Fermentation is a natural process that can happen on its own. Imagine getting arrested for forgetting a bottle of unpasteurised applejuice. Distilling doesn't just happen.
@@MyTime1863issues arise with distillation due to the formation of methanol, acetalaldehyde, and highly flammable vapors. You can also get an ethanol license for racing fuel, just don't make it apple or strawberry flavored e90+...
You're spot on about the distillation, people who fuck it up will just die. The other reason is that fermentation sometimes just happens and it'd be stupid if people got arrested for letting their orange juice turn into a fruit wine or mead by mistake.
My guess is the frason why destilling is illegal is taxes. Spirits are probably taxed at a high rate and the government doesnt wan't to miss out on your hard earned money.
@@OneAngryVelociraptor I'm sure there's elements of both, but it's a legit concern. Methanol is easy to produce and difficult to remove during the distillation. Literally leaves you blind if it doesn't outright kill you
@@LifeEnemy Im not really.convinced that the goc cares about the health of so few people considering they don't even care about the health of the entire population.
@@OneAngryVelociraptor It's not that they care... but all regulations are written in the blood of the working class. Would bet money there's a story of some chud who sold homemade spirits and killed a bunch of people which led to mass outrage.
@@OneAngryVelociraptor Or maybe the reason dostilling is illegal is because it can poison people or explode if done wrong. You libertarian freaks are so obsessed woth taxes that it never crosses your mind that the government doesn't want unauthorized and accidental explosions going off in their own country.
Nintendo wishes it was. Give it a couple years, their international corporate police will be kicking down your door for daring to post a five second clip of Mario :)
Here in Tennessee you can do the whole shebang. You can own a still and everything and you can make as much as you want, but you can’t sell any of it. You can, however, give it away completely fine. You can also give it away and also be generously lent $20 from your friend
You're mostly right. For additional context, whiskey was one of the first things that the US taxed after becoming an independent nation. When pennsylvania farmers started a rebellion over whiskey taxes, George Washington and Alexander Hamilton lead the US military in a violent suppression of the rebellion. This, with direct support from the founding fathers, cemented taxation of whiskey as a right of the government. While initially, taxes on hard liquor were used as a means to pay for the debt incurred by the revolution... now the tax dollars collected from hard liquor are used differently. Prohibition happened due to a social movement understanding that alcohol came with a lot of social problems. Women, in particular, lead a campaign against it due to alcohol consumption's confirmed association with domestic violence. Hard liquor, having the highest association. After prohibition, there was still a social incentive to dissuade people away from higher concentrations of alcohol. There were also new problems developed during prohibition, such as shoddy producers using dangerous and toxic methods to create alcohol, stretch their alcohol, or mislabeling their alcohol. And now, there are problems caused from drunk driving, domestic abuse, and homelessness which come from general alcohol consumption. Taxation on hard liquor exists to pay for the programs which mitigate these social problems and production related safety concerns... while artificially increasing the cost of hard liquor, steering people towards lower ABV beverages... helping to mitigate these societal problems.
My guess that it has something to do with taxes. I can't bothered to look it up but spirits and stuff like that are probably taxed differently compared to beer and wine.
distilled beverages are taxed up the wazoo. That's what that little label on the cap/cork is. A tax stamp. The very first domestic product taxed by the US in 1791 was whisky. This led to the Whisky Rebellion. It made those January 6 yahoos look like pussies. Unkie Sammy wants yer money. Wants it bad...
Don't forget the cat, car, goat, neighbors goat, that one stray hamster that visits you on Fridays, your mom, my mom, my mom's mom, her mom, and lastly but not the least of them all baby billy bob Thornton
If you WANTED to distill your mead or wine, but don't want to get a still and a charge, just use your freezer! You can concentrate alcohol to right up around 40% by freezing it, pouring out the remaining liquid, and repeating the process 2-3x. For me, this is the ONLY use I have for hard ciders.
