Death by Homebrew

[Pickaxe]

Note at the end of an article i read on same story, they say authorities are checking if they took any "other substances".

Meth Addict Dabbling in Heroin Dies from Home Brew Overdose.

 

[brocky_555]

Must have been a pretty serious infection !

 

[MastersBrewery]

I felt like death this morning after oversampling a 7.8% IPA I kegged up last night. 5 pints in quick succession was a bad idea

 

[punkin]

The suspect substance seems to be methanol which is the first thing to vaporise in a still and should be discarded.
Ethanol is next,(alcohol),and should be kept.
A little knowlege can be a big stuff up.

There is not enough methanol in a normal fermentation to harm you in any worse way than a bad headache. All deaths from methanol poisoning have been traced back to adding methanol or other poisons in to spirits in order to make it cheaper and sell it to others. Much like drug dealers cutting drugs with harmful, but cheap substances.

Methanol comes across in trace amounts right through a distillation in a commercial operation, and is not as fokelore would have it, able to be wholly discarded in foreshots (which is a lot of low boiling point substances) and the commercial operations must test to keep it below threshold limits.



Methanol is created as a byproduct of certain types of fermentations (apples being one of the main players) and drinking a litre of spirits off the still with no foreshot cuts would be the same as drinking 10-12 litres of the cider it was made from and cannot contain anything more harmful than that. What goes in must come out, there's nothing created in there.

So yes, a little knowledge can certainly be a dangerous thing, especially when that knowledge is based on untruths.

 

[3GumsBrewing]

It was home distilled spirits - http://www.warwickdailynews.com.au/news/man-dies-after-drinking-homebrewed-spirits/1900423/

Note that the Warwick news was probably the only one that actually mentioned distillation and spirits. The rest of the media just report it as home brew.

 

[Mattress]

I heard this on the Ten News on googling it for more info I found that news.com.au are reporting as a mystery illness:
http://www.news.com.au/national-news/queensland/one-man-dead-three-critical-after-being-struck-down-by-mystery-illness-at-home-in-ballandean-near-warwick/story-fnii5v6w-1226660883546

This says the Ambo's had to go back after the others got sick 3 hours later.
Must have decided to have a drink for their mate after they found out he was dead.

One of my colleagues recently went to a heroin O/D after someone called and said his mate had collapsed after shooting up.
When they got there they found 2 people collapsed and close to death.
One of them turned out to be the caller. Told them that after he called 000 he thought to himself, well there's an ambulance on the way, I might as well give it a go, what can go wrong.

And these people are allowed to breed.

 

[brentice]

How do you confuse a chub with self saturation?

Must have been drinking.

I may have been drinking home brew. True story

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Grappa - explains it out at Ballanedean - it was my expectation.

 

[Bribie G]

A perfect example of how, whenever the media report on something that you actually have a good knowledge of personally, they get it dead wrong. Makes you wonder about the other 99% of stuff they publish.

 

[Josho]

I would say that if someone is killed by doing this it really is just natural selection,

there is so much info out there online and otherwise that well maybe were better off........

I feel for his family and friends though.

 

[Nick JD]

Makes you wonder about the other 99% of stuff they publish.

Who's dumber, the people who write this ill-informed garbage or those who read it?

 

[GuyQLD]

A perfect example of how, whenever the media report on something that you actually have a good knowledge of personally, they get it dead wrong. Makes you wonder about the other 99% of stuff they publish.

No, pretty sure I'm not wondering at all. I just assume everything is wrong and I'll do my own research if the topic interests me.

 

[pk.sax]

Next time I see a ****** 'guide' or prison hooch thread on here. I'm gonna start with 'die homer, die!'.

 

[punkin]

Newcastle to a bottle top there is something added to the spirits, if indeed that was the cause.

 

[goomboogo]

Next time I see a ****** 'guide' or prison hooch thread on here. I'm gonna start with 'die homer, die!'.

I can see him sitting there drinking hooch, penning the Iliad.

 

[thrillho]

Isnt the first story posted about somwonw dying of homebrew. I remember one article (qld again from memory) wherr the headline was about death by homebrew and the pics they showef were of homebrewed beer. Wasnt ubtil somway through the article that it said they died from alc poisoning from the huge amount of homemade spirits they were making.

Journalists suck arse and are fkn lazy sensationalist ******s.

Some journalists perhaps. Hard to include me in this one, I take offence!


...have a home brew

 

[mwd]

On Ten News this morning they did report it as home distilled spirit.
Reminds me of Saudi Arabia where peoples houses blew up doing illegal spirits when the still went bang.

 

[JDW81]

Funny that, to much oxygen does the same thing. You need carbon dioxide in the air for respiratory drive. This is why oxygen lines in hospitals actually contain about 5% CO2.

Not quite as simple as that. 100% O2 for someone who is healthy won't depress respiratory drive as respiration rate/depth is driven by the level of CO2 in the blood. This has to do with the oxygen-haemoglobin dissociation curve. O2 at quite low concentrations in the inspired air still binds to Hb with such affinity that you will still float around 80% saturation. A partial pressure of oxygen of 50 mmHg will still give you O2 sats of ~80%, so you need to be pretty hypoxic before your body responds by increasing respiration. However, a slightly increased level of blood CO2 will greatly increase your respiratory drive (sensed by various neural structures in the body) as increased CO2 lowers the pH of your blood and can spell bad news if it isn't dealt with (this is irrespective of your O2 saturation).

