Bootleg liquor kills 143 people in eastern India
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That is some crazy cheap booze 20 cents for a half liter, too bad you die when you drink it.
Was the methanol a product of distillation or fermentation or from mixing in other chemicals? Is there risk of it in homebrew?
Was the methanol a product of distillation or fermentation or from mixing in other chemicals? Is there risk of it in homebrew?
OP
OP
Hex
Well-Known Member
Methanol was used as an chemical additive in this case, but can be manufactured from wood and other organic material by pyrolysis.
Probably not present in our yeast/sugar reaction, but I posted the article to alert and discuss consequences of prohibition. I think people have died from this before...
Probably not present in our yeast/sugar reaction, but I posted the article to alert and discuss consequences of prohibition. I think people have died from this before...
heeler
Well-Known Member
Methanol IS procuced in a mash along with several other nasty chemicals. No way around it. Thats what yeast does, it produces co2 - ethanol - and lots of other nasties. The thing is you dont distill beer so the compounds arent concentrated into a distillate like hooch. Still the stuff that killed those people WAS NOT made in a whiskey wash or mash. They added some pretty awfull stuff to make that happen. Like in the good ole days of moonshine, they would add kerosene for flavor and alittle kick and use a car radiator for a condenser (lead soldier) so you die from lead poison. There are dos and donts in stillin just like beer brewing. You dont have to be quite so sterile in stillin as you do in brewin.
Yeast can indeed produce methanol as a byproduct of fermentation.
Pretty much every spirit contains trace amounts of methanol @ < 0.02%, including beer. It is not dangerous at all at these levels.
Based on the news stories and the reported methanol content, it is 100% certain methanol was added after distilling.
Pretty much every spirit contains trace amounts of methanol @ < 0.02%, including beer. It is not dangerous at all at these levels.
Based on the news stories and the reported methanol content, it is 100% certain methanol was added after distilling.
OP
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Hex
Well-Known Member
Here's another article (sorry, read, cut, and paste day for me):
"...Indeed, a compelling case can be made that the same restrictive laws that India uses to control the supply and sale of alcohol almost inevitably created the conditions in which an illegal alcohol industry would thrive, and put thousands of lives at risk...."
"...Indeed, a compelling case can be made that the same restrictive laws that India uses to control the supply and sale of alcohol almost inevitably created the conditions in which an illegal alcohol industry would thrive, and put thousands of lives at risk...."
JefeTheVol
Well-Known Member
In the hospital the treatment for methanol intoxication is an ethanol drip...not kidding. Ethanol has more of an affinity to cellular receptors than methanol therefore outcompetes for receptor binding sites allowing for the methanol to be metabolized. You then just have to treat the acidosis.
So, the small amount of methanol that is created in the mash/ferm process is completely neutralized by the 4-5% ethanol once inside our bodies. The liquor(not beer) in India must have had a ton of methanol or antifreeze to produce those effects.
-Jefe-
So, the small amount of methanol that is created in the mash/ferm process is completely neutralized by the 4-5% ethanol once inside our bodies. The liquor(not beer) in India must have had a ton of methanol or antifreeze to produce those effects.
-Jefe-
Tim_Kreitz
Well-Known Member
+1 on all the methanol commentary. When distilling, you usually discard the first runnings of condensate liquor because its methanol content is so high. Distillers usually refer to it as the "big end" (180-plus proof), and it can be deadly if consumed.
Once you're running the still at around 110-120 proof, you're usually good to start collecting the spirits for tempering.
Once you're running the still at around 110-120 proof, you're usually good to start collecting the spirits for tempering.
The US gov't did this during Prohibition. Google Jake Leg for an interesting tale of Jamaican Ginger Extract, poisoning, and permanent paralysis.
[edit] Wrong. The gov't began testing the extract for ginger solids to ensure it was unpalatable, so those selling the extract replaced the ginger with a chemical to pass the gov't test. That chemical was toxic and caused permanent paralysis. The gov't was not responsible, but one could easily point at this national tragedy as another failure of any sort of prohibition. Vote Ron Paul 2012. (see what I did there?)
[edit] Wrong. The gov't began testing the extract for ginger solids to ensure it was unpalatable, so those selling the extract replaced the ginger with a chemical to pass the gov't test. That chemical was toxic and caused permanent paralysis. The gov't was not responsible, but one could easily point at this national tragedy as another failure of any sort of prohibition. Vote Ron Paul 2012. (see what I did there?)
