bluehex

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Ive always heard that brewing your own alcohol can make you blind and retarded. How come this home brewing is any different or any safer?

Chairman Cheyco

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Brewing is fine, it's distilling that can harm you.

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bluehex

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but in the process of distilling you are simply separating the chemicals, not creating any new ones. Therefore everything that comes from the distilling process was originally in the brew... like methyl alcohol.

Ivan Lendl

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Who says it is any different?

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Bernie Brewer

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Distilling won't harm you, either (although it's not legal as homebrewing is). That's a throwback to the days of prohibition and "bathtub gin". People that were more interested in making a quick buck than anything else would take just about anything toxic, mix it up in their bathtub and sell it as moonshine. It was those concoctions that could have made you blind, etc. Anything naturally fermented (as distilled liquors must first be) will not do that.

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bluehex

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so then what would make yeast fermentation any different than grain fermentation (which creates the bad alcohol chemicals)?

rdwj

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So far, my sight has come back every time and I not think me's any dum dan I wuz bfour.

...hey, who turned off the lights??

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Chairman Cheyco

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My understanding is that those bad things are in our beers too but in very low percentages. When you distill, you concentrate them to very high levels (usually 10-20 times as high.) Different alcohols evaporate at different temperatures. If when you are distilling your temp is off, you will concentrate the poisonous alcohols. That's why it's so dangerous - very small margin for error.

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Once the wind has been broken, it cannot be fixed.

alemonkey

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If you have methyl alcohol in your beer you are making some damn weird beer.

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bluehex

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so if i was to take grape juice and some yeast from a grocery store, i could make safe wine to drink? (like this http://www.totse.com/en/drugs/booze_the_legal_drug/homemadewinech179707.html)