Chapter 15: Drink

A pot still does not separate methanol from ethanol; drinking heads can blind or kill; fruit high in pectin (apple, plum, pear) makes more methanol than grain

To check against

Methanol is present throughout the run, not only in the heads (Lachenmeier et al., methanol in fruit spirits); WHO methanol poisoning guidance; an expert distiller reader before print

The verdict

AMENDED

Found

europepmc.org/article/PMC/PMC8125215 (Blumenthal, ..., Lachenmeier, "Methanol Mitigation during Manufacturing of Fruit Spirits", Molecules 26:2585, 2021: in pot stills methanol "will appear in almost equal concentration in almost all fractions ... until the very end where it accumulates in the so-called tailings"; the bad smell of heads "is caused by acetaldehyde and ethyl acetate but not by methanol"; fruits give the highest methanol through pectin, plums, cherries, apples and pears the most; storing the fermented mash raises methanol by 15 to 50 % in 4 weeks, so distil as soon as fermentation ends; natural fruit methanol "does not typically exceed levels causing acute toxicity", major poisonings come from adulteration; EU limit for fruit spirits 1000 to 1350 g/hl pure alcohol); inchem.org/documents/pims/chemical/pim335.htm (WHO IPCS Poisons Information Monograph 335, Methanol: "as little as 4 to 10 mL of methanol may cause permanent blindness"; latent period 8 to 36 h, average 12 h; ethanol drunk with it delays the effects)

Note

Confirmed: a pot still does not separate methanol, and pectin-rich fruit makes more than grain. Wrong: the idea that methanol comes first, in "the first cloudy cupful". It runs through the whole distillate and concentrates in the tails; the heads are cut for acetaldehyde and ethyl acetate. The protection against methanol is the raw material and the timing (clean, sound fruit; no pectin enzymes; distil soon after fermentation ends) and a tight tails cut, not a bigger heads cut. Proposed: "A pot still cannot take methanol out. It comes over in every jar and most of all at the end, in the tails, so the heads cut does not protect you from it; what does is sound fruit, distilling as soon as the wash is finished, and stopping early. Throw the heads away because they are harsh and poisonous in their own right, and throw the tails away because that is where the methanol gathers."

Ethanol vapour ignites above a flame; a sealed still is a bomb; never seal a still; water bath or gentle fire, never a bare flame under a thin pot

To check against

Ethanol flash point 13 °C; standard still-safety guidance; check "never seal" wording is unambiguous (the head is luted, the outlet is never closed)

The verdict

AMENDED

Found

pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/702 (PubChem, ethanol, Flash Point: 55 °F, 13 °C, closed cup; 12 to 14 °C in other listed sources)

Note

Confirmed: ethanol vapour ignites well below room temperature, and a closed still under heat builds pressure. The wording needs one fix, as the check note says: the Bench tells the reader to "seal the head to the pot with a rope of rye flour" and the safety block says "never seal a still". Standard still-safety guidance was not opened, so the fix is wording only. Proposed: "Paste the joint between pot and head with a rope of rye dough so no vapour leaks there, but never close, plug or kink the end of the coil: the spirit must always have a free way out. Heat by a water bath or a gentle fire, never a bare flame under a thin pot, keep any flame away from the outlet and the jars, and keep a wet sack at hand."

Distilling without a licence is a crime in Germany and the licence is not a formality

To check against

Alkoholsteuergesetz 2018 §§ (Abfindungsbrennerei, Stoffbesitzer); Zoll guidance; note whether small stills under 0.5 l are exempt from registration only, not from tax

The verdict

AMENDED

Found

gesetze-im-internet.de/alkstg/__4.html (AlkStG § 4(2): alcohol may be produced only in a Verschlussbrennerei, subject to §§ 9 and 11); gesetze-im-internet.de/alkstg/__32.html (§ 32(2): forbidden are production outside the permits of § 10(4) or § 11(5), and offering, supplying or possessing apparatus meant for non-commercial production of alcohol); gesetze-im-internet.de/alkstg/__36.html (§ 36: these are Ordnungswidrigkeiten under AO § 381, § 36(2) Nr. 2 for the still; producing against § 4(2) is § 36(3); fines up to 10,000 EUR, § 36(5)); gesetze-im-internet.de/alkstv/__68.html (AlkStV § 68: stills over 2 litres capacity must be notified to the Hauptzollamt, including acquisition and use outside a distillery; no 0.5 l exemption in the current text). Not opened: AO § 370 (tax evasion) and Zoll guidance pages

Note

Confirmed in substance: home distilling without a permit is forbidden in Germany, and the permit is not a formality (a Verschlussbrennerei or an Abfindung permit is needed). Two corrections. First, "a crime" is not accurate on its own: the ban on producing and on keeping a still is an administrative offence (Ordnungswidrigkeit) with fines up to 10,000 EUR; unpaid spirit tax can on top be tax evasion, which is a crime, but that rests on AO § 370, not opened here. Second, the check note's "small stills under 0.5 l are exempt" is not in the current law: the notification threshold is 2 litres (AlkStV § 68), and even a small still gives no right to produce spirit. Proposed: "Making spirits at home without a permit from the customs office is forbidden in Germany, and so is keeping a still for it; the fines run to ten thousand euros, and the tax owed on top can make it a crime."

Copper still: plumbing grade (Cu-DHP) not wire (Cu-ETP); joints riveted or silver-soldered, never lead solder; cut off every old solder joint; scrub black film after every run; never leave a fruit wash standing (verdigris, poisonous)

To check against

doc 17; copper metallurgy references; copper acetate toxicity; lead-free solder rules for potable contact (DVGW GW 2)

The verdict

AMENDED

Found

Deutsches Kupferinstitut, Werkstoff-Datenblatt Cu-ETP (kupfer.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Cu-ETP.pdf, p. 2: Cu-ETP is oxygen-bearing copper and "Aufgrund des Sauerstoffgehaltes können keine Anforderungen an die Hartlöt- und Schweißbarkeit gestellt werden (Wasserstoffkrankheit)"; p. 11: welding and brazing "in reduzierender Atmosphäre nicht geeignet (Wasserstoffkrankheit)"); UBA Bewertungsgrundlage für metallene Werkstoffe im Kontakt mit Trinkwasser, version of 9 July 2026 (umweltbundesamt.de/system/files/document/Metall-Bewertung…, p. 29: Cu-DHP CW024A, Cu at least 99.90 %, P 0.015 to 0.040 %, on the drinking-water positive list, and so is Cu-ETP CW004A; p. 10 § 3.3: solders are outside its scope); epa.gov/sdwa/use-lead-free-pipes-fittings-fixtures-solder… (US EPA: solder with more than 0.2 % lead banned from drinking-water plumbing since 1986); PubChem CID 8895, copper(II) acetate, GHS (H302 "Harmful if swallowed" in 73 % of ECHA notifications, H301 "Toxic if swallowed" in 20 %); doc 17 pp. 4 to 6 (lead from old solder causes liquid-metal embrittlement; cut out all solder joints)

Note

Confirmed: plumbing copper (Cu-DHP) is the right metal; wire copper (Cu-ETP) holds oxygen and suffers "hydrogen disease", cracking and blistering, when heated or brazed in a reducing (charcoal) fire; lead solder must never touch the still; old solder joints go; verdigris (copper acetate) is harmful if swallowed. Correct the reason given: both grades are approved for drinking water in Germany (UBA), so the difference is working the metal, not hygiene, and the text should not imply wire copper is unsafe to drink from. DVGW GW 2 was not opened. Note for the owner: old "silver solders" may contain cadmium; the reader should use a cadmium-free silver brazing alloy (not sourced here, EUR-Lex returned empty). Proposed: "Use plumbing copper, not the copper from electric cable: cable copper holds a little oxygen and cracks and blisters in a charcoal fire. Cut away every old solder joint, because old solder is lead, and join the new seams by rivets or by silver brazing, never by soft solder. Scrub the black film from head and neck after each run, and never leave a sour fruit wash standing in the pot: it eats the copper into green verdigris, which is poison."

Bottles burst when bottled with residual sugar or over-primed; bottle only when hydrometer steady for a fortnight; prime at no more than 5 g sugar per litre; gloves and eye protection

To check against

Priming calculators (5 g/l gives about 2.5 volumes CO2); BJCP cider faults; confirm bottle strength guidance

The verdict

AMENDED

Found

John Palmer, How to Brew, ch. 11 "Priming and Bottling" (howtobrew.com/section-1/chapter-11/, textbook online: cane sugar 104 g per 5 US gal (18.9 l), about 5.5 g/l, gives about 2.5 volumes CO2, typical of pale ales; ales "are usually ready to bottle in 2-3 weeks when fermentation has completely finished"; bottling "1 week after pitching ... is usually bad advice", because a stalled fermentation restarts and "the pressure may exceed the bottle strength"). Not opened: BJCP cider faults; any bottle-strength standard

Note

Confirmed: 5 g of sugar per litre is a normal priming rate (a little under 2.5 volumes), and bottles burst when bottled with sugar still to ferment. Wrong in Bench 1, step 5: the ale is bottled after 5 to 7 days "until the froth has fallen and the beer tastes of beer", which is exactly the early bottling the textbook warns against, and it contradicts the book's own rule (hydrometer steady for a fortnight). The keeved cider in Bench 2, step 5 is bottled sweet by design, so it needs the same warning spelled out. No source was opened for bottle strength, so "strong bottles" should be made concrete as bottles made for beer or sparkling wine, never jars or thin wine bottles. Proposed for Bench 1, step 5: "Leave the beer two to three weeks, until the froth has fallen and the hydrometer reads the same on three days running; only then bottle it, with no more than 5 g of sugar a litre, in bottles made for beer or sparkling wine." For Bench 2, step 5 add: "Sweet cider is bottled with sugar in it: use sparkling-wine bottles, keep them cold, and open one a week to check the pressure."

Pine needles: from a tree that is certainly a pine and not a yew; yew and some ornamental conifers are lethal look-alikes

To check against

doc 107; Taxus baccata toxicity (taxine); a foraging guide with pictures for the reader

The verdict

AMENDED

Found

bfr.bund.de/bfr-giftgarten/europaeische-eibe/ (BfR, European yew, as of 10 March 2026: flat evergreen needles, red fleshy arils; needles and bitten seeds contain taxines; nausea, vomiting, visual disturbance, dilated pupils, heart rhythm disorders and impaired consciousness); bfr.bund.de/bfr-giftgarten/lebensbaum/ (BfR, Thuja, as of 26 March 2026: scale leaves, often a garden hedge; false cypress (Chamaecyparis) "ebenfalls giftig"; in large amounts, "insbesondere in Form von Aufgüssen", seizures and liver and kidney damage); SDW leaflet Die Waldkiefer (sdw.de/fileadmin/Bundesverband/01_Dateien/Infobl%C3%A4tte… two twisted needles per short shoot, 3 to 5 cm, blue-green; orange-red upper bark); doc 107 p. 11 (yew and certain ornamental pines to be avoided)

Note

Confirmed: yew is a poisonous look-alike and ornamental conifers are dangerous, the Thuja and false cypress hedges above all, which BfR warns are worst as infusions. Two fixes. "Lethal" is not what the BfR pages say (the yew page lists heart-rhythm disorders and loss of consciousness), so say "poisonous, the yew dangerously so to the heart". And give the reader the test, because "certainly a pine" is not a method: Scots pine carries its needles in pairs. Proposed: "Pick only from a Scots pine, and know it by its needles, which grow in pairs from a tiny sheath, blue-green and twisted, and by the orange bark high on the trunk. A yew has single flat needles and red berries, and its needles poison the heart; the Thuja and false-cypress hedges of the gardens have scales, not needles, and are most poisonous of all as a tea. If the needles are not in pairs, leave the tree alone."

Any herb picked low to the ground gets hot water for at least five minutes against the fox tapeworm; eggs survive freezing

To check against

doc 107; RKI Echinococcus multilocularis guidance; Brandenburg prevalence

The verdict

AMENDED

Found

RKI-Ratgeber Echinokokkose (rki.de/DE/Aktuelles/Publikationen/RKI-Ratgeber/Ratgeber/R… the eggs stay infectious for months in the environment, "überleben die Eier kurzzeitiges Aufkochen nicht" and are very sensitive to drying; killing by cold needs "–80 °C über mehrere Tage" for E. multilocularis; ground-level foods "z.B. Beeren, Pilze, Gemüse, Salat und Fallobst" should be washed thoroughly and, in higher-risk areas, preferably cooked or dried; food-borne transmission is "nicht geklärt"). Not checked: Brandenburg prevalence; doc 107

Note

Confirmed: the eggs survive household freezing (a freezer at –18 °C is far from –80 °C for days), and heat kills them. The method needs one fix: RKI names boiling ("Aufkochen"), and water poured "just off the boil" onto leaves in a cup cools well below that within minutes, so "hot water for five minutes" is not the same as the RKI's measure. Thorough drying is RKI's other route and fits the tea herbs. Proposed: "Anything picked low to the ground, where a fox may have passed, is either dried until it crumbles or brought to the boil in the pot, not just steeped in the cup. Freezing does not help: the eggs of the fox tapeworm survive any home freezer."

Honey must never be boiled; a boiled must poisons the yeast (HMF) and loses scent; dissolve at no hotter than 40 °C

To check against

doc 108 (66 °C for 5 min maximum); HMF and yeast inhibition literature; the 40 °C figure is the book's own

The verdict

AMENDED

Found

Honigverordnung Anlage 2 Nr. 6 (gesetze-im-internet.de/honigv_2004/anlage_2.html: HMF in honey at most 40 mg/kg); Matos et al., "Uptake mechanisms and physiological effects of furanic compounds from the Maillard reaction in budding yeast", Yeast 2026, PMC7618920 (S. cerevisiae shows no growth defect at 125 µg/ml HMF or less; growth falls from 250 µg/ml, almost fully stopped at 2000 µg/ml); doc 108 p. 5 (boiling drives off the aromatics; if heat is used at all, at most 66 °C for 5 minutes)

Note

Confirmed: honey should not be boiled, and 40 °C (the book's own figure) sits well inside doc 108's 66 °C for five minutes. Wrong: "a boiled must poisons the yeast". HMF only slows yeast at 250 mg per litre and more, while legal honey carries at most 40 mg/kg, which is about 10 mg/l in a 1 to 3 must, and a short boil would have to raise that more than twentyfold. No source opened says boiling does that. The real loss is scent and colour. Proposed: "Never boil the honey: boiling drives off the scent of the flowers and darkens the must. Dissