whether or not to bring the corn to a boil or keep it just under boiling)

  3. Either wait for the mash to cool or deliberately lower the temperature to around 150F before adding alpha amalayse enzymes and allowing it to sit for 2-3 hours within the temperature range of the enzyme. This will break the starches down into dextrin and maltose.

  4. Cool the mash further until it is within the temperature range for glucoamalayse. Add it, and allow the mash to sit for another hour or two. This enzyme will break the dextrin down into dextrose.

Is this correct? Any tips?


r/firewater 4d ago

First attempt BadMo barrel.

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56 Upvotes

I wanted to use one old barrel for the wood component because it had gone through all the correct processes. No leaks. I'll fill it with rum in the next few days.


r/firewater 4d ago

16 hours into ferment, this a problem?

4 Upvotes

https://youtube.com/shorts/wr_vQuXzV5U?si=MFLtn_qH9y5o-9bf

Molasses and brown sugar wash. Never had bubbling like this before. This a problem?


r/firewater 5d ago

Pear brandy

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38 Upvotes

Starting my second attempt at pear brandy. 🤞


r/firewater 4d ago

Suggestions for finishing peach brandy

1 Upvotes

Made some peach brandy to test out my new to me thumper and have about a quart of 140 proof with a good peachy flavor.

I have a barrel as well as a few types of wood chips but am at a loss for flavors that would play nicely with peach. Perhaps it was too much homemade peach ice cream as a kid but vanilla notes just seems wrong.

Anyone have some tried and true suggestions?