Is there a methanol per liter ratio?

[spafmagic]

I'm looking into distilling some of my wine and Mead, and I'm curious as far as wine goes, if there is a "rule of thumb" ratio of how much methanol there is per liter of wine?

 

[hawkwing]

Not sure but methanol can’t really be removed via regular distillation anyway. Most of what you can find to read is wrong. However the amount of methanol produced is likely dependent on how healthy your fermentation is.

 

[doug293cz]

Not sure but methanol can’t really be removed via regular distillation anyway. Most of what you can find to read is wrong. However the amount of methanol produced is likely dependent on how healthy your fermentation is.

Where do you get your information? Methanol boils at a temperature significantly lower than ethanol, so most of the methanol comes off first in a distillation run. This is why the first few fl oz (the "foreshots") of distillate are discarded when distilling. The amount of methanol produced depends on the composition of the wort/must/wash that goes into fermentation prior to distilling. Fermentables containing pectin produce more methanol than barley wort.

Brew on

 

[hawkwing]

Where do you get your information? Methanol boils at a temperature significantly lower than ethanol, so most of the methanol comes off first in a distillation run. This is why the first few fl oz (the "foreshots") of distillate are discarded when distilling. The amount of methanol produced depends on the composition of the wort/must/wash that goes into fermentation prior to distilling. Fermentables containing pectin produce more methanol than barley wort.

Brew on

If that were the case, which it isn’t, the temperature would not rise based on the amount of alcohol left in the mixture and you’d be able to get near 100% alcohol with a simple pot still. Read up on azeotropes. The mix of two or more substances boil at a different point than the individual components. During distillation the lower boiling point component will smear throughout the run.

 

[doug293cz]

If that were the case, which it isn’t, the temperature would not rise based on the amount of alcohol left in the mixture and you’d be able to get near 100% alcohol with a simple pot still. Read up on azeotropes. The mix of two or more substances boil at a different point than the individual components. During distillation the lower boiling point component will smear throughout the run.

The important azeotrope in distilling is the ethanol/water azeotrope. I have not been able to find anything that says there is an azeoptrope between methanol/ethanol, or methanol/water, nor have I found anything on an azeotrope involving methanol in the methanol/ethanol/water ternary system. Do you have information that says otherwise?

Yes, composition changes ("smearing") during distilling, with the concentration of the lower boiling component in the distillate decreasing as the concentration of that component decreases in the feed. But, that does not negate the fact that concentration of the lowest boiling component in the feed is highest in the distillate at the start of distillation. This allows a significant reduction in the concentration of the low boiling components in the total collected distillate, if the early runnings are discarded.

So, while you cannot really eliminate any volatile component (like methanol) from the distillate, you can significantly reduce the ratio of methanol to ethanol in distilled spirits by discarding the early run-off from a still run. Since the concentration of methanol in wine or cider is not enough that you can get a damaging dose with an amount you can reasonably consume, you would get even less methanol by consuming an equal amount of ethanol from a spirit distilled from that wine or cider, if the first still runnings were discarded.

Brew on

 

[spafmagic]

SO... all that being said... I know methanol evaporates at 145 degrees Fahrenheit, and ethanol at 175ish. Ideally if I wanted to evaporate out as much methanol as possible, I would need to maintain roughly 145ish degrees for X amount of time, yeah?

So, my original question still remains. But mayhaps if I provide an example?

Say, a brew of grape wine (grape must with added sugar) that finishes off at 14% ABV, is distilled 2 liters at a time (my boiler is a modified tea kettle) into a 1 pint mason jar... what would be a safe assumption as to how much off that is methanol to be tossed out?

 

[hawkwing]

Honestly don't worry about it. You need to learn to make cuts and your going to throw out a lot more heads than the amount you think is methanol in the beginning. Also going to throw out some tails too. You might keep 30-50% if you want it to taste good. There will be other things in there besides methanol and ethanol that are undesirable and smell like paint thinner. There will be a little left and that's ok. You drink it diluted in beer and wine anyway.

To be honest if you to learn to distill there are better forums than this site. They explain all this.

