“Methanol is a byproduct of poorly distilled homebrew liquor”
I’ve never heard of that before. How can a simple distillation process be poorly done to create methanol?
I used to watch the Moonshiners reality tv series on cable.....they ALWAYS poured out the first pint or so of a new batch because they stated its poisonous.
By not initially running the distillation at a temp that allows the heads or methanol and fusels to boil off first, come down dripping from the cooled condensing coils of copper, and be discarded. If you touch a drop of that first product dripping to your tongue, you can taste the unique bitter methanol.
Then you keep what comes next, the “hearts” of the run batch. Tails are last, after moat og the ethanol is extracted
In the distilling process, methanol has a lower Vaporization temperature than ethanol and thus is the first thing (heads) out of the still along with some other nasties. Good distillers carefully monitor the temperature and composition of the distillate. The goal is to separate the heads from the more desirable ethanol. the heads are discarded or used for windshield wiper fluid. Distillers that fail to do this deliver their customers a product that can blind and kill.
Ginger Jake comes to mind.