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US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional

theguardian.com

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Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional

#241

Post by angry_octet »

beasthacker wrote: post #224
angry_octet wrote: post #86

As tourists to sketchy places in Asia discovered, methanol poisoning is a real risk, even from large scale distillation. It is the quality control that matters. Illegal stills make quality control impossible, so legalisation and government certified testing can make it safe. However, this ruling is not about alcohol, it is about dissolving Federal authority exercised via the trade and commerce clause of the Constitut…

I wonder whether government testing actually makes a material difference in food/beverage safety. For example, when I worked for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, I was surprised to discover that the percentage of imported food/beverage actually tested for safety is very low. Like comically, microscopically, unbelievably low. In the United States, I suspect concerns over reputation and civil litigation do more to k…

Funding for inspection agencies has been cut again and again, and likewise mandated lab testing, on the basis of industry self regulation and the low number of incidents in commercial production. Many sources will be even more rigorous than we could imagine.

I think that incidents elsewhere have often been caused by substituting expensive taxed industrial ethanol for cheap industrial methanol. Which is an insane thing to do but money is money.

Until another mass poisoning occurs we will continue trusting paperwork.

Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional

#242

Post by jjtwixman »

eru wrote: post #133
jjtwixman wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean you said it yourself, it's a compromise. Giving the states free reign to terrorise their populations didn't work out so great. The relatively strong federal government of more recent times however seems to have worked out not so badly. Now there's a retarded paedohpile in office starting random wars and of course all bets are off. The US political system actually probably is quite shit, but I don't think it's…

> Giving the states free reign to terrorise their populations didn't work out so great. Be careful not to be anachronistic. When the US was a young country, before telegraphs and railways were widespread, most people's primary interface with the government was perhaps their municipality or at the highest level perhaps their county. > The relatively strong federal government of more recent times however seems to have…

What an interesting and amusing idea. A king for every country.

Anyway.

Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional

#243

Post by angry_octet »

btreecat wrote: post #223
swasheck wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

negligence (especially via ignorance) is a thing. a hobbyist wanting to celebrate their first batch with their buddies can poison them with some smeared hearts. but i get what you’re saying.

No, they really can't. First, if they are not using anything with pectin in it, there isn't a significant amount of methanol at all worth measuring. Second, if they did use fruit skins in the fermentation stage, there still isn't enough methanol to compete with the ethanol, (which is the cure to methanol poisoning) with out intentionally poisoning the batch. You shouldn't push such FUD.

> ethanol, (which is the cure to methanol poisoning)

Now that is completely incorrect. There is no way to prevent metabolism of methanol once it has been ingested, ethanol just competes with it for metabolisis.

Alcohol fermented from fruit byproduct is extremely common in many cultures. It is asinine to think that only grain will be used once this is legalised.

https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/methanol-poisoning-the-c...

If you don't get on dialysis within 24 hours of drinking more than 30mL of ethanol there is high risk of blindness, and higher doses can easily cause death.

Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional

#244

Post by donatj »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #125
donatj wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The antidote to methanol is just ethanol. If you find yourself drinking something untrustworthy you can at least cure yourself with a chaser of an equivalent amount of everclear. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol_toxicity#Treatment

The way you're saying it is deeply irresponsible. The way to deal with methanol poisoning is not "just ethanol", and you cannot "cure yourself" by drinking everclear. If you ever find out you have been drinking methanol by all means do drink safe spirits if you have immediate access to them (after throwing up what you can if you're still in time), but get medical help now . Ethanol will not cure you from methanol poi…

You're not going to get any sort of concerning level of methanol though from home distilling unless you're collecting and drinking just the heads. You'd have to be trying, and even then it would be difficult. It's basically impossible.

Any amount of methanol you're getting from home distilling is going to be easily and safely canceled with alcohol.

https://youtube.com/shorts/opyKKx4rRUs?si=BE_yb1_V0SEkccbq

My family has been home brewing for decades. There's never been an issue.

Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional

#245

Post by cucumber3732842 »

SapporoChris wrote: post #122
dmantis wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many hobbies with which people can kill themselves if they don't understand what they are doing. I don't see how brewing is different. A grown-up person has rights and bears the consequences of negligence and that's totally normal, that's what freedom is. As long as the product is not sold outside but for personal consumption, it must be legal to make without any certifications.

