Home Distilling

[crashtestdummy]

Alabama is about to cease being the last holdout against homebrewing in the US.

With that in mind, I was reminded of the fact that while it is technically legal to distill in the United States, it requires the payment of substantial excise taxes, even if the distillation is being done for personal use. This makes home distilling illegal in practice. Why? Is it a "just because they can" kind of thing? It's a bit of a historical holdover from Prohibition, but why not get rid of it?

The arguments for the ban, as best I can come up with, are the following:

You'll go blind from methanol poisoning.
This is extremely unlikely. I'd put the risk at about the level of dying of salmonella poisoning from homebrewing. Yes, it's physically possible, but you'd have to be working very hard to do that. In any fermentation, a small proportion of the alcohol produced is methanol. Methanol evaporates before ethanol, so the first bit that you distill will be methanol. This portion will also taste and smell awful. Furthermore, even if it were to get mixed in with the rest of the batch, it'd still only be the same methanol:ethanol ratio that you had in the fermentation step. Thus, the ethanol will likely kill you before the methanol will. Methanol is more of a concern for very large (20+ gallon) batches, and thus easily avoiding to limiting home still size to 5 gallons.

Concentrated alcohol is flammable! You'll blow up your house!
Yes, distilled ethanol that is not condensed is flammable, yet we don't worry about gasoline tanks in our garage or natural gas lines in our kitchen. If we can safely use a gas stove, we can do ok with a still.

Hard liquor is evil and must be limited!
This is actually the argument I understand the most. It's easier to get dangerously drunk on hard liquor than beer in the same way it's easier to kill someone with a gun than a knife. At the same time, we can buy large handles of cheap vodka for far less than the cost of distilling your own alcohol. If you're trying to distill alcohol as a way to get drunk cheaper and easier, you're not very bright.



It's also worth noting that the laws are almost completely unenforceable as they now stand. ATF is stretched way too thin and more concerned about guns than booze, and they have no interest in people who aren't even selling. Still, the fact that it's technically illegal is preventing the creation of an industry like what currently exists for homebrewing.

What say you, AT? Did I miss something? Have the laws not changed simply because people don't care? Is it that those who distill take pride in breaking the law?

 

[JoLLyRoGer]

No, I agree.. As one who has researched this topic the legislation does not support the facts.

#1, you'd die from alcohol poisoning long before you'd go blind from methanol. There is a higher percentage of methanol per volume in regular wine that doesn't get removed than there is in 'shine'. Even a poorly run batch.

The stories come from prohibition days and "moonshiner's greed" when they would cut their shine with cheaper methanol intentionally to turn a higher profit.

I recently read an article where one of the major distilleries famous for whiskey here in the US doesn't even bother with separating off heads.. it's part of their flavor. So it stands to reason that home distillers and micro-distillers would produce an even higher quality/safer product than what is widely available under current law.


#2 yeah, there is a chance of that if you don't exercise some common sense. If you're heating with and open flame and you're still isn't sealed up good then yeah, you can blow yourself up.. but one, you'd have to be in a pretty tight confined area for it to concentrate enough to explode and for another.. If it were legal to distill at home a whole market for stills that were made safe for home use (i.e. electric) would likely follow. Or for that matter, just stick to running a simple pot still off your stove or a hot plate.


#3 You can drink beer, you can drink wine, you can drink hooch.. drunk is drunk.. In fact 80% (that's a number pulled out of my ass but probably pretty accurate) of drunk drivers caught and arrested are drunk off of plain old beer.

The real fact is your body will only tolerate so much alcohol before you piss face drunk. Whether it comes from a 5th of liquor or a keg of beer... It's up to you to be responsible to that end.

 

[Fern]

Can't do home distilling in my state (NC). it's illegal:

Do I need a permit to distill spirituous liquors for my own consumption?

Yes. It is illegal to distill your own liquors without a permit, even for home consumption. 27 CFR 1.21. However, you may only receive a permit if it is found that you are likely to commence operations as a distiller, warehouseman and bottler, rectifier, importer, or wholesaler, as the case may be, within a reasonable period and to maintain such operations in conformity with federal law. 27 CFR 1.24. A distillation operation may not be located in a residence, a yard, a shed, or other enclosure connected with a residence. 26 U.S.C. § 5178. This essentially makes it illegal to operate a non-commercial distilling operation. Nevertheless, an application may be found here.

Fern

 

[JoLLyRoGer]

Can't do home distilling in my state (NC). it's illegal:



Fern

You can't do home distilling (for human consumption) in ANY state... It's against FEDERAL law.

Spirits

You may not produce spirits for beverage purposes without paying taxes and without prior approval of paperwork to operate a distilled spirits plant. [See 26 U.S.C. 5601 & 5602 for some of the criminal penalties.] There are numerous requirements that must be met that also make it impractical to produce spirits for personal or beverage use. Some of these requirements are paying special tax, filing an extensive application, filing a bond, providing adequate equipment to measure spirits, providing suitable tanks and pipelines, providing a separate building (other than a dwelling) and maintaining detailed records, and filing reports. All of these requirements are listed in 27 CFR Part 19.
Spirits may be produced for non-beverage purposes for fuel use only without payment of tax, but you also must file an application, receive TTB's approval, and follow requirements, such as construction, use, records and reports.

http://www.ttb.gov/spirits/faq.shtml#s7

 

[Redrex]

Home Distilling in the US is quickly becoming a very large underground hobby. The only reason that it has not been legalized like wine and beer is two fold but both reasons come back to money.

1. Liquor is taxed at a higher rate then wine or beer and as such the feds are afraid that they would lose millions in tax $$$ This is wrong as lets face it, most people won't take the time to do it themselves and besides you don't save any money doing it that way. You can't compete with the economy of scale the large distillers have. Also look at what happened to the craft beer market after Carter legalized it. Craft brewing took off and gave us a craft beer renaissance that created thousands of jobs and vaulted Sam Adams to the top spot of us owned brewers!

2. Big Liquor is afraid of the competition and that they will lose money to small but "cool" craft distilleries that rise up to compete with them as what happened with beer. They are partly right to fear this but it not grounds to deny us these freedoms!

As to the "You will go blind". BS, it's a myth perpetuated by the US government during Prohibition to scare people away from illegal booze. They are the ones that spread rumors that rum runners were doing this.

New Zealand has had legal home distilling for years and yet no one has blown themselves up. Is making flambe at home illegal? How about frying a turkey?

Join the movement and spread the word. Email your senators and take a stand against stupid laws designed to protect someone else's pocketbook!

Sorry if I'm a bit preachy but I'm pretty familiar with this argument. You could even say I wrote the book on it, I'm the author of The Home Distiller's Workbook 😉

If you are on facebook you should come buy and join the conversation. www.facebook.com/thehomedistiller

 

[Dirigible]

What say you, AT? Did I miss something? Have the laws not changed simply because people don't care? Is it that those who distill take pride in breaking the law?

I say the difficulties the government imposes on distilling spirits yourself is is yet another unwarranted restriction on personal freedom. It pisses me off. Government is far too ready to make such restrictions and awfully slow to remove any.

If I ever run for office (I won't) my platform will be the removal of unnecessary laws and simplification of overcomplicated laws.

 

[colonelciller]

You'll go blind from methanol poisoning.
In any fermentation, a small proportion of the alcohol produced is methanol. Methanol evaporates before ethanol, so the first bit that you distill will be methanol.

good luck keeping the 2 separate. people do not generally have anywhere near the required technical sophistication to keep the 2 separate. even among highly trained scientists... years of daily work in laboratories... day-in day-out, I've observed astonishing ineptitiude, incompetence, sloppy techniques, and countless experiments gone wrong dur to faulty assumptions.

and yet a joe schmoe is going to perform this chemistry experiment correctly in his poorly lit disheveled garage with some bent tubing on his weekend and between shifts? not a chance.

This portion will also taste and smell awful.

😕
but it won't be a separate portion because a lot of that will be mixed in with the rest of the batch,.. every batch due to poor training, bad internet advice, lack of skill, lack of precision, improper equipment, unintentional sloppiness... etc, etc, etc. the point being the poision will be diluted in the final product, not purified in a separate and distinct aliquot... it'll be in the bottle you serve up to your buddies.

Furthermore, even if it were to get mixed in with the rest of the batch, it'd still only be the same methanol:ethanol ratio that you had in the fermentation step.

😵
this point is irrelevant and shows a general lack of understanding that is quite frankly jaw droppingly astonishing. would you say that the relative concentration of poison per unit volume in an improperly distilled spirit compared to a home-brewed beer is higher or lower? 😵

 

[colonelciller]

that said, i support people's right to brew tasty beer and distill poisonous firewater at home for non-commercial use.

if only private citizens could out-lobby the alcohol producers... but that'll never happen as long as lobbying creates a path to power

 

[woolfe9998]

Of course they're going to make you pay taxes and get a license. If not you can sell it without sales and alcohol taxes which are imposed on commercial sales. While I'm sure the alcohol manufactures have lobbied for these laws, they have a point. What is the difference between this and the issue with internet sales not being subject to sales tax while B&M are? The B&M retailers also have a point. It puts them at a competitive disadvantage if their sales are taxed and the others are not.

