[ryandamm]

Missed in the previous discussion: methanol is irrelevant. Grain based ferments have essentially zero methanol.(And methanol risk is a function of its concentration relative to ethanol — the treatment for methanol poisoning is… ethanol!) even fruit based fermentations with significantly higher pectin concentrations only produce trace methanol, and it’s not all that well concentrated in a distillation due to azeotropes (which also says that throwing out the heads doesn’t help that much).

Methanol poisoning stories in the news almost exclusively result from people trying to sell denatured or industrial alcohol. The biggest risk in home distilling is fire.

[delichon]

> the treatment for methanol poisoning is… ethanol!

My grandpa drank a shot of schnapps every night and called it his medicine. I thought it was a euphemism but apparently he was actually taking an antidote prophylactically. You can't be too careful. He never once got methanol poisoning.

[PyWoody]

Was his doctor Dr. McGillicuddy?

[jppope]

> Methanol poisoning stories in the news almost exclusively result from people trying to sell denatured or industrial alcohol

Pretty sure this was a relic of prohibition right? The feds would contaminate ethanol with methanol to keep people from drinking it, but then they hurt a bunch of people and never faced any consequences...

[thaumasiotes]

> Pretty sure this was a relic of prohibition right? The feds would contaminate ethanol with methanol to keep people from drinking it

We still do this now. We don't do it because alcohol is illegal, we do it because we levy higher taxes on non-poisonous alcohol, and if someone decides to drink the poisoned alcohol, they deserve what they get.

[VectorLock]

No going to the gas station and getting blitzed on ethanol fuel on a Saturday night.

[d4v3]

More like solvents at the hardware store

[thaumasiotes]

During the covid period, the price of hand sanitizer, which is thickened alcohol, rose to exceed the price of drinkable alcohol.

Several beverage factories proposed to rework themselves to produce sanitizer instead, which would have been good for everyone.

But they couldn't, because federal law would have required them to poison the sanitizer, which would have contaminated their machinery so badly that they would have been unable to switch back to producing drinkable alcohol afterwards.

So - even if we ignore the idea that intentionally poisoning people is wrong - there was a serious cost to the legal regime, one that still exists.

Are there any benefits?

[moron4hire]

> But they couldn't...

This is false. Several breweries and distilleries started producing sanitizer basically overnight [0]. The requirement to add denaturing components to alcohol was suspended during the pandemic specifically to allow it [1].

[0] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/distilleries-aroun...

[1] https://www.ttb.gov/laws-regulations-and-public-guidance/pub...

[aqme28]

I swear there was one cheap sanitizer brand that smelled like tequila. Figured this is what they were doing.

[ciupicri]

> even fruit based fermentations with significantly higher pectin concentrations only produce trace methanol

From https://actamedicamarisiensis.ro/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/...

> Only 18% of the tested 56 samples met UE regulation regarding methanol content of alcoholic beverages (0.4% in alcoholic drinks containing 40% ethanol). The highest concentration of 2.39% was found in a plum brandy. Plum brandies contained significantly higher amounts of methanol than brandies made from other fruits (0.91 vs 0.52%, p = 0.01)

[gostsamo]

As someone living in the Balkans, home brewing is a national passtime for every nation around. When every family has its own recipe for brewing alcohol, killing ourselves would've been achieved many centuries ago if it was a real concern. Methanol is an issue when some dumbshit decides to cell chemically produced trash on industrial scale instead of buying the expensive ingredients.

[htx80nerd]

almost every year there is a news story of some Western tourist visiting another country dying from bootleg methanol alcohol

[gostsamo]

As I said, this happens when someone tries to sell illegally produced trash created not by brewing but with sugar, chemical essence, and whatever they've mistaken for ethanol. The tax on alcohol creates a black market and some people taking part in it are either dumb or lazy and those are the cases you hear about.

[theodric]

Raised and addressed in an earlier post on an earlier article on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47736298#47737600

[jbellis]

> the treatment for methanol poisoning is… ethanol!

I looked this up, it is directionally correct but if you are in a hospital setting they have better options https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK482121/

[cucumber3732842]

Was it missed or intentionally downplayed/ignored because people came into the discussion with priors that they were eager to maintain?

Seems like these sorts of "yes it could be unsafe in theory but the reality of physics and incentives make this mostly irrelevant" type things get missed far too often certain parts of the internet to be coincidence.

That said, the fact that it dropped on a weekend did it no favors the first time around.

[ch4s3]

Speaking as a brewer, I can tell you that tons of people who should know better actually believe the methanol thing and will even quote some sciency words to make their argument. I think its a case of bad information coming from black market distilling being propagated uncritically. People who know better (licensed distillers) have no incentive to argue against it.

[mattmaroon]

I did mention all of that. When the same topic came up a few days ago.

[jasonwatkinspdx]

> even fruit based fermentations with significantly higher pectin concentrations only produce trace methanol

Would using pectinase to break it down first reduce the risk?

[ryandamm]

It would make it worse, by making the pectin available to be fermented!

[jasonwatkinspdx]

Ah I see.