5 ms·

How's your eyesight?

by ihalip 5mo ago

jimnotgym 5mo ago
Looks like they didn't see your comment
ane 5mo ago
Depends what you make it from. If you distill eight litres of wine into about a litre brandy without removing methanol, it has the same amount of methanol than eight litres of wine did. Given the average of 150mg/l of methanol in red wine, this puts it to about 1g of methanol in that amount. That is not healthy, but you need to keep in mind ingestion of alcohol slows down the metabolism of methanol through competition and the methanol will be excreted by your kidneys instead of being metabolized. So, just like you won't go blind from a bottle of brandy, you won't go blind from distilled wine. However, you're likely to have a serious headache the morning after.
RealityVoid 5mo ago
Not great, but I'm not blind.
inglor_cz 5mo ago
The eastern part of Czechia (Moravia) plus Slovakia will distill anything that grows, too, and methanol poisonings are almost non-existent here. Don't underestimate centuries of tradition and know-how. The only exception was a methanol affair 15 years ago, but that had nothing to do with home distillation. In that particular case, two bozos inspired by a badly understood Wikipedia article bought and mixed enormous amounts of industrial methanol with ethanol and sold the resulting mixture on the black market, killing dozens of people and triggering a temporary prohibition as the authorities scrambled to find all the poisoned booze. They are now both serving life.
- ihalip 5mo ago
  Not underestimating, but I've seen first hand how these are made, from my uncles and neighbours as I'm from rural Romania. The equipment may not be clean, people tend to get drunk because QA is literally drinking it and that affects the next batch, the precursor fruits could be half rotten, etc. I appreciate homemade spirits because of the genuine taste, but be aware of the conditions they're made in.
  - ciupicri 5mo ago
    > The equipment may not be clean Same could be said about food: dishes, knives etc. Anyway the high temperature should kill some of the germs. > the precursor fruits could be half rotten So what?
- ciupicri 5mo ago
  It's the same in Romania. Basically there shouldn't be any issues with drinking home made alcohol, it's like eating a home made cake. We also had some cases of crap being sold, but that's a different thing.

How's your eyesight?

by ihalip 5mo ago

How's your eyesight?

jimnotgym 5mo ago

Looks like they didn't see your comment

ane 5mo ago

Depends what you make it from. If you distill eight litres of wine into about a litre brandy without removing methanol, it has the same amount of methanol than eight litres of wine did. Given the average of 150mg/l of methanol in red wine, this puts it to about 1g of methanol in that amount. That is not healthy, but you need to keep in mind ingestion of alcohol slows down the metabolism of methanol through competition and the methanol will be excreted by your kidneys instead of being metabolized. So, just like you won't go blind from a bottle of brandy, you won't go blind from distilled wine. However, you're likely to have a serious headache the morning after.

RealityVoid 5mo ago

Not great, but I'm not blind.

inglor_cz 5mo ago

The eastern part of Czechia (Moravia) plus Slovakia will distill anything that grows, too, and methanol poisonings are almost non-existent here. Don't underestimate centuries of tradition and know-how. The only exception was a methanol affair 15 years ago, but that had nothing to do with home distillation. In that particular case, two bozos inspired by a badly understood Wikipedia article bought and mixed enormous amounts of industrial methanol with ethanol and sold the resulting mixture on the black market, killing dozens of people and triggering a temporary prohibition as the authorities scrambled to find all the poisoned booze. They are now both serving life.

ihalip 5mo ago
Not underestimating, but I've seen first hand how these are made, from my uncles and neighbours as I'm from rural Romania. The equipment may not be clean, people tend to get drunk because QA is literally drinking it and that affects the next batch, the precursor fruits could be half rotten, etc. I appreciate homemade spirits because of the genuine taste, but be aware of the conditions they're made in.
- ciupicri 5mo ago
  > The equipment may not be clean Same could be said about food: dishes, knives etc. Anyway the high temperature should kill some of the germs. > the precursor fruits could be half rotten So what?
ciupicri 5mo ago
It's the same in Romania. Basically there shouldn't be any issues with drinking home made alcohol, it's like eating a home made cake. We also had some cases of crap being sold, but that's a different thing.