Methanol / Methyl alcohol .... Question

Hello Everyone online or Offline here

I know this is a silly question but it is really a serious thing to me ....

I m little afraid when one of my friend who is doing pharmacy (studying) told me that if u do something wrong then it can be Methyl alcohol which is toxic and if we drink it then it will effect us very badly and even we can die .

Please let me know each and everything about this thing so that I can feel little safe if all this matter is solved. Throw light on each and every point plz that means :-

** How it can be made out of errors or mistake or this is not possible.

** If it is present in our wine can we take a test so that we can check it, that how much methanol is there and is it safe to drink our wine or not.

** Any one here in this forum who has this problem before or something like that.

I have also searched on wikipedia.org about Methyl Alcohol which is also called wood alcohol. But haven't got anything related to home brewing .

Thanks in advanced ....

Please please let me know everything I m very confused and afraid of this because I don't have anyone here to help me and I m newbie to all this stuff. I m from India and I m a student.

If u want to know anything else about me or anything then plz let me know.

Hope I will get maximum Help here

Homebrewers make ethanol. The worst you can do is to ferment it really high (80F and above), and get fusels, which give you a headache. The whole poisoning yourself thing applies to distilling, primarily ice distilling, which is A) not what we do here and B) illegal, at least in the United States.

Methanol is present in negligible amounts in wine/beer, but unless you're distilling, and you shouldn't be distilling, it's not a concern in wine/beer making. So, don't worry.

elkdog is right. Methanol is only a concern when distilling, especially in the first portion of the distilate because it evaporates at a lower temp than ethanol.

Beernik said:

elkdog is right. Methanol is only a concern when distilling, especially in the first portion of the distilate because it evaporates at a lower temp than ethanol.

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I always heard that going blind from distilling alcohol was a myth. That it originated during prohibition, when shady characters would mix industrial alcohol (methanol) with the moonshine they were selling to boost the abv.

Just distilling shouldn't be a problem unless someone was using an old radiator, and leeched heavy metals into their alcohol.

Honestly the only reason distilling is illegal is so people can't get around paying those huge taxes on liquer.

GuitarBob said:

I always heard that going blind from distilling alcohol was a myth. That it originated during prohibition, when shady characters would mix industrial alcohol (methanol) with the moonshine they were selling to boost the abv.

Just distilling shouldn't be a problem unless someone was using an old radiator, and leeched heavy metals into their alcohol.

Honestly the only reason distilling is illegal is so people can't get around paying those huge taxes on liquer.

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Methanol volatilizes/evaporates at a lower temp than ethanol, so shoddy distilling can lead to an accidental concentration of methanol, or at least so goes my understanding. I haven't read much into it, to be honest- I make beer.

Thanks for all those replies, since I was afraid and worried about that thing, but now I think it will not make methanol if I m only and only making wine with basic ingredients and some fruit juices. I will never distill wine for sure.

thanks again

elkdog said:

Homebrewers make ethanol. The worst you can do is to ferment it really high (80F and above), and get fusels, which give you a headache. The whole poisoning yourself thing applies to distilling, primarily ice distilling, which is A) not what we do here and B) illegal, at least in the United States.

Methanol is present in negligible amounts in wine/beer, but unless you're distilling, and you shouldn't be distilling, it's not a concern in wine/beer making. So, don't worry.

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The "ice process" is perfectly legal by the way.

Blindness - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Its the breakdown of methanol into formic acid from a bad distillate that gets you.

"Rarely, blindness is caused by the intake of certain chemicals. A well-known example is methanol, which is only mildly toxic and minimally intoxicating, but when not competing with ethanol for metabolism, methanol breaks down into the substances formaldehyde and formic acid which in turn can cause blindness, an array of other health complications, and death."