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ItsSillySeason t1_jd67bpp wrote

Reply to comment by big_sugi in Can you extract a fully concentrated liquid out of an ice cube (like Coca Cola) until there's almost no water left? by Froggiebuns

But if you pitch a champagne yeast, rather than natural fermentation, isn't it going to be producing just ethanol?

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BurkeyAcademy t1_jd69eeg wrote

Champagne yeast, as with all yeast, produces mostly ethanol, but a little methanol as well. The amount of methanol isn't enough to affect you, unless it gets concentrated. The worst form of concentration is that it boils at a slightly lower temperature than ethanol (64.7°C vs. 78.3°C), and so comes off at a higher concentration in the beginning of the distillation process.

As to whether the icing concentration would do the same thing, I don't know, but I have some doubts.

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big_sugi t1_jd6b9go wrote

It does. See https://serc.carleton.edu/teachearth/activities/180245.html

(The reference to methanol concentration is at the very end, right before the listing of references and resources.)

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ItsSillySeason t1_jd6iyh1 wrote

Still (no pun intended), you aren't ever getting more methanol for your ethanol when concentrating. You're just taking out water. So a shot of apple jack isn't really any more dangerous than a glass of apple jack. Same for two, three, or four. The real problem would be that it's easier to drink a lot quickly, which is its own independent hazard, and one that comes with any high alcohol beverage. So if you're really concerned about it (and yet, making apple jack -- a head scratcher of a juxtaposition) go ahead and drink a glass of water with each shot of jack. In fact, you could melt the ice from the process and drink that. Heck mix it back in. Problem solved.

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big_sugi t1_jd6jvs5 wrote

I don’t think the methanol is the primary concern; it’s just one of them. It won’t make you go blind, because of the ethanol consumption, but it won’t leave you feeling good either.

The net result of 40% abv applejack is something like the worst rotgut whiskey. It won’t make you go blind, and it probably won’t kill you—but it might well make you wish you were dead.

Drinking a glass of water with each shot would certainly help, just as it does when drinking large amounts of any spirit.

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