I think it should be fine to produce it at home for personal use. I'm not even that concerned about the safety issues as people can subject themselves to that voluntarily if they want and we don't need to protect them from themselves. But how can we guarantee they aren't selling it to other people? Not only are the sales un-taxed, but what about labeling requirements which are imposed on commercial brands like telling the buyer the alcohol content? Are those going to be followed by home brewers any more than the taxes?

 

[crashtestdummy]

good luck keeping the 2 separate. people do not generally have anywhere near the required technical sophistication to keep the 2 separate. even among highly trained scientists... years of daily work in laboratories... day-in day-out, I've observed astonishing ineptitiude, incompetence, sloppy techniques, and countless experiments gone wrong dur to faulty assumptions.

and yet a joe schmoe is going to perform this chemistry experiment correctly in his poorly lit disheveled garage with some bent tubing on his weekend and between shifts? not a chance.

As one of those scientists, I don't know who you work around, but separating water, methanol, and ethanol really isn't that hard. Methanol comes of at a far lower temperature (about 14C) than ethanol does. Two runs through a still and you'll be able to fraction off the vast majority of methanol just by discarding the heads, which smell/taste awful.

😕
but it won't be a separate portion because a lot of that will be mixed in with the rest of the batch,.. every batch due to poor training, bad internet advice, lack of skill, lack of precision, improper equipment, unintentional sloppiness... etc, etc, etc. the point being the poision will be diluted in the final product, not purified in a separate and distinct aliquot... it'll be in the bottle you serve up to your buddies.

😵
this point is irrelevant and shows a general lack of understanding that is quite frankly jaw droppingly astonishing. would you say that the relative concentration of poison per unit volume in an improperly distilled spirit compared to a home-brewed beer is higher or lower? 😵

It takes about 10mL methanol to make you go blind. The recommended daily maximum intake is about 1mL/day. Lets set that as our standard. Almost no methanol is produced in grain or sugar fermentation. Fruits contribute methanol through pectins, but even then only at most about 0.5% of the alcohol produced is methanol. At that rate, even if you didn't separate the methanol from the rest of your distillation, you'll need to drink 200mL of ethanol to reach 1mL methanol (about 11 drinks). To reach 10mL, the point where you go blind, you would need to consume 2000mL ethanol, or 110 drinks.

Hence why I said the ethanol will kill you first.

Of course they're going to make you pay taxes and get a license. If not you can sell it without sales and alcohol taxes which are imposed on commercial sales. While I'm sure the alcohol manufactures have lobbied for these laws, they have a point. What is the difference between this and the issue with internet sales not being subject to sales tax while B&M are? The B&M retailers also have a point. It puts them at a competitive disadvantage if their sales are taxed and the others are not.

I think it should be fine to produce it at home for personal use. I'm not even that concerned about the safety issues as people can subject themselves to that voluntarily if they want and we don't need to protect them from themselves. But how can we guarantee they aren't selling it to other people? Not only are the sales un-taxed, but what about labeling requirements which are imposed on commercial brands like telling the buyer the alcohol content? Are those going to be followed by home brewers any more than the taxes?

By that standard, we have the same problem with homebrewing. The answer is that the the government isn't really interested in small operations. If I were to sell a five gallon batch of beer to my neighbor, no one will care. If I'm brewing 200 gallons a month and selling kegs to the local bars, however, people will take notice.

 

[smackababy]

For personal consumption, I see no problem with home distilleries. Ideally, it should be under the same laws as home breweries and tobacco growing.

However, I am against it based on the idea that, if legalized, I will be forced to try all my friends awful whiskey concoctions. =(

 

[JoLLyRoGer]

good luck keeping the 2 separate. people do not generally have anywhere near the required technical sophistication to keep the 2 separate. even among highly trained scientists... years of daily work in laboratories... day-in day-out, I've observed astonishing ineptitiude, incompetence, sloppy techniques, and countless experiments gone wrong dur to faulty assumptions.

and yet a joe schmoe is going to perform this chemistry experiment correctly in his poorly lit disheveled garage with some bent tubing on his weekend and between shifts? not a chance.

😕
but it won't be a separate portion because a lot of that will be mixed in with the rest of the batch,.. every batch due to poor training, bad internet advice, lack of skill, lack of precision, improper equipment, unintentional sloppiness... etc, etc, etc. the point being the poision will be diluted in the final product, not purified in a separate and distinct aliquot... it'll be in the bottle you serve up to your buddies.