As a Tennesseean, I can confirm nobody follows that distillation law in Tennessee💀 you can literally run down the road to a War vet’s house and get a gallon of lemon moonshine🤣
I used to get big batches from a fellow in North Eastern TN. He made every flavor you could imagine. I'm pretty sure he used Jolly Ranchers to make some of his.
no fuckin way, that sounds delicious. none of that here in cali but if i was able to connect with a moonshine distiller, i’d pay top dollar for some lemon moonshine and video of the process of my batch specifically
That was more about taxes. They started taxing whiskey, which in the rural parts of America was used as money. So they basically had an income tax before the rest of the country did, which was the real reason they rebelled. Not really anything to do with distilling
The reason why distilling is not allowed technically from the home is because of the big alcohol lobby, after prohibition was ended Anheuser-Busch took over the vast majority does alcohol distribution and even until this day for the most part you have to get your alcohol distributed by Anheuser-Busch or coolers Miller if you want to sell it.
Technically this actually isn't the atf s jurisdiction anymore the US had a whole new committee on alcohol and tobacco that is called the TTB. The atf now primarily deal w firearms so they made a committee dedicated to alcohol.
in Germany you can distill all you want and even sell up to 300 liter, over 20.000 small scale distils are in southern Germany; for private use only up to 50 liters
In parts of Alaska, there are "local option" laws that govern this activity. In my community, brewing, fermenting wine, and distilling alcohol for consumption are Class A felony manufacturing.
When I was a kid, my mom would often tell us about her childhood experiences, growing up in the mountains of, Virginia. Many of her friends had parents, or relatives, or neighbors, that were running working stills. Discretion was ALWAYS the rule, as they were all a bit paranoid about being arrested... and understandably so. My mom was new to the area, because her father's job moved them around. He was a mine safety inspector, and payroll handler, for the Westmoreland Coal Company. Always in a suit, carrying a concealed gun in a shoulder holster, and not really being a "church goer". A lot of folks there suspected him of being a revenuer. Even though he routinely denied it, and TOLD MANY of them what he did DO for a living! It didn't matter, at all. "You KNOW how them revenuers lie!" She told us about visiting one of her girl friends houses, one day. The girl's father picked them up at the school, and told my mom (she was ten years old then) that she would have to wear a bag over her head, while he drove, so that she wouldn't see how to get to their house. Why? Because, he had a working still, of course, 'though, he didn't tell her THAT. Her girl friend did, later on... secretly. She wore it, and he apologized to her for the necessity of it. She had to wear it again, when they drove her home, after supper. She said that it was almost two years before he finally lifted that rule with her, and trusted her to visit as she pleased. Apparently, by then, he was finally satisfied that my mom's father was NOT a federal agent, or an undercover cop. 😊
I really wish home distillation was made legal in the US. Hell, I’d be willing to pay and apply for a license and do a training course like I had to do for food handling to work in restaurants.
@@Inkosi_uJabu_Ndlovu rewatch it and find out! Would've taken you like 30 seconds. It's because he mentions the ATF in the video, and just mentioning the alphabet boys gets people rightfully riled up
@@Littlefoot.Hey now, dont diss chegg. Being able to *actually* have answers with step by step reasoning for your textbook practice questions is a godsend for studying.
The rule is, I do whatever the hell I want and make however, much I want and it’s none of their business how much I make. If I’m not selling it, it is absolutely zero of their business.
In some states like Arizona, it's perfectly leagal to make your own alcohol. You just can't sell it or distribute it to anyone that's underage. Also, if you do give it to someone, you have to inform them that you made it yourself so that they're aware and consenting and therefore you're not liable if they get sick.
It's federally illegal thus illegal in every state. Some states have signed legislation to basically set limits when and if it does become federally legal. So basically you are in a situation where the state may not specifically target you but if the feds get a hold of that information they will rain down on you like thunder from the gods. Anymore with the health and safety issues around alcohol and the support for pot I highly doubt you'll ever see it.
@@draconiumwolf8423 again. It isn't. Federally prohibited means illegal everywhere and the supremacy clause in the US constitution explicitly denies state sovereignty. The feds can and will come after you
The distilling part makes me think of how in the soviet union they had to prohibit home brewing in apartments because people kept blowing their apartments up
I work at a Winery here in Iowa working in the vineyard most of the time. Occasionally I assist with processing and bottling wine and mead. The amount of stuff we have to do is crazy, and I find it impressive that some people can do it from home!
