Ethanol Versus Methanol

[Toymaker Len]

I think you will find that the wineries are distilling pure alcohol from the wine that they don't want to sell. They are not adding it to the wine. I had friends who had a winery in Griffith many years ago and they made most of their income from distilling what they called "double brandy" - nearly pure alcohol, which they sold to spirit manufacturers.

[Yanis]

In Australia it's very unlikely you have purchased " methanol" unless you have specifically saught it out as either racing fuel or a laboratory product.

We have not for a very long time, If ever added methanol to ethanol to make metholated spirit.
It is denatured by adding a bittereing agent.

Methanol is pretty toxic and has very few ligitimately necessary uses.

cheers

Always an education reading these forums. Thanks for the info.

John

[Paul hampshire]

Hi Gareth,
If it is methylated spirits then it is ethanol. It is unlikely to be methanol as this is very toxic.
Cheers Paul

[rob streeper]

Hi Len,

Ethanol distilled from a water containing precursor material such as wine will in fact be ~95% ethanol as ethanol forms a low boiling azeotrope with water.

Ethanol can however be dehydrated with anhydrous magnesium sulfate, simply made by heating Epsom salts, the heptahydrate, for a time in your oven at ~250 ^oC or so. Once dehydrated place the magnesium suflate into the 95% ethanol and shake well, let stand overnight tightly capped and pour out the ethanol as needed through a filter to capture the magnesium suflate crystals. Excess anhydrous magnesium sulfate can be stored in a mason jar with a good seal.

Works nicely for dehydrating both ethanol and methanol for dissolving shellac.

Cheers,
Rob