 

[doug293cz]

SO... all that being said... I know methanol evaporates at 145 degrees Fahrenheit, and ethanol at 175ish. Ideally if I wanted to evaporate out as much methanol as possible, I would need to maintain roughly 145ish degrees for X amount of time, yeah?

So, my original question still remains. But mayhaps if I provide an example?

Say, a brew of grape wine (grape must with added sugar) that finishes off at 14% ABV, is distilled 2 liters at a time (my boiler is a modified tea kettle) into a 1 pint mason jar... what would be a safe assumption as to how much off that is methanol to be tossed out?

There appears to be a lot of information on methanol content available on the web. "methanol content of fermented beverages" in a search engine will turn up lots of good leads. Never dug into it myself, so don't know typical values for various fermented liquids, only that it is highly variable.

Brew on

 

[bernardsmith]

I assume that a) red wine contains more pectin that white wine and b) the more pectin, the more methanol, If red wine contains about 250 mg/L of methanol, then if I were to distill 1 gallon of wine, and I toss the first 50 ml of the distillate as including just about 100 % of the methanol, assuming that red wine contains 250 mg of methanol and 250 mg = 1 ml ). Those 50 ml include fore-shots and heads. If you are distilling 5 gallons, then toss the first 250 ml.

 

[hawkwing]

I assume that a) red wine contains more pectin that white wine and b) the more pectin, the more methanol, If red wine contains about 250 mg/L of methanol, then if I were to distill 1 gallon of wine, and I toss the first 50 ml of the distillate as including just about 100 % of the methanol, assuming that red wine contains 250 mg of methanol and 250 mg = 1 ml ). Those 50 ml include fore-shots and heads. If you are distilling 5 gallons, then toss the first 250 ml.

If you are distilling 5 gallons (18.9 L) of 14% wine you theoretically have 2.6 L of pure alcohol. Heads would make up about 20-30% of that or about 750 ml.

 

[hawkwing]

Your best bet is to do a stripping run where you keep everything then a spirit run you collect in small jars kept in order. Then you can smell and taste and learn to keep what you want and don’t. If it won’t kill you when drinking the wine it won’t kill you when drinking mixed together after distillation. It just won’t taste good if too much of the heads and/or tails is left in. Unfortunately a lot of commercial spirits have too much heads left in. Also the amount of heads and tails you keep can be dependent on how and how long it’s being aged.

 

[bernardsmith]

If you are distilling 5 gallons (18.9 L) of 14% wine you theoretically have 2.6 L of pure alcohol. Heads would make up about 20-30% of that or about 750 ml.

aha.. Good point. I distill whey wine that I make at about 12% so I expect to be able to collect about 400 ml of spirit from each gallon. (12% = 1 pint and 1 pint is about 470 ml)

 

[spafmagic]

I shall think on all this information. Thanks for the responses so far.

On the other hand, since honey is pretty much liquid sugar, distilling traditional mead (honey/water/yeast) shouldn't have much methanol, if at all, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[doug293cz]

Watched this today and found it interesting. George recommends using a power controller to hold the still head temperature (at the entrance to the condenser) at 168°F (75.5°C) until the output stops, and then discarding whatever you collected up to that point. This will minimize (but not completely eliminate) the low boiling contaminants from your product. If you feed stock has a significant amount of methanol, this will eliminate a lot of it.



Brew on

 

[hawkwing]

Watched this today and found it interesting. George recommends using a power controller to hold the still head temperature (at the entrance to the condenser) at 168°F (75.5°C) until the output stops, and then discarding whatever you collected up to that point. This will minimize (but not completely eliminate) the low boiling contaminants from your product. If you feed stock has a significant amount of methanol, this will eliminate a lot of it.



Brew on

Distilling doesn’t work that way.

On a distilling forum he’s not well respected because he posts incorrect information or dangerous information. Probably one of the reasons he stopped posting videos. That said he helped get me interested. And those guys are pretty easy to upset.

You can’t actually set a temperature when distilling. You can only vary the input power. The temperature will change as the alcohol boils off but you can’t change the temperature that happens at with a controller.

Only temperature you can control is cooling water.

Lots of nasty stuff will come off after that temperature is passed anyway. Things like nail polish remover and paint thinner smelling stuff.