😵
this point is irrelevant and shows a general lack of understanding that is quite frankly jaw droppingly astonishing. would you say that the relative concentration of poison per unit volume in an improperly distilled spirit compared to a home-brewed beer is higher or lower? 😵

You really don't have any idea what you're talking about here do you? You're just regurgitating some crap you probably read off of ask.com or yahoo answers without any grasp of reality and it's obvious.

If you want to discuss facts, let's appeal to a higher authroity on the matter... I'll take it a study from the EPA will suffice?.... great..

Let's review this study and then we can begin our little pissing match from there... Naturally, I'm going to highlight bits and pieces that support my point of view and you're free to do the same... After-which we will let the court of public opinion decide...

OBJECTIVES: In the past, some moonshine products contained potentially toxic contaminants. Although moonshine production continues in the United States, no studies have analyzed the content of moonshine since the early 1960s. We hypothesize that moonshine continues to contain potentially toxic concentrations of contaminants.

METHODS: Forty-eight samples of illicitly distilled moonshine were obtained from law enforcement agencies. An independent laboratory, blinded to both the moonshine source and a control sample of ethanol, conducted the analysis. Lead content was determined using atomic absorption spectrophotometry with a graphite tube atomizer. Alcohol content, including ethanol, acetone, isopropanol, methanol, and ethylene glycol, was determined using gas liquid chromatography with flame ionization detection.

RESULTS: Ethanol content ranged from 10.5% to 66.0% with a mean value of 41.2%. Lead was found in measurable quantities in 43 of 48 samples with values ranging from 5 to 599 parts per billion (ppb) with a mean value of 80.7 ppb. A total of 29 of 48 (60%) of samples contained lead concentrations above or equal to the EPA water guideline of 15 ppb. Methanol was found in only one sample at a concentration of 0.11%. No samples contained detectable concentrations of acetone, isopropanol, or ethylene glycol.

CONCLUSIONS: Many moonshine samples contain detectable concentrations of lead. Extrapolations based on the described moonshine lead content suggest that chronic consumers of moonshine may develop elevated lead concentrations. Physicians should consider lead toxicity in the differential diagnosis when evaluating patients consuming moonshine.

http://hero.epa.gov/index.cfm?action=reference.details&reference_id=1047133

So you see... it's not the Methanol you need to be so concerned with.. it's Lead... (We'll address both matters individually.)

SPEAKING OF LEAD.:

43 of 48 of sampels in the study had lead.. One is only left to ASS-U-ME that the other 5 did not... Why is that? If it were a problem with the mash itself you might wonder then why was lead not found in ALL samples.. The answer is obvious - it's the equipment used to distill.

Take into consideration that there are no standards or regulatory bodies on the construciton of back yard stills. People are free to use what they wish.. Quite commonly, stills are made up of a good amount of copper. How does one mate copper?. Probably the most common and traditional way is to use solder and sweat fittings. What is solder made up of? Just your run of the mill drive down to radio shack and get it variety is largely tin and lead.

If you weren't a plumber, had no knowledge of building codes, failed to do any reasearch first and just jumped right in you would likely assume solder is solder.... FALSE.. There is leaded solder and then there is the lead free variety specifically used for plumbing. But even "lead free" solder can contain up to 0.2% lead. Even today's copper alloy fittings which are commonly used to connect copper pipes an commonly found in a still build can still contain lead. http://www.copper.org/environment/sdwa/sdwa_faq.html
Alcohol is a solvent and when vaporized under pressure in a still is going to pick up whatever impurities are introduced to it - lead from shoddy constructed stills using leaded solder for pipe fittings included...

Another practice some 'shiners' put to use is using an old car radiator as a condenser. Guess what. They contain lead! There is yet another source! I even saw one condenser design where someone was stripping out the heating elements of old baseboard heaters because of the fins in order to make an air-cooled condenser. I'd give him an 'A' for creativity, but an 'F' for common sense.

The point of the fact is simple: Exercise a little common damn sense. If you don't want impurities in your alcohol - don't introduce them in the first place. Stick to stainless steel and pure copper. Use only new copper certified for drinking water and only use something organic and non-toxic (see flour paste) to seal it all up with.

METHANOL (wood alcohol):

Only 1 sample...out of 48 had it.. only one. Why? I have no idea.. Maybe the shiner didn't pull off the heads. Could have even been the mash he used, but by and large it apparently isn't the widespread problem it's made out to be.
Here again a little bit of research and common sense applies.

FACT: When fermenting part of the process will produce a slight amount of methanol.

FACT: It takes pectin for yeast to work on to produce methanol.

FACT: Pectin counts are found much higher in fruits than in grains (Apples and Peaches containing some of the highest counts.)

Here is a nice little aricle about Aspartame dangers but at the same time does a nice job of explaining the relationship between Methyl Alcohol and pectin. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/11/11/aspartame-dangers.aspx

FACT: Fermenting a straight sugar/water wash produces zero Methanol (zero pectin - zero Methanol).

FACT: Methanol boils off at a lower temperature (at around 148 deg F @ 14.7PSI or 1 BAR.) than Ethanol (closer to 178 degrees) so contrary to your position.. with a controlled heat source yes you can separate them and depending on the technique you can separate them very distinctly like with a column reflux still. It's nothing that Joe in his back yard couldn't wrap his head around with a little research because Joe isn't necessarily a toothless hillbilly that counts to 20 on fingers and toes. "Joe" in many cases could be a Doctor or an Engineer, he might even be a Chemestry teacher so cast you stereotypes aside and forget what you've seen on the Discovery Channel.

But an any case, this is just another example of risk mitigation using common sense. Simply put, don't ferment apple juice, etc. Stick to grains and sugar. AND.. pay attention to what you're distilling.. Toss the stuff that comes off before 178 degrees. Or a good rule of thumb is toss the first 10ml for every gallon of wash you plan to distill.

I'M NOT DONE YET...

Getting back to the study.. now let's use their numbers and play that game... In the ONE sample that they did find Methanol. It was at a concentration of 0.11% or .0011 if you will
According to a Toxicity report from the EPA:

1. Humans - Ingestion of 80 to 150 mL of methanol is usually fatal to humans (HSDB 1994)

and

Density d20/4, 0.7915 g/mL Budavari et al. 1989

http://www.epa.gov/chemfact/s_methan.txt


This next reference from Wikipedia:

Methanol has a high toxicity in humans. If as little as 10 mL of pure methanol is ingested, for example, it can break down into formic acid, which can cause permanent blindness by destruction of the optic nerve, and 30 mL is potentially fatal,[17] although the median lethal dose is typically 100 mL (4 fl oz) (i.e. 1–2 mL/kg body weight of pure methanol[18]). Reference dose for methanol is 0,5 mg/kg/day.[19]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol#cite_note-Vale-17

So now lets go off the absolute worst case example and lets use Wikipedia's info as the word of God in this instance. Given the stated concentration of 0.11% there exists the potential to consume roughly 1.1mL of Methanol if you were to drink an entire litre of the stuff.

That's a lot of alcohol and we're not talking about your off the shelf 40% ABV whiskey here. This stuff is very likely 60% at a minimum and potentially up to 95% ABV. My money is on you getting piss face drunk and passing out long before you got anywhere close to a dangerous concentration.

But let's say I'm wrong about that and you have God-like superpowers that allow you drink like a fish swims. You'd still need to consume almost 10 liters of the 'bad hooch' to get you to the 10mL mark!! That's over 2-1/2 Gallons Jack!! And oh, one more thing.. Those numbers assume you are drinking pure straight up Methanol but here comes the screw... The mass quantities of Ethanol you've been consuming all night is in and of itself an antidote to (drumroll please......) you guessed it. Methanol! Ethanol acutally inhibits your ability to metablolize the Methanol into formaldehyde and formic acid (what REALLY makes you go blind) since the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase prefers the Ethanol.

In other words, IF there even is Methanol present... the Ethanol dilutes the Methanol - (figuratively speaking) so that you body can either A) metabolize it at a non-toxic level, or B) in an EXTREME case - and by extreme I'm saying you ingest 300mL plus... the Ethanol will hold off the metabolism of the Methanol long enough for you to get your ass to an ER and on some dialysis

You can read all about that tasty little tidbit here courtesy of the Western Journal of Medicine:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1306022/pdf/westjmed00175-0045.pdf

In Closing: The likelyhood of you injuring yourslef from distilling your own alcohol is already pretty low. If you apply a little bit of legwork to get the facts and add in a dose of common sense the the risk becomes remote in the extreme. It's like anything else.. learn how to swim before you dive in head first and you'll not drown. Swimming is a pretty safe and fun activity once you've learned how to do it. Same applys here.

OTOH, it's people like you that keep parroting the same old rubbish instead of searching for truth which is why this hobby is so widely misunderstood. Which ultimately leads to why we have stupid laws in place that have no basis and consequently people in jail having their lives stripped away over some nonsense. So next time before you go off half-cocked spewing a bunch of regurgitated blather and fearmongering and posting up funny faces to get your point across. Do us all a favor - do yourself a favor. Get the facts first.

K-Thx.