Making home wine is dangerous...

[Closet Fermenter]

They could make up the revenue by taxing the raw materials, requiring annual inspections of the equipment, etc.

There was a recent court decision that some thought had the potential to pave the way toward legalization of home distilling. We had a thread about it.

It’s more than the taxes; it’s politics. The commercial distilleries put lots of money into the pockets of politicians with the understanding that if the politicians continue to protect their monopoly on distilled spirits, the money to their respective campaigns will continue to flow. It’s not safety; it’s not taxes; it’s just plain old greed and self-interest.

 

[bwible]

But to be very accurate, distillation does not in fact PRODUCE a single molecule of methanol. It simply CONCENTRATES any methanol already in wine that is produced through fermentation. If you pour a gallon of 12% ABV wine into a still and heat the still to remove the water, you will have at BEST produced 1 pint of spirits at nominally 100% ABV (200 proof) and that one pint will now likely contain 100 percent of any methanol that was in that gallon of wine (or wash or mash). That's why distillers typically collect the first - what? 50 ml (per gallon) of ethanol that is collected from the still and use it for cleaning tools or as a fire starter

I’m not a distiller, never did it. General reading - my understanding is methanol has a lower boiling point than the ethanol we want. Thats why most of it comes out in the first measure that gets discarded. Its the first thing to boil off.

 

[bwible]

It’s more than the taxes; it’s politics. The commercial distilleries put lots of money into the pockets of politicians with the understanding that if the politicians continue to protect their monopoly on distilled spirits, the money to their respective campaigns will continue to flow. It’s not safety; it’s not taxes; it’s just plain old greed and self-interest.

With all the shortages of good stuff everywhere - I’m sure people can list all their favorite bourbons that have become limited and hard to come by now - Buffalo Trace, Eagle Rare, Blantons, Pappy, etc, etc, PLUS all the things that have doubled or sometimes tripled in price, like McKenna, maybe its time people be allowed to learn to distill their own. Even if you had to pay to take a training or something. The whole bourbon industry seems to be driven by shortages and hoarding the past 5 years or so.

 

[hungupdown]

Potato wine is only one I've particularly avoided, as Potatoes, and some other root veg, can harbor C. botulinum spores. These spores can thrive, in a warm; wet; low acidity environment. So potato wine, sometimes get noted as source, among the annual figures for recorded Botulism cases.

Rhubarb, particularly it's leaves, contains oxalic acid, which can destroy brain cells. But so so long as you only ferment the stalks, your pretty safe. I think the calculated safe consumption (for oxalic acid content), was around a gallon of rhubarb wine per day!

 

[IAmPistolPete]

I’m not a distiller, never did it. General reading - my understanding is methanol has a lower boiling point than the ethanol we want. Thats why most of it comes out in the first measure that gets discarded. Its the first thing to boil off.

That's what we all learned in HighSchool chemistry class but in real life the methanol comes out during the entire run and has been proven to come out slightly stronger in the tails portion of the run due to its strong affinity to hang on to water molecules. [hydrogen bonding] The foreshots/early heads are usually acetones, propanols and other higher alcohols.

With all the shortages of good stuff everywhere - I’m sure people can list all their favorite bourbons that have become limited and hard to come by now - Buffalo Trace, Eagle Rare, Blantons, Pappy, etc, etc, PLUS all the things that have doubled or sometimes tripled in price, like McKenna, maybe its time people be allowed to learn to distill their own. Even if you had to pay to take a training or something. The whole bourbon industry seems to be driven by shortages and hoarding the past 5 years or so.

Supply & demand [aka marketing] has driven up the prices to ridiculousness. You can make a really good whiskey at home with under a year of aging. But you have to be willing to wait the year to find out if you really like what you made. If you don't have the time or the patience[American consumer] to invest in producing it then just swipe a credit card and post a pic of the label on Insta

 

[bernardsmith]

That's what we all learned in HighSchool chemistry class but in real life the methanol comes out during the entire run and has been proven to come out slightly stronger in the tails portion of the run due to its strong affinity to hang on to water molecules. [hydrogen bonding] The foreshots/early heads are usually acetones, propanols and other higher alcohols.

This is my understanding, too - that methanol IN FACT is more likely to be collected in the tails, which is why I collect neither heads nor tails and because my wash is invariably from whey I ferment as a waste product from my cheese-making, I am not looking for more than 1 pint from every gallon of whey wine (12-14% ABV). That said, I am unclear whether whey wine does contain any methanol, as the source of the milk is grass, hay, corn and soybeans, so nothing woody... But my chemistry concluded in secondary school, so I plead ignorance about the organic sources of methanol in wine.

 

[bernardsmith]

It’s more than the taxes; it’s politics. The commercial distilleries put lots of money into the pockets of politicians with the understanding that if the politicians continue to protect their monopoly on distilled spirits, the money to their respective campaigns will continue to flow. It’s not safety; it’s not taxes; it’s just plain old greed and self-interest.

In the US, lining politicians' pockets with money is called "lobbying", in the rest of the world, that's called bribery. It's about time, we called lobbying what it really is. To lobby, is to explain and argue with the goal of convincing others of your argument. To bribe is simply to stuff enough $$$ in the hands of those who would otherwise not find your arguments convincing.