I read the Wiki and it implied the bootleggers did it not the gov't, but thats probably just another cover up attempt.
Bootleggers changed the makeup of it to try to get around the Prohibition laws. Turned out they created poison.
Exactly my point it was the bootleggers not the gov't. Although I wouldn't be surprised if the gov't did do it.
After further googling I think passedpawn is just a fan of Jake's Leg the Grateful Dead cover band.
http://www.jakesleg.com/
After further googling I think passedpawn is just a fan of Jake's Leg the Grateful Dead cover band.
http://www.jakesleg.com/
You are right. My old memory keeps failing me. Grrr. I'll edit my post so I don't mislead anyone else.
Never heard of the GD cover band, but I'm a Grateful Dead fan.
BTW, I read about this in some depth in Water for Elephants, a novel about an elephant with feelings that does not speak English.
RIF.
RIF.
OP
OP
Hex
Well-Known Member
Rudeboy
Well-Known Member
No the government did it too. There was a section on this in Ken Burn's show "Prohibition".
Some distillers were allowed to keep making ethanol for commercial use but they had to denature it with bad stuff (maybe methanol?).
The ethanol would then end up on the black market and sold by bootleggers. Hundreds if not thousands of people died or were maimed each year.
In "Prohibition" there is a story of somewhere in the mid-west over a hundred people died in one instance alone. A bunch of doctors (maybe the AMA?) came out after this and said "Look you can't keep killing people." To which the government said "Ehh. It's their own fault. If they hadn't broken the law they wouldn't be dead."
Some one who saw the series and has a better memory than me can fill in the specifics. But the government knowingly poisoned thousands of it's own citizens during prohibition.
Doing the Lords work.
Rudeboy
Some distillers were allowed to keep making ethanol for commercial use but they had to denature it with bad stuff (maybe methanol?).
The ethanol would then end up on the black market and sold by bootleggers. Hundreds if not thousands of people died or were maimed each year.
In "Prohibition" there is a story of somewhere in the mid-west over a hundred people died in one instance alone. A bunch of doctors (maybe the AMA?) came out after this and said "Look you can't keep killing people." To which the government said "Ehh. It's their own fault. If they hadn't broken the law they wouldn't be dead."
Some one who saw the series and has a better memory than me can fill in the specifics. But the government knowingly poisoned thousands of it's own citizens during prohibition.
Doing the Lords work.
Rudeboy
Rudeboy
Well-Known Member
Yep. Here's the article.
The little-told story of how the U.S. government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition. - Slate Magazine
Quote:
<<To sell the stolen industrial alcohol, the liquor syndicates employed chemists to "renature" the products, returning them to a drinkable state. The bootleggers paid their chemists a lot more than the government did, and they excelled at their job. Stolen and redistilled alcohol became the primary source of liquor in the country. So federal officials ordered manufacturers to make their products far more deadly.
By mid-1927, the new denaturing formulas included some notable poisons—kerosene and brucine (a plant alkaloid closely related to strychnine), gasoline, benzene, cadmium, iodine, zinc, mercury salts, nicotine, ether, formaldehyde, chloroform, camphor, carbolic acid, quinine, and acetone. The Treasury Department also demanded more methyl alcohol be added—up to 10 percent of total product. It was the last that proved most deadly. >>
Mmmm...mercury salts.
Rudeboy
The little-told story of how the U.S. government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition. - Slate Magazine
Quote:
<<To sell the stolen industrial alcohol, the liquor syndicates employed chemists to "renature" the products, returning them to a drinkable state. The bootleggers paid their chemists a lot more than the government did, and they excelled at their job. Stolen and redistilled alcohol became the primary source of liquor in the country. So federal officials ordered manufacturers to make their products far more deadly.
By mid-1927, the new denaturing formulas included some notable poisons—kerosene and brucine (a plant alkaloid closely related to strychnine), gasoline, benzene, cadmium, iodine, zinc, mercury salts, nicotine, ether, formaldehyde, chloroform, camphor, carbolic acid, quinine, and acetone. The Treasury Department also demanded more methyl alcohol be added—up to 10 percent of total product. It was the last that proved most deadly. >>
Mmmm...mercury salts.
Rudeboy
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