O2 only depresses respiratory drive in cases where people have a chronic high level of CO2 floating around in the blood (COPD is one such condition). This attenuates the bodies response to CO2 and their respiration is driven by their levels of O2 (which is a much less sensitive system). Giving someone like this O2 can depress their respiratory drive, and in a worst case scenario stop them from breathing.

So yes, oxygen can be a respiratory depressant, but only in people who rely on hypoxic respiratory drive, not hypercapnic respiratory drive.

JD

 

[brettprevans]

Probably drank the heads and tails as well.

Sorry shouldn't discuss that on this forum.

yup. Heads are basicly metho. Soe later parts od head can be used for flavouring but the first few liters are death.

 

[jgriffin]

Not quite as simple as that. 100% O2 for someone who is healthy won't depress respiratory drive as respiration rate/depth is driven by the level of CO2 in the blood. This has to do with the oxygen-haemoglobin dissociation curve. O2 at quite low concentrations in the inspired air still binds to Hb with such affinity that you will still float around 80% saturation. A partial pressure of oxygen of 50 mmHg will still give you O2 sats of ~80%, so you need to be pretty hypoxic before your body responds by increasing respiration. However, a slightly increased level of blood CO2 will greatly increase your respiratory drive (sensed by various neural structures in the body) as increased CO2 lowers the pH of your blood and can spell bad news if it isn't dealt with (this is irrespective of your O2 saturation).

O2 only depresses respiratory drive in cases where people have a chronic high level of CO2 floating around in the blood (COPD is one such condition). This attenuates the bodies response to CO2 and their respiration is driven by their levels of O2 (which is a much less sensitive system). Giving someone like this O2 can depress their respiratory drive, and in a worst case scenario stop them from breathing.

So yes, oxygen can be a respiratory depressant, but only in people who rely on hypoxic respiratory drive, not hypercapnic respiratory drive.

JD

You beat me to it. Breathing 100% pure oxygen (accelerated decompression diving) has certainly never caused me to stop breathing yet CO2 has certainly tried to kill me though!

Back to the original story, i'd be curious to eventually find out how much of this grappa they consumed.

 

[chewy]

I'd say it was homebrew spirit... Probably accidentally made a delicious batch of methanol..

 

[Parks]

yup. Heads are basicly metho. Soe later parts od head can be used for flavouring but the first few liters are death.

This isn't true. Firstly, "metho" is a term used to describe the foul taste added to cleaning alcohol so people don't drink it.

Secondly, it's only the first 50-100ML which could be considered concentrated methanol, and the vast majority of available fermentables produce little to no methanol period.

 

[sillyboybrybry]

yup. Heads are basicly metho. Soe later parts od head can be used for flavouring but the first few liters are death.

If I was to make spirits, I would be doing it on a small scale basis and would be producing only say 1.5 litres of 160 proof.
Glad I dont do it because by your accounting I would have to throw the whole lot away.
But then I would have hot non alcoholic wash... wonder if that is in any way drinkable???

 

[Rowy]

Having lived in Stanthorpe and farmed at Ballendean I thought straight away.........Grappa.........and sure enough Grappa it was. Lots of old stills in that country. Interestingly it appears the 'victims' are relatively young. Didn't quite learn the process perhaps........or just decided to have a skolling competition. I've seen a couple of people peg out from skolling straight commercial spirits let alone something infinitely stronger.

 

[Parks]

So it turns out the old man also distilled diesel. I'd say fair chance someone grabbed the wrong bottle...

 

[punkin]

now we're getting somewhere. Looks like i'm going to win a bottletop.

 

[Parks]

Funny that no article or news report has mentioned the legality of distilling. One guy on Ten news even drank some of his Grappa in front of the camera.

 

[evildrakey]

My Theorycraft here is that they were probably collecting the heads to use as a fuel/solvent rather than throwing each batch away, and perhaps mistakenly they drank a full bottle of pure heads, which would have given those symptoms.

A batch of spirit with small amounts of Methanol would have those immediate heads, a jar full of Methanol/Acetone/other nasties would have done the trick...

One saving grace is that most Australians who distill, seem to do sugar washes, which are not known to produce high levels of Methanol.

 

[sillyboybrybry]

Funny that no article or news report has mentioned the legality of distilling. One guy on Ten news even drank some of his Grappa in front of the camera.

It is perfectly legal to distil alcohol as long as you have a license You must of course keep records and pay excise to the ATO.
You can distil other things but not alcohol if you have a still under 5 litres capacity.

http://www.ato.gov.au/content/66216.htm

 

[_HOME_BREW_WALLACE_]

Before reading the story I thought he might have been electrocuted..........

I know it was Methanol that probably killed the guys, but when reading this bit i straight away thought "KegKing Elements".... ZAP!