Not dangerous?

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?

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

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.

Who says it is any different?

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.

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

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??

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.

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

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)

It would be safe, but it would taste like crap.

Dude - get some fake ID or find a sympathetic older friend and have someone buy your beer or wine for you. Or just wait until you are 21. Don't waste your time trying to make something just to get a load on.

Don't feed the troll.

Dude, if you want to make grapefruit wine, go steal something at gunpoint, get caught, and go to jail. Throw each morning's grapefuit juice in the toilet tank (don't flush...ever!). Add some ketchup and fresh fruit (unwashed, you want as much wild yeast attached as possible). Wait a few weeks. Drink your Prison Pruno proudly.

Here's a link with more info.

Incidentally, along with some basic distillation mistakes stemming mostly from poor sanitation, dangerous ingredients made moonshine dangerous. Alcohol takes a long time to make, so moonshiners added embalming fluid, paint thinner, manure, formaldehyde, lye, tar, pitch, kerosene and a whole host of other chemicals to "kick it up a notch."

gruntingfrog said:

Don't feed the troll.

Click to expand...

LOLOL Yeah that's good. Altho if someone could have worked a firearm and some bloodshed in there I would have been more pleased....


Ize