How To Test To See If Your Moonshine Is Safe?

Making moonshine alcohol is a fun hobby, it can involve the whole family (or just be a “father and son” or “father, son and grandson” activity) or it can involve some friends. Making your own moonshine alcohol can introduce you to a whole community of people who have the same passion like you, one that does not create damage, is interesting and does not require a big financial investment.

1. However, if you want to properly enjoy your homemade moonshine, then you need to pay attention to how you prepare it, as well as to the ways to test your moonshine and see if it’s any good.
2. Hence, before making the moonshine alcohol, you need to be careful to the next safety tips: • Always use a pure copper moonshine still.

Using copper is not just a traditional way of making moonshine, but it has huge benefits such as absorbing syntheses with sulfur, reducing bacterial contamination, has great heat transfer properties and increases the entire quality of the product. • Always use a solder without lead.

• Lead can cause health problems and, once in your organism, it is very hard to eliminate.
• Try a silver solder instead, for example.
• Always use natural ingredients (water, sugar, yeast).
• Make sure your moonshine still is very well sealed.
• Clean it with some water before using it, as this way you can also see if there are any leaks to it which might allow the alcohol vapor to escape, thus wasting your time and money.

If, however, you notice a leak during the process, try to seal it with flour paste (which is the best sealing material). If, you cannot do that, consider that the leak is still not very well sealed or find other leaks, then stop everything and do not start again until you repair your leak(s).

1. Always use a collection pot made of glass, never of plastic and preferably of small mouth.
2. And remember to place this vessel away from any fire or other form of heat.
3. Always dispose of the first bit of moonshine, in order to avoid contamination with methanol (which has a lower boiling point than ethanol).

Contagion with methanol can be noticed by the bad smell and taste of your moonshine and needs to be avoided, since it is toxic. Now, if you successfully made your moonshine alcohol, here are is how you properly ensure that the process went well and that you, in fact, made good moonshine: 1.

First, smell it. If you notice a weird, chemical odor, do not drink it and proceed to the second step.2. The best test is the spoon one. No matter if your moonshine smells or not weird, this test needs to be done: put some moonshine in a spoon and light it on fire. If your alcohol is: a) Red: there is lead in it, so do not drink it.

b) Yellow: you risk getting blind, so not drink it. c) Blue: best color to get, as it means you achieved your purpose of making good, safe, moonshine alcohol. d) If it has no color: basically, if it does not burn, then your process did not go as scheduled and you obtained some liquidwhich is not proper moonshine.

Is there a way to test for methanol?

Methanol is a substance that can occur naturally in small amounts in the body. The main sources of methanol in the body include fruits, vegetables, and diet drinks that contain aspartame. Methanol is a type of alcohol that is sometimes used for industrial and automotive purposes. Blood is drawn from a vein (venipuncture), usually from the inside of the elbow or the back of the hand. A needle is inserted into the vein, and the blood is collected in an air-tight vial or a syringe. Preparation may vary depending on the specific test.

Is there a home test for methanol?

News How do you test the presence of methanol?

This story is from April 13, 2008 Methanol does not respond to the iodoform test (Open Space, Apr.6). In fact, the test is given by ethanol and those alcohols which possess -hydroxymethyl group or -CH(OH)- group or carbonyl compounds having acetyl functionality. Methanol can be detected by the oil of wintergreen test.

Should moonshine have bubbles?

Shake Test – Arguably the easiest way to gauge the alcohol content of moonshine is to perform a shake test. Although it’s not an entirely accurate form of measurement, it will give you a rough idea as to how much alcohol the moonshine contains. To perform a shake test, fill a glass jar about 1/2 the way full of your moonshine.

Now, here comes the important part: you need to closely examine the bubbles of your moonshine after shaking it. Moonshine with a high alcohol content will have large bubbles that dissipate within seconds, while moonshine with a low alcohol content will have small bubbles that last for several minutes.

The shake test is a quick and easy way to determine whether or not your moonshine is potent. Watered down moonshine will possess small bubbles that linger rather than dissipating. Pay close attention to the bubbles of your moonshine when performing a shake test.

What color is moonshine supposed to burn?

‘Lead Burns Red and Makes You Dead’ on MoonshineDVD.com “Lead burns red and makes you dead.” Ever heard the saying ” lead burns red and makes dead ” before? While it’s not nearly as popular as it once was back in the early 1900s, there are still plenty of people who use it when referring to moonshine stills.

The phrase is used to describe the flame color of moonshine when it’s set on fire. A red-burning flame usually indicates the presence of a toxic chemical or element, and as such, it should be avoided at all costs. Back in the early days of moonshining, stills were often constructed with automotive parts, such as radiators.

Unfortunately, this buildups of lead and other toxic chemicals in the moonshine. Moonshiners and consumers would use the lead burns red and makes you dead test to determine whether or not it was safe to drink. If the flame burned red, they would toss the moonshine out, believing there were toxins present.

• If the flame burned blue, it was safe to drink.
• To perform the test, moonshiners and people looking to buy moonshine would pour a small amount into a spoon and set it ablaze with a match.
• Moonshine is naturally flammable due to its exceptionally high alcohol by volume content, so it doesn’t take much effort to set it on fire.

Once the moonshine caught fire, it would produce a flame that was usually either blue, yellow or red. The conventional wisdom supporting this phrase suggests that red-burning moonshine is the direct cause of lead. When lead is present in the moonshine, it burns red; therefore, it was common belief that red-burning moonshine was produced with automotive radiators.

• But red isn’t the only ‘dangerous’ color associated with moonshine.
• If it burned yellow, it was usually tainted with some other foreign chemical.
• There are literally dozens of foreign chemicals that may trigger a yellow-burning flame.
• Ideally, moonshine should burn a smooth, clear blue with no other colors.

The problem with the lead burns red and makes you dead method is that it doesn’t reveal the presence of methanol. Methanol burns invisible; therefore, it’s not easily detected using this method. Even if a batch of moonshine burns blue, it may still contain the highly toxic chemical known as methanol.