I grew up helping my dad make beer, we don't speak anymore, but last I heard, he was opening his own craft brewery. I'm proud of him, I just wish he'd talk to me
Hope all’s well for you and your dad. Maybe him being in the business will have some sort of “take over the family business” cliché happening in the future
@@jacksonbeeftown6908 I wouldn't mind doing that when I'm older and have my own family that I could bring with me, move back into my childhood town where it's at.
@horriblepancake No ones has attacked the us since 2001, which they did themselves. The only reason America has a military is to show power and steal resources.
@@Fi6ment The baby lived. Unfortunately, Samuel Weaver, their mother, and their family dog Striker, died during the Seige on Ruby Ridge. Good news is Randy Weaver and his surviving family members, along with Randy's friend Kevin Harris, sued the FBI and won the lawsuit.
Seriously. The last time I ever heard them regulating anything but firearms is when they bullied a moonshiner in his 60s into suicide because they just felt like it
@@NamelocTheBardOh I've heard them use Alcohol as an excuse before. Was it a lie? Probably. Did someone get shot? Also probably. They're feds, nobody is gonna stop them from whatever accusation they feel like that day
Another tip: If you ever have reason to believe the ATF is mad at you, don't leave your animals outside in the front or back yards. Inside, and maybe with level III body armor on them.
This is Ivan. Ivan is a mannequin packed with 250 pounds of tannerite and wood screws. Ivan will not get on the ground. Ivan will not drop the gun. (There are several reasons this wouldn't work in real life. Just laugh at the meme and move on.)
You just can't distill anything. I however have a cheap "fuel alcohol" permit, and if a little bit of that accidentally falls into a charred new oak barrel for 5-7yrs, I'm sure my "lawnmower" will appreciate it.
These laws do not apply outside the US. In UK you need a license to _sell_ alcohol. You can brew, ferment or distill anything you want, but your product needs to be passed for consumer safety if you plan to sell it and taxes on the product are applicable depending on the alcohol content.
@@yutube4130 that's not what I said. I meant to say that every time you visit a rural area you're bound to find someone making/who made pălincă/horilcă/ţuică out of most things growing in orchards 😅
There's a few reasons for the distillation laws. Primarily, it's health and safety. Much higher risk of toxic contamination, as well as explosions. But it's also the difference in taxation of distilled beverages. There's a lot of tax revenue to be lost if people were allowed to self produce. Similar reasoning in why a lot of states require separate permits for a business to serve beer/wine and spirits.
Fermentation has a near 0 percent chance of causing an explosion meanwhile distilling is a whole nother game . If i was a leader of a place id make it legal at home but mandatory training first and random 2 year interval inspection of equipment / set up so the lead solder days are in the past and no one gets shrapneled to death
Honestly, I disagree here. Alcohol is a drug. The regulations allow us to make 100 gallons per year each (max 200 gallons per dwelling). That's 1.4 bottles of wine per day. The law allows us to, in one sitting, produce enough alcohol to last all but the most severe alcoholics longer than a year. The limit allows us to create enough to be MORE than self sufficient, while preventing so much of an excess that the only rational reason to be creating that much is to sell it without inspections... or to fuel a level of alcoholism that is a danger to others (and grounds for a 5150 and loss of second amendment rights). If it were about the money, they'd be taxing homebrew kits, yeast strains meant for alcohol, and would make it a licensing scheme.
@marcush4741 they do tax them. It's called sales tax. Yes it's less than a beer/wine tax, but they still make money off of you Liquor is not allowed to be distilled at home because they charge far more in taxes to sell liquor than they do beer or wine in the US- and therefore stand to lose a lot more money by letting you distill at home. Even something extremely safe like freeze jacking is still illegal... So no, safety is not and never was the concern
@@davidlane1248it’s a sales tax on the kit. Also, distilling produces methanol which is very toxic to humans. In the US, you can’t sell food without a permit, as well as an inspection from the health department of your kitchen and equipment and temperature logs. Why? So that the product you sell doesn’t get people sick or killed. And when it does happen, (and it happens) the restaurant is shut down, and the owner as well as the employees are held accountable. Why shouldn’t distilling be held to the same standards? The standard being that your product isn’t going to harm or kill anyone. Small amounts of Methanol will kill you. And who would be held accountable? Moonshiners avoid accountability and responsibility. That’s why it’s illegal to distill.
