US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional
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Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional
#2Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47736298
Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional
#3Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47736298
Wasn’t great. Would love a second attempt focused on distilling not individualist v collectivist or immigration.
(Except for relevant connections around sharing your creations with neighbors and/or internationally inspired novel spirits.)
Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional
#4Missed 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.
Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional
#5Missed 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 azeotrope…
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.
Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional
#6[deleted]
Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional
#7Missed 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 azeotrope…
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 t…
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.
Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional
#8Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional
#9Missed 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 azeotrope…
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.
Re: US appeals court declares 158-year-old home distilling ban unconstitutional
#10Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47736298
Wasn’t great. Would love a second attempt focused on distilling not individualist v collectivist or immigration. (Except for relevant connections around sharing your creations with neighbors and/or internationally inspired novel spirits.)
I am not really a fan of liquor, but I do like the idea of having skills which are universally valuable.
If you air dropped me into a random village in Africa I doubt I could 'code for cassava' but I could almost certainly make a living if I knew how to set up a basic pot still and safely create booze.