Death by Homebrew

[Phoney]

Alcohol was usually administered through a drip, but Dr Pillans said the hospital ran out so they had to feed Mr Lynam vodka through a nasal-gastric tube.

That's how I always drink vodka!

 

[punkin]

Beaten to the link, but i still say my bottletop is looking good. You would be comatose or dead from ethanol poisoning looong before any methanol poisoning if you drank any normal accepted fermentation, distilled or not.

I have never seen a link or any evidence to refute this.
Every time one of these cases hit the news across the world there is the same story behind it, usually for profit, occasionally from ignorance, but it involves people drinking chemicals that have been added to an ethanol mix or just plain methanol/antifreeze ect being drunk.

I agree that some respect should be shown, but i don't understand why Ross wants the thread to die.

 

[felten]

Bah, just this morning heard this reported on 3AW as a "tainted batch of home brew" claiming 3 lives, no clarification at all.

 

[wombil]

Don't know about killing this thread.
There would be a lot of people who read this forum and make spirits too,or have access to methanol and are not aware of the dangers thereof.
If the message gets through and saves someone a lot of grief then it has served a purpose.

 

[mattdean4130]

What a crock of shit. I am drinking a VB clone and im ok :icon_drunk:

You cloned, VB? Why on earth would you do that? That's a waste of tapwater!

 

[punkin]

For those here who are still sticking to the view that making a foreshots cut would have removed any methanol from the grappa please view the report here...

http://bookshop.europa.eu/en/a-study-on-the-possibilities-to-lower-the-content-of-methyl-alcohol-in-eaux-de-vie-de-fruits-pbCGNA16864/


excerpt;

Investigating the behaviour of methanol during the distillation it appears, that methanol is a companion of ethanol and therefore, by the possibilities of pot still distillation(2.3), rather hard to separate from ethanol. The investigation shows that there is in g/hl p.a. [pure alcohol] an increase of methanol contents during the distillation and especially in the last fractions (tailings). This is caused by the fact that methanol is, in spite of the lower boiling point (64,8°C) compared to ethanol (78,3°C), carried over in the distillate later than ethanol, an observation that is also confirmed by former investigations and in the literature.
The molecule structures however, show another aspect: ethanol has got one more CH2-group which makes the molecule less polar. So, concerning polarity, methanol can be ranged between water and ethanol and has therefore in the water phase a distillation behaviour different from ethanol. This may explain the behaviour which is rather contrary to the boiling points. This is no single appearance, because for example ethylacetate with a boiling point of 77°C, or, as an extreme case, is oamylacetate with 142°C are even carried over much earlier than methanol. Therefore methanol can not be separated using pot stills or normal column stills. Only special columns can separate methanol from the distillate(4.3).

These guys could not have died from drinking unadulterated home made spirits made from sugar, fruit or grains.