Testing chemicals in homebrew

[Distillingchris]

As i have been ill and now a little parnoid if it was my alcohol that did it even thought i have been told my liver, kidneys etc are fine and its just a long virus, i am wondering what are the different types on chemicals in alcohol and what causes what. It would be intresting if you could split it up and test your own to store bought to see what was in it. Also when taking stripping run and leaving foreshots in, so say you do 6 stripping runs, then you do one spirit run and throw first 50ml, is that ok or should you be throwing 300ml as you left in foreshits in the stripping runs.

[chill]

If you are doing proper cuts, I think you will find that what we produce has less bad components than what you can buy. The Complete Distiller has a good list of the components of ferments. Remember that there is nothing in what we produce that is not also in the equivalent "wine". Distillation does not produce anything new, it just concentrates what is there.

50ml in fores from a 23L wash should be good. I use an AirStill and discard 100ml to be on the safe side.

[Frank]

[quote="chaslam07"....... when taking stripping run and leaving foreshots in, so say you do 6 stripping runs, then you do one spirit run and throw first 50ml, is that ok or should you be throwing 300ml as you left in foreshits in the stripping runs.[/quote]

Mate, at the end of the day the method of foreshot removal is up to you....as long as its done in a way that NONE ends up in your drink.
FYI, I dont bother removing fshots during strip runs either on the airstill or potstill. I used to simply keep the 'first bit' of potstill spirit runs too...for future runs only,
BUT a wise old mate explained to me that,
whilst in theory my keep-it-for-the-next-run idea may work ad infinitum,
in practise, things like variable temp/smearing etc etc might mean the 'nasties' get into my hardearned hearts....
so, now on every 40l lowwines, potstill spirit run, I throw at least 500ml into the goodbye jar....and then, after that its feints add for a while anyway....

BTW The 'suitable amount' is oftem quantiifed on this and other distilling webforums and is dependant somewhat on the risk taking vs safety first distillers opinion...

[John51]

There is a Belgium outfit that will test your product. I've lost the link due to a PC crash. Perhaps someone has it?

[Spud1700]

In Australia there is one of the wine testing places in Stanthorpe that will do a range of tests but each test for each compound is around $60. I was thinking it would be good to get a few tests done on some stuff but then you are talking hundreds of dollars. It would be interesting to see what they came up with though.