Sounds like this fermentation and distillation process needs some judicious experimentation...

Yeah... and now I know it's no wonder that we frequently hear people being poisoned by methanol in the news.... the distillation process is a very delicate one from what I'm learning here...

 

Whew! Good thing I'm a cautious person. I would never let any part of my batch go to Fahrenheit 451. (Isn't that a book by Kurt Vonnegut?)

A Martha Stewart cooking tip: Strain your mash through some panty hose to remove (almost) everything except liquids.

 

A Martha Stewart cooking tip: Strain your mash through some panty hose to remove (almost) everything except liquids.

Did this cooking tip come from her book,"Shanks that I have know and loved",??

 

Whew! Good thing I'm a cautious person. I would never let any part of my batch go to Fahrenheit 451. (Isn't that a book by Kurt Vonnegut?)

A Martha Stewart cooking tip: Strain your mash through some panty hose to remove (almost) everything except liquids.

​

 

Why everybody look so strange? Pantyhose work great for taking the pulp out of orange juice. No solids, no cellulose.

I filtered a 30 gallon batch through one pantyhose.

 

Panty Hose !!!!
Got to get me one of those.

 

One glass, add 1.5 oz favorite whiskey, splash of cold filtered water (for the engineers, no more than 0.25 oz).

Sniff, sip, repeat.

 

Methanol is naturally occurring in fruits and a small amount can be produced naturally in fermentation. The problem is that a "small amount" is still a lot - a single shot of methanol can blind and/or kill you. It will come off first in the still and that's why you toss the low-boiling fraction.

I can never remember the ethanol vs methanol heat sequence, but your correct. Back in the 'bootlegger' days they said the blindness was coming from lead, some moonshiners used car radiators for the cooling of the distillate, but it was the methanol that was causing the problems.

 

I can never remember the ethanol vs methanol heat sequence, but your correct. Back in the 'bootlegger' days they said the blindness was coming from lead, some moonshiners used car radiators for the cooling of the distillate, but it was the methanol that was causing the problems.

what a dirty (literally) business that bootlegging period was!

 

...but it was the methanol that was causing the problems.

Glycols from the residual coolant didn't help either!

 

Bootlegging is still with us. During prohibition, it was the only game in town.

 

what a dirty (literally) business that bootlegging period was!

The level of stupidity was astonishing. Besides using anything that would hold water, some fools added adulterants based purely on superstition. I hate to recite some of the stories I have heard because they would strain belief. Finding documentation might be as easy as Googling it or as difficult as finding that all Internet entries are equally suspicious.

 

Bootlegging is still with us. During prohibition, it was the only game in town.

That's a good point... which was more stupid, bootlegging or prohibition?

 

That's a good point... which was more stupid, bootlegging or prohibition?

In my opinion, trying to legislate morality is a mistake, but this quickly becomes political, a banned subject on this site. I also think that when our government made laws respecting marriage, they bought a pig in a poke while violating the Constitutional Ban on mixing government with religion. Some say, "Allow all drugs and let the Darwin Awards proliferate." Some say the government should regulate who can be married.

You have asked a very large question. I do not expect it to be answered to the satisfaction of anyone.

 

About the only thing I drink, and in small quantities, is a little "Apple Pie"
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/grandmas-apple-pie-ala-mode-moonshine/

The store bought stuff is a little weak, but tastes ok.

 

In my opinion, trying to legislate morality is a mistake, but this quickly becomes political, a banned subject on this site. I also think that when our government made laws respecting marriage, they bought a pig in a poke while violating the Constitutional Ban on mixing government with religion. Some say, "Allow all drugs and let the Darwin Awards proliferate." Some say the government should regulate who can be married.

You have asked a very large question. I do not expect it to be answered to the satisfaction of anyone.

You're right... it's better if we don't go there... but in IMHO trying to prohibit something that has been part of the human culture (and that also happens to be a healthy habit in the appropriate amounts... like any other food) since humans were human, is beyond stupid.

 

As a, "tee-totaler" I would tend to disagree, but many reports recently suggest that a small amount of wine is a healthy thing (for most people) to do.

 

As a, "tee-totaler" I would tend to disagree, but many reports recently suggest that a small amount of wine is a healthy thing (for most people) to do.

My point exactly... but it's kind of hard not to over-indulge sometimes.

 

If I had to drink wine to be healthy, I would hold my nose and make bad faces.

 

I recently watched program on aging carried out by a eminent woman doctor using a larger group of elderly patients over an extended period of time.
The object to see what possible influences the ones that lived to a 'ripe old age' all had in common.
It was realized that genes and heredity can also play a part, but there were a few things that stood out that they all had in common, One of them was, without almost any exception, they indulged in a moderate daily intake of alcohol of some kind.
Max.