 

[spafmagic]

I went ahead and sacrificed two 750 ml bottles of my Mead, periodically doing a burn test with a spoon and lighter until it was hard to light per each bottle. I got approximately 300 ml of burnable liquid. =^_^=

 

[doug293cz]

Distilling doesn’t work that way.

On a distilling forum he’s not well respected because he posts incorrect information or dangerous information. Probably one of the reasons he stopped posting videos. That said he helped get me interested. And those guys are pretty easy to upset.

You can’t actually set a temperature when distilling. You can only vary the input power. The temperature will change as the alcohol boils off but you can’t change the temperature that happens at with a controller.

Only temperature you can control is cooling water.

Lots of nasty stuff will come off after that temperature is passed anyway. Things like nail polish remover and paint thinner smelling stuff.

It's true, you cannot control the boiling temperature of a liquid. The boil temp is determined by the composition of the liquid and the local atmospheric pressure. However, vapor pressures of liquids increase monotonically with increasing temperature, and even below boiling, there is significant vaporization taking place.

At a fixed cooling water flow, you can modulate the boiler power input to maintain a relatively constant temp at the input to the condenser. (In a system with energy input separated from an energy sink, there will be a temperature gradient between the input and the sink. The temps at any point in between can be controlled by adjusting the energy input and/or the energy removal.)

So, using the temp at the condenser input as a control input, you can affect the composition of the vapors at the condenser input, and thus the composition of the distillate. With the condenser input at ~168°F, most of the ethanol, and higher boilers, will condense before making it into the condenser. Thus when the low boilers are mostly gone, the condenser output will stop.

Brew on

 

[doug293cz]

I went ahead and sacrificed two 750 ml bottles of my Mead, periodically doing a burn test with a spoon and lighter until it was hard to light per each bottle. I got approximately 300 ml of burnable liquid.

Whether or not the distillate burns is a function of the alcohol to water ratio. Much of what you determined was burnable was ethanol. Methanol burns with a yellow flame, while ethanol burns with a blue or invisible flame. There is no way you got 300ml of high methanol distillate from 2x750ml of mead.

Brew on

 

[hawkwing]

Whether or not the distillate burns is a function of the alcohol to water ratio. Much of what you determined was burnable was ethanol. Methanol burns with a yellow flame, while ethanol burns with a blue or invisible flame. There is no way you got 300ml of high methanol distillate from 2x750ml of mead.

Brew on

I tried the burn test. Can’t see any difference in color.

 

[hawkwing]

It's true, you cannot control the boiling temperature of a liquid. The boil temp is determined by the composition of the liquid and the local atmospheric pressure. However, vapor pressures of liquids increase monotonically with increasing temperature, and even below boiling, there is significant vaporization taking place.

At a fixed cooling water flow, you can modulate the boiler power input to maintain a relatively constant temp at the input to the condenser. (In a system with energy input separated from an energy sink, there will be a temperature gradient between the input and the sink. The temps at any point in between can be controlled by adjusting the energy input and/or the energy removal.)

So, using the temp at the condenser input as a control input, you can affect the composition of the vapors at the condenser input, and thus the composition of the distillate. With the condenser input at ~168°F, most of the ethanol, and higher boilers, will condense before making it into the condenser. Thus when the low boilers are mostly gone, the condenser output will stop.

Brew on

Not very practical and I doubt it gets used by many. Not anyone who’s been doing it for a while anyway.

 

[doug293cz]

Not very practical and I doubt it gets used by many. Not anyone who’s been doing it for a while anyway.

I find it believable that most distillers' systems are not set up to allow them to modulate power input based on condenser input temperature, but it is practical.

Brew on

 

[doug293cz]

I tried the burn test. Can’t see any difference in color.

Perhaps you don't have enough methanol in your feed stock to collect a significant amount that will burn yellow.

Brew on

 

[hawkwing]

Perhaps you don't have enough methanol in your feed stock to collect a significant amount that will burn yellow.

Brew on

Who knows if it was something else but it smelled bad and tasted hot. I tried burning various parts of the output and didn’t find any conclusive results. Maybe mixed lab grade chemicals might.

 

[spafmagic]

Granted, there had to be some water that got into the mixture. Clearly however, the ratio of alcohol to water is significantly high.