@@davidlane1248 The STATED reasons for banning home distillation without a license are its history of danger. Both as an extreme explosion risk and history of tampering, unsafe metal/material usage, and skimping on safety with inclusion of the heads, You can still get a distillation license at home. They require inspections of your setup equipment and location. Freeze jacking isnt "entirely safe", as you suggest. It concentrates methanol and acetaldehyde faster than ethanol. Both of these have serious health concerns, particularly when starting with fermentables, yeast strains, or conditions which create high levels of these byproducts.
@@Yomamakizmanuts actually thats a myth. even if you got pretty bad mash you wont get more than the legal limit of 7% methanol. youd have to destill idk fermented wood to get worse. the myth comes from prohibition where they used methanol to adulterate their moonshine to increase profits. so as long as you use stuff youd actually eat to destill you cannot produce a high enough methanol content to be below standard.
@@themistvawhich one is fun and which one is lame cuz guns are awesome, idiots (and the people who do tobacco) are not and when you put the two together you may get a recipient of a Darwin Award.
As a european, i would like to say that my granfather has been making his own wine and his own brandy for the past 50 years or so. And he usually makes about 200-250 gallons of it and gives some of it to the neighbors as well as the rest of the family. But it's usually a big family event so we all contribute to it and we all get some of it.
OMFG! Is the phone spying on me visually?? I was just watching The Andy Griffith Show, and Barney was drinking hard cider from a big jug EXACTLY like this one LMAO
Also, you can legally distribute your own brews, be it mead, wine, moonshine, etc, if you use the age old beautiful art of bartering. Had an associate who’d get two huge moonshiner jugs and would barter away the stuff at a farmers’ market. Head in with two jugs, walk out with crates of fresh produce, cuts of meat, etc.
@@TKDWILSON ... when making your own beverages it's only illegal to sell them. Consuming them with family and friends...giving some away to friends...not at all illegal. So it can easily be argued that it wasn't a sale...it was an exchanging of gifts. Since no actual currency changed hands it would be borderline impossible for them to prove it was a sale.
He's 100% correct when it comes to why distilling is illegal without a license. Distillation requires you to know how much of your early distillate to discard because it could be contaminated with poisonous methanol. Do it wrong and you could poison yourself and others.
Methanol is exactly the reason why distilling without license is illegal. Back when moonshine was commonplace the amount of people going blind from Methanol poisoning was ludicrous to say the least. And during the prohibition this actually skyrocketed even higher cause now all alcohol was home brewed.
i believe one of the reasons that distillation is illegal has to do with the concentrations that can be made with it, fermentation cant produce higher concentrations than 18ish% abv, because anything higher just kills off the bacteria producing the alcohol, whereas distillation can potentially produce up to 97% abv, which is not only lethally toxic in much smaller amounts, but is also much more flammable and potentially explosive
It's not illegal because of danger, but because some enforcement practices are left over from the prohibition era and Congress is too corrupt to repeal those rules .
You can buy 95% ABV drinkin' alcohol as well as all manner of flammable and poisonous products including 99% isopropyl alcohol, I don't think that is the issue
Still classified as distribution. Now if he "gifted" you those eggs at around the same time you "gifted" him some of your homebrew, well that's an entirely different matter (don't get greedy though).
of the Revised Code, "sale" and "sell" include exchange, barter, gift, offer for sale, sale, distribution and delivery of any kind, and the transfer of title or possession of beer and intoxicating liquor either by constructive or actual delivery by any means or devices whatever, including the sale of beer or intoxicating liquor by means of a controlled access alcohol and beverage cabinet pursuant to section 4301.21 of the Revised Code
Even in Utah, one of the strictest states on alcohol, it’s perfectly legal and specified as being allowed to produce fermented alcohol up to 100 gallons if there’s one person over 21 in the house and up to 200 for 2+ people with specific and reasonable laws on transporting that alcohol. :)
In Chicago, people who live in small apartments don't use a still. They use the freezer. When you freeze wine, you can remove the ice, which will be mostly water. Alcohol doesn't freeze at the same temperature, so it will remain liquid. It won't be as strong as distilled liquor but it will be very strong wine.
