Clueless chemistry question - methanol

Khannie

Is there a way to break down methanol chemically into something safe to drink?

I'm doing some home brewing and would like to remove any naturally occurring methanol from the resulting brew without distillation (illegal).

beazee

There's a reason for distillation.

CH3OH is not much to break down. Our body can break it down chemically to formic acid (HCOOH) which is far from safe to drink.

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,[16] although the median lethal dose is typically 100 mL (4 fl oz) (i.e. 1–2 mL/kg of pure methanol[17])
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol

krd

Khannie wrote: »

Is there a way to break down methanol chemically into something safe to drink?

I'm doing some home brewing and would like to remove any naturally occurring methanol from the resulting brew without distillation (illegal).

What are you brewing with - what's your base material?

The amount of methanol produced depends on what you feed the yeast - what the yeast produces depends on what it's eaten. If you feed it plain household sugar, or flour/grain - anything you might safely make beer or wine with - then the yeast will favour the production of ethanol. In other words your safe.

If instead of using sugar, you use sawdust - which is what the moonshiners who blinded people used. The yeast will favour methanol production.

So don't use sawdust. Even if you distilled wood alcohol a few times, some methanol will get through. And it could blind or kill you. But anything from household sugar, grapes or wheats and flours is safe.

Khannie

I'm using good ol' apple juice + yeast. I'm making cider. Someone on the home brewing forum mentioned that there's a small amount of methanol occurs as part of the brew process which helps cause a dirty hangover, so I was hoping to reduce my dirty hangover by eliminating the methanol if at all possible.