 

[hawkwing]

In the end it’s all academic and not practical when making whiskey. You always throw way more out so separating just methanol doesn’t matter.

 

[spafmagic]

Thanks again for all the info.

 

[Satoshi]

Hi, this was interesting to read through. I'm new to this, I've done a load of cleaning runs to get to know how the kit works, with the intention of making essential oils using the kit.

I came across some YouTube videos and forums that spoke of doing a sacrificial run with wine to clean through the system, so I've ended up doing a few Google searches about methanol because I have some pretty strong **** here

I did a burn test from the first pint, it burns a clear flame. Then, I had a further ¼ pint of distillate, that didn't take a flame.

None of it tastes great, fortunately haven't swallowed anything!! Being that it came from wine, my thinking is that it should be safe to drink, but it's not palatable, that's for sure!!

 

[hawkwing]

Hi, this was interesting to read through. I'm new to this, I've done a load of cleaning runs to get to know how the kit works, with the intention of making essential oils using the kit.

I came across some YouTube videos and forums that spoke of doing a sacrificial run with wine to clean through the system, so I've ended up doing a few Google searches about methanol because I have some pretty strong **** here

I did a burn test from the first pint, it burns a clear flame. Then, I had a further ¼ pint of distillate, that didn't take a flame.

None of it tastes great, fortunately haven't swallowed anything!! Being that it came from wine, my thinking is that it should be safe to drink, but it's not palatable, that's for sure!!

It’s not going to be palatable if you collected everything on the same container or mixed them afterwards without cutting out the nasty stuff.

 

[Satoshi]

Hi, yeah, it's been an interesting couple of days. I ran it though again, and took cuts, though not so well, ended up with 3 jars of what could have been 1 foreshots/heads 2 hearts 3 tails.

So, I took what was left in the still, added the 1 and 3, topped up with what I call 'body' (alcohol free juice from the first run, with flavours etc) and then ran it though on a slow heat up to try to have more control where cuts would/should occur.

Judging by the temperature of each range of distillate, it was as if the methanol simply evaporated off, I still separated a first cut, only a small amount, and then a second. These had quite a nice aroma, which puzzled me, I expected them to be hard on the nose. Both ignited well.

Then I went through a range of temperature where I simply had nothing really coming through, I was even more baffled, though bare in mind I had a jar of what could have been hearts sat on on the side from the previous run. Anyway, once I got right up to 205f I started to get some action again, I didn't cut it at all, as I had read that >205 was generally tails. I collected about 150-200ml of that, did a burn test, no ignition, so I shut it down.

Now I have 4 jars/cuts, all have good aroma. I have jar 1 and 3 that has been distilled 3 times, jar/cut 1 having been split in two, it seems, and jar/cut 2 that has only been distilled twice.

Everything will cool overnight so I can measure what is in the still and see what it's like. It's really interesting all this, it only started as a sacrificial run to clean it, now I'm hooked! Although, this last run was veeerrry slow, planned, but a very tiring afternoon. More tomorrow

 

[hawkwing]

Hi, yeah, it's been an interesting couple of days. I ran it though again, and took cuts, though not so well, ended up with 3 jars of what could have been 1 foreshots/heads 2 hearts 3 tails.

So, I took what was left in the still, added the 1 and 3, topped up with what I call 'body' (alcohol free juice from the first run, with flavours etc) and then ran it though on a slow heat up to try to have more control where cuts would/should occur.

Judging by the temperature of each range of distillate, it was as if the methanol simply evaporated off, I still separated a first cut, only a small amount, and then a second. These had quite a nice aroma, which puzzled me, I expected them to be hard on the nose. Both ignited well.

Then I went through a range of temperature where I simply had nothing really coming through, I was even more baffled, though bare in mind I had a jar of what could have been hearts sat on on the side from the previous run. Anyway, once I got right up to 205f I started to get some action again, I didn't cut it at all, as I had read that >205 was generally tails. I collected about 150-200ml of that, did a burn test, no ignition, so I shut it down.

Now I have 4 jars/cuts, all have good aroma. I have jar 1 and 3 that has been distilled 3 times, jar/cut 1 having been split in two, it seems, and jar/cut 2 that has only been distilled twice.