@@mtnbkr5478it's actually called fractional distillation, so yes, it is distillation. Applejack, one of the first American spirits, was traditionally produced this way (the method is also called "jacking")
@@wyssmaster just because 'distillation' is in the name doesn't make it distillation. It would have been faster to look up the definition than to argue with me about it.
@@mtnbkr5478 it actually does. Distillation is the process of removing certain things (like water) from a solution to make it more concentrated or pure. It's possible to produce spirits that are as high as 80 proof with fractional distillation, which is what most spirits are sold at.
@@wyssmaster If that's what you want to believe, it's obviously not worth the tremendous amount of effort it would take me in order to convince you otherwise. For those reading the comments however, the literal definition of distillation can be found on the internet or in a dictionary; it's always best to not trust strangers arguing on the internet, because one of them will be incorrect.
My ex actually called the cannabis and alcohol board on me who showed up at my apartment with the local police department. She had claimed that I was manufacturing hard alcohol and selling it. What I was making was Applejack which is super condensed hard apple cider . Legally it is a wine. My lawyer got in contact with them and informed them that I was making it for personal use and I was not selling it to anybody. I had been gifting it to friends and family who would occasionally buy me supplies to make more
I think the problems with distilling is that there was a time when you could use stilled alcohol as fuel. A bunch of people using their own fuel, means no tax revenue from selling that fuel to said people.
In my country making your own wine, especially if you live outside of the city, is pretty common. Older genetations in Moldova produce wine yearly, and they often sell it to neighbors, acquaintances and give them as gifts to friends and family. Some ppl produce colossal amounts of wine, but it isn't regulated in any kind of manner by authorities, as it is an integral part of our culture. There hasn't been an issue so far, so if it's not broken, don't fix it i guess
Doesn't surprise me at all, Moldova is known for making good wine, they used to sell to Russia before the war with Ukraine. It was actually a huge blow to their market when they stopped doing that (I am Romanian).
Great example of a community regulated good, no problems because 1. everyone knows how to make it right and 2. if someone did give out bad wine everyone would make sure they know not to do that again if you catch my drift lol
@@silasstryder "community regulated good" lmfao there's no such thing. If someone did make a bad batch of wine that poisoned people, it would be big government kicking their door in, not "the community." No one "catches your drift," by the way, because your "drift" is childish and has zero basis in reality.
@@Abcdefg-tf7cu I didn't mean poisoned I meant tasted bad, and you're the one getting hung up about this like a 12 year old girl, calling me childish, grow the fuck up dude
The distilling is definitely the methanol, doesn't take much in a drink to kill someone or permanently injure them and they won't know until it's too late many times.
The only way you'd get methanol poisoning from a moonshine is if you distilled hard cider and made sure to drink only the first ounce. Methanol is produced from the fermentation of pectin, which is a protein present in fruits and particularly abundant in apples. Even then, ethanol acts as methanol's antipoison. As long as there's much more ethanol, you could drink a deadly amount of methanol and still be fine. If it wasn't the case, an undistilled product would be as dangerous. Distillation only concentrates the methanol. The "moonshine makes you blind" thing came from the prohibition when moonshiners used to cut their booze with store-bought methanol. Same short term buzz, terrible long term effects. What really makes moonshine dangerous is when people half-ass it. Car radiators are generally soldered with lead, which WILL seep into the alcohol. Also, measuring the alcohol content os extremely easy and fast, not doing it and going to the hospital because you thought your 70% shine was 25% is really dumb. I still understand why it's illegal but it's also really safe when you take the time to learn how to do it well.
As long as you're either in a very well ventilated area (read outside) or use a heat source other than an open flame, you're safe. I can't talk for illegal commercial operations that deal with huge volumes, but if you only distill a few gallons, there's not much fire risks.
