yellow belly wrote:
I think alot of people puting methanol in alcohol is scare mongering by the papers if it does get in its by accident why kill people you make money off. It tends to be used for cleaning or Sterling and I guess carelessness and mix ups happen!
Also stories of nail polish remover in alcohol ie acetone surely from bad cuts by uneducated people.
Stay safe enjoy the hobby and don't believe the hype!
Nicely put YB.
People forget the salient points and only remember the bad/scarey stuff (in built "fight/flight" factor here ? dunno).
They remember all the scaremongering that was disseminated from the US Federal Government during their prohibition period along with the media glove puppets of the day.
The various national tax authorities will do nothing to quash the scaremongering as it's not in their interests - equally, having a tax authority as arrogant as HMRC, makes it harder to even consider pushing to get home distillation legalised (even for a limited quantity).
Whereas the truth, is that ALL fermentations produce some methanol, I understand that it's more prevalent from fruit fermentations, than grain or sugar. That's not rumour or conjecture, it's chemical fact (in the same way, that all fruit seeds/pips/stones contain cyanide and all poppy seeds contain opiates - just that the miniscule amounts are irrelevant - unless you're processing the types that have higher amounts because that's what you're trying to obtain).
But, the whole point of watching your runs and monitoring temps etc, is that you just remove the portion that exploits exactly the same physical property of distillation, that we do to remove the water from the ethanol/ethyl alcohol for the drinkies part.
The tiny bit of methanol boils off at a lower temperature, which is why for safety, that even though the total quantity per gallon would only be maybe a couple of millilitres, we routinely ditch 25mls per 4 litre charge of an airstill (if you read some of the FB pages on moonshine, they suggest a fluid ounce per gallon of mash/wash - which equates to about 28/29ml per 3.8 litres, so while slightly more, it's still in the same area).
Those foreshots can then be used for cleaning or in your vehicles screen wash bottle without issue.
Again, well put in your original post - this is just to repost the information to those who might not have read it in earlier posts or to have bothered to search for it.......
regards
P 
{edit}Here is a nice, handy reference article/chart (from a reputable academic source) about it - making it easy for n00bs to understand why we just need to bin the first part of a run - and only once, unless you/they happen to add a flavouring source that could contain a further measure......{/edit}Statistics: Posted by Phantom — Sun Mar 22, 2015 8:47 am
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