Everything will cool overnight so I can measure what is in the still and see what it's like. It's really interesting all this, it only started as a sacrificial run to clean it, now I'm hooked! Although, this last run was veeerrry slow, planned, but a very tiring afternoon. More tomorrow

If you are letting everything cool in the still be careful it doesn’t pull vacuum and implode your still.

 

[Satoshi]

I opened the valve for the airlock

I also used it to see what kind of pressure was building up during the heating up, on hard water distillation runs it was pretty immense!

 

[doug293cz]

I opened the valve for the airlock

I also used it to see what kind of pressure was building up during the heating up, on hard water distillation runs it was pretty immense!

Did you actually seal up your still while heat was applied? This can be very dangerous. If something lets loose due to the pressure build up, you can release a bunch of flammable vapors, which are an explosion hazard. Also, flying chunks of metal are dangerous. The standard advice to distillers is to never let a condition develop that could allow pressure build up in the system.

Brew on

 

[Satoshi]

Did you actually seal up your still while heat was applied? This can be very dangerous. If something lets loose due to the pressure build up, you can release a bunch of flammable vapors, which are an explosion hazard. Also, flying chunks of metal are dangerous. The standard advice to distillers is to never let a condition develop that could allow pressure build up in the system.

Brew on

Oh god no! My first runs were water distillation, to clean, to check build quality (cheapest 3 pot on Amazon) and to understand about how the pressure side of things works. So I put the airlock in place, as it also has a valve to close too, and kept an eye on the water level in the airlock through a run.

It was interesting, since then I have run wine through, I had the airlock in place to make sure I was achieving a decent pressure and then closing the valve to ensure vapours are pushed through to the condenser.

Then, when I reached cool down, I opened the valve to the airlock so that no vapours could escape and any negative pressure is relieved through the airlock

 

[Satoshi]

SO... all that being said... I know methanol evaporates at 145 degrees Fahrenheit, and ethanol at 175ish. Ideally if I wanted to evaporate out as much methanol as possible, I would need to maintain roughly 145ish degrees for X amount of time, yeah?

So, my original question still remains. But mayhaps if I provide an example?

Say, a brew of grape wine (grape must with added sugar) that finishes off at 14% ABV, is distilled 2 liters at a time (my boiler is a modified tea kettle) into a 1 pint mason jar... what would be a safe assumption as to how much off that is methanol to be tossed out?

I'm new to this too, I ran a sacrificial wine run to clean my cheap rig, I've start to videolog it youtube.com/@radiobane

I ended up getting right into this, I've tried raising the temperature as slowly as possible, I'll be making cuts, pardon the pun, of about 6 hours of video and uploading today.

I have a split triple distillation in progress, I'm hoping to do the third distillation on what I believe is hearts, then I plan to combine selected cuts from the previous runs for a forth distillation to get a final distillate, which I hope will reach next to zero methanol and next to zero contaminants as found in the last of tails.

It's all a learning curve for purifying my banana ferment, future brews and for making essential oils

 

[hawkwing]

I'm new to this too, I ran a sacrificial wine run to clean my cheap rig, I've start to videolog it youtube.com/@radiobane

I ended up getting right into this, I've tried raising the temperature as slowly as possible, I'll be making cuts, pardon the pun, of about 6 hours of video and uploading today.

I have a split triple distillation in progress, I'm hoping to do the third distillation on what I believe is hearts, then I plan to combine selected cuts from the previous runs for a forth distillation to get a final distillate, which I hope will reach next to zero methanol and next to zero contaminants as found in the last of tails.

It's all a learning curve for purifying my banana ferment, future brews and for making essential oils

With that many distillations you won’t have much if any flavor left.

 

[Satoshi]

Disappointing, it did start out as a sacrificial run, so I guess it's not too much of a loss.

I've read that new kit needs to be not only cleaned but 'run in' too, is that right?

 

[hawkwing]

Disappointing, it did start out as a sacrificial run, so I guess it's not too much of a loss.

I've read that new kit needs to be not only cleaned but 'run in' too, is that right?

Yes but that usually starts x with water then vinegar. Then something cheaper than wine if you don’t have heads and tails to run through.