@@tjoloiI made alcohol with 100% apple juice with pulp and drank the whole jug and it 100% made some methanol because it made we way number and drunker than the same size of normal no pulp apple juice. It also smelled like mash when normal sugar-water juice smells much less pungent.
Like a lot of people have mentioned yes distilling doesn’t just happen happen(usually) but it’s also a holdover law from prohibition era and is designed to limit moonshine without a permit because some of the alcohol that would be made one shot would kill a man
I had a buddy who's uncle made amazing shine. He had mules who would rotate out and buy the ingredients from a supplier store (think costco but specifically for resturants and the food industry) had the set up in his garage. Didn't sell to anyone who wasn't in his circle. Best lemon liquor I've ever had was his shine. It was smooth. Started tart finished sweet. Good times.
i grew up in europe and my grandma was distilling alcohol with leftover fruits from trees and grapes on her property and it was much appreciated and loved by all family and friends. it’s only the land of the free where we regulate the shit out of everything cause “government cares about our safety”.
Distilling can be done a few ways. Freeze distilling is one such way that is the safest since you can just sit out your wine and let the water freeze naturally or in the freezer. Apple jack is a spirit made through such a way. Our forefathers had barrels of apple cider out side and this happened and so it's something natural that can happen as well
Freeze distillation of hard cider also concentrates the fusil oils, methanol, acetone and other things that occur in the fermentation process. Basically the foreshots, heads and tails of normal distillation, all the stuff I would run my lawnmower on when I was distilling. Drink a couple glasses and you'll really regret it in the morning. I know from experience! However if you live in the right climate, freeze concentration of your filtered mash works great, just double the volume of your foreshots and extend your heads collection a bit.
@yapflipthegrunt4687 Ooh, I wish mine took 15 minutes. It had a parental lock on it (and I'm slow and clumsy) so mind took about an hour. Well worth it though.
You can make alcohol without a permit as long as you don’t sell it or don’t use a still to refine it as those require permits to operate for the purpose of producing alcohol (depending on the state).
"Up 'ere if you engage in what the federal government calls "illegal activity" but what we call "just a man tryin' to make a livin' for his family sellin' moonshine liquor" it behooves onself to keep his wits." - Aldo Rains
Atf is corrupt. Making and selling alchol isna constitutionally protected human right. The atf needs to learn about the prohibition. Mass produce, or dont. Do small hufher quality etc. 100 gallons is a lot and you cant legally sell it but you can gift things 😂😂😂. I gift you you gift me you see
@@hanzzel6086 Taxes are used to build society but it is also important to question why a person may question it on certain circumstances .Take away the set sanitation and safety standards because the person study and have knowledge about alcohol and its mechanics. That same person want to make extra money on the side but altas they can't because the government wants to tax their product. The goverment cannot tax a small/personal business therefore one could agure they made it illegal because they cannot tax or set the same standards on someone's personal products. So yeah, if the government doesn't make money then it won't support it.
That was my thought. Whiskey was a main export back in the 1700s, as a way to preserve and export the wheat crop. So I would guess historical taxation would be the main reason for those laws. (Also, the methanol pointed out up thread.)
Pretty much same situation is here in Poland, but the place where I live is famous for its Plum Brandy „Łącka Śliwowica” and it’s so common here, there’s no way police will ever arrest you even for selling a few bottles
Correction: You can legally ice distill, but you are not allowed to heat distill. On heat you are suppose to remove methanol "heads" that come out first due slightly lower boiling point and get rid of those, problem is to know when you have removed enough of the heads. Since people dont want to throw away or use as fuel their alcohol you are making to enjoy, many start to take batches too early so there is still dangerous amounts of methanol and since its concentrated into those batches, it can cause anything from blinding to other health issues including death, hence why hot distilling is so regulated. In ice distilling you are freezing the alcohol, or more even the water in it, in areas where there is less ethanol in, then pour ethanol methanol water mix to another container leaving just the ice that is water, then by repeating this you can remove water to make it stronger alcohol, but not separate methanol into dangerous concentrations. Ice distilling does produce strong alcohol, but down side is that you also get the methanol so getting drunk from it will cause harder hangover than hot distilled one. If you insist breaking the law and hot distilling, i would highly recommend least mixing the batches you want to keep for drinks, so methanol levels stay diluted enough not to cause harm, if and when you make a mistake leaving too much heads in kept pile.
