Hey has anyone heard of this - or had a problem with it - I have brewed many wine batches and my spouse has recently developed Optic Atrophy - possibly due to methanol in home brewed alcohol. What ? Does anyone know how to check the levels of this gas. The way it sounds this is a silent gas that effects certain people that in turn can cause blindness in them. Any info would be helpful
thanks
kleino_33
Methanol is not a gas, but yeast don’t really produce it anyway. There really should not be any methanol, or extremely low levels in the low parts per million or billion in homebrew or homemade wine. Ethanol out competes it as well (the treatment for methanol poisoning is ethanol) so she should not have gotten anywhere near enough from homebrew to damage her eyes.
Distilled spirits can have higher levels if not distilled properly, and during prohibition methyl alcohol was added to industrial alcohols intentionally to make them toxic. Unscrupulous distillers distilled it anyway and poisoned people. Whoever gave you the idea that homebrew is to blame may be getting homebrew confused with prohibition-era moonshine, or is just grasping at straws to try to find a reason.
the wiki page is pretty good;
Thank you for the info