I forget the exact wording, but the seat belt law are a good example of it. Laws are passed to protect the populace from self harm so that society doesn't suffer from it. It probably doesn't apply here because home distillation is very niche. However, if a bunch of people show up in emergency rooms and it drives up health care costs then expect a quick reversal in policy.

> However, if a bunch of people show up in emergency rooms and it drives up health care costs then expect a quick reversal in policy.

How about just don't pay for it? Why is everyone in such a hurry to take people's freedom based on a spreadsheet no less.

Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional

#246

Post by mattmaroon »

avidiax wrote: post #234
leni536 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't distill out pure methanol, as at the boiling point of methanol ethanol also has some vapor pressure, so you distill a mix. However above that boiling point you distilled out all methanol (with a mix of ethanol), and the remaining ethanol should be free from methanol. This also matches what happens when distilling ethanol from water. You can't distill pure ethanol, but you csn distill ethanol-free water afte…

> above that boiling point you distilled out all methanol (with a mix of ethanol) That's not what studies have shown. Methanol boils off in all phases of distillation, and remains in high concentration at least halfway through. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsfoodscitech.3c00627 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsfoodscitech.1c00025

Thank you for finding these! I remembered they existed but not where

Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional

#247

Post by mattmaroon »

mrob wrote: post #100
akersten wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is actually a myth. I’ll have to see if I can find the papers I read but mass spectrometry has shown that methanol comes out throughout the entire process. The idea that things come out at their boiling temperature is a drastic oversimplification. Please do find those papers! They may be describing a radical new chemistry that I'm not familiar with. To be clear - methanol boils at 64C and ethanol boils at 78C.…

>They may be describing a radical new chemistry that I'm not familiar with. It's probably pot still vs. reflux still. Chemists use fractionating columns to get better separation. Home distillers won't necessarily do so, so official advice has to assume they will not.

Yeah column stills exist for home use but they’re not very popular. They’re big and expensive and strip flavor. It’s probably because Home distilling, like home brewing, is largely focused on the craft side rather than trying to get drunk cheaply.

If you’re trying to get drunk cheaply, and without tasting liquor, you cannot beat the product and efficiency of a column still.

But I want my whiskey or apple brandy to have the characteristics of the mash I distill it from. A column still would reduce that.

So most home distilling is a pot still for sure.

Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional

#248

Post by mattmaroon »

mattmaroon wrote: post #196
avadodin wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would assume it depends on what you are distilling. If you are making brandy from clarified wine, it probably separates better than rotten grape mash. It is still a continuum with some methanol molecules likely remaining even in the tails. For all intents and purposes, the distiller's rule of thumb of throwing away the angels' share is still going to work because low methanol concentrations are never an issue —for…

You throw away the foreshots because they also contain things like acetone that taste bad and may be harmful. They’re highly unpalatable so people can be relied on to do a sufficient job.

Also “Angel’s share” isn’t what you throw away, it’s what evaporates from the barrel when you age. What you throw away are the foreshots and parts of the heads and tails

Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional

#249

Post by mattmaroon »

froh wrote: post #76
AngryData wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I understood ethanol and methanol form an azeotrope and boil together at a mixed temperature. And the going blind stuff is just prohibition propaganda both to make home distilled alcohol seem dangerous and to scapegoat the fact that the government was actively poisoning "industrial" ethanol.

this is dangerously wrong in several dimensions methanol and ethanol do not form an azeotrope with each other, they only (both, each) bind to water. that's why separation of methanol and ethanol by holding key temperatures works at all. furthermore, the azeotrope effect only becomes relevant at concentrations beyond 90% alcohol. so when you're producing pure methanol and ethanol, then distillation won't cut it beyond…

Methanol will certainly make you go blind if you consume it at too high a ratio, it just isn’t a risk when distilling because you can’t feasibly make that happen on accident and it would be hard to even do it on purpose. I think that’s what parent likely meant.

Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional

#250

Post by dnnddidiej »

hilbert42 wrote: post #228
adzm wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, ethanol is an antidote to methanol

Where's the authority on that? Ethanol can be used as a temporary measure in methanol poisoning as it temporarily outcompetes methanol in the metabolic process. So it's only useful until proper medical help arrives when better alternatives such as fomepizole are administered. Even then there is no guarantee of success. Methanol is still metabolized to dangerous formaldehyde and formic acid by the liver's alcohol dehy…

It is technically an antidote though. Based on the definition of antidote.
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