Don’t worry, the ATF doesn’t deal with alcohol or tobacco, but you better not shave 1/16th of an inch too much off of a shotgun barrel or you can expect a dead dog
In some states you can distill alcohol for personal consumption without any risk of prosecution and it’s only once you sell it that you’re breaking the law
Most states DO NOT allow you to distill alcohol. But basically every state allows fermenting of beer and wine at home. With varying laws about how much and what you can do with it Several DO allow home distillation as well but it is less than 10 states
You don't produce methanol by distilling, but you concentrate it if you do it wrong. You produce methanol when you ferment, but it's at a very low levels and you would have problems with the overall alcohol content before any meaningful harm is done from the methanol.
Allot of myths about dangers of methanol came because in prohibition some bottlers would use ethanol made for scientific experiments to bulk moneshine or even just redistribute, these however when that scientific alcohol is made it is contaminated with methanol on purpose to avoid alcohol taxes. During prohibition the government doubled the amount inside to try to dissuade bootleggers, this combination lead to the myth that home distilling can be dangerous from methanol
@@Jem2556 and then there's the fact that the methanol doens't just come out in the heads, but also everywhere else in the distillation process. but some people's very crappy understanding of the process saw that pure methanol has a lower boiling point than ethanol and thought: that means it comes out first right? these are the same people that believe that there's multiple boiling points at the same time. when you reach 173 the ethanol evaporates and when you reach 212 the water evaporates.
@@hotflapjacksmcboogle-jd7fr pure methanol boils at a lower temperature, but it doesn't all come out at the start. it's like saying alcohol during distillation comes out at 173, it doesn't. it's a mixture. there will be methanol in your hearts and tails as well. the starting amount of methanol is so insignificant that it won't really matter. you'll have way more acetone in your distillate than methanol
the guy deleted the comment but there is a difference between fractional disitillation and simple distillation. in fractional distillation (using something like a vigreux column you're purifying the vapors by condensing the ones with a higher boiling point and letting the ones with a lower boiling point go through. this happens is the same principle used in column distillation, where you can separate the methol out properly. but pot still distillation like most people do at home (and most moonshiners will do) does is a form of simple distillation, where the chemicals even in gas form are more mixed into each other
DO NOT SELL YOUR HOMEMADE BATCHES, but… you can give them to your friends and accept tips for the services like bottling, delivering, pouring etc. as long as it’s not for the product itself.
There's some interesting history around why home distillation is illegal. Partly due to the dangers as you said, and partly due to prohibition and its removal.
These are USA laws, in Europe you can do WHATEVER at home and no one will bat an eye, even producing commercial level of alcohol, both fermentation and distilling. you just can’t sell without a proper business permit and without having an inspector checking out everything is up to industry standard and health regulations
@@alan62036 I mean, he's not wrong. I live in Arizona. It's illegal for restaurants to buy alcohol from stores here. So let's say a restaurant sells bottles of Modelo and they get a huge table where the parton's keep ordering A round of Modelo every 20 minutes. Eventually that restaurant may run out of Modelo. It would be illegal for them to send somebody to the grocery store to buy more Modelo. Why is that? It's because restaurants have a different liquor license than bars and they pay less for it...the tradeoff is that they have to serve more food than liquor. So the government requires that they purchase alcohol only from state approved vendors for auditing purposes. It's all about the cheddar for ole Uncle Sam.
@@alan62036you're a naive man child if you actually think the gov't gives a damn about "safety" and isn't solely in the business of securing revenue for its endless exorbitant expenses.
Haven't looked into this myself. But I heard that distilling was a way for households to make fuel to power their homes and cars. They started the prohibition under the guise of conservative values, but it was to legally remove our independence from oil and coal which was sold to households, and not produced by households.
