How and why can homemade alcohol, like moonshine or rakija, make you go blind?
In: Biology
In high school biology they teach you that Yeast + Sugar = Ethanol + CO2 + heat. The reality of the situation is that when you are fermenting a mash that’s made of complex organic matter that in addition to ethanol there are small amounts of another alcohol called methanol (aka wood alcohol).
Methanol is used in products like antifreeze and varnish. It’s also toxic to humans in high concentrations. That’s what causes blindness. It also causes liver, pancreas, and kidney problems.
Experienced and ethical distillers anticipate this methanol when they distill a mash and they have adapted the process of distillation to remove methanol from their product. Home distillers might not have this expertise and end up concentrating the trace amounts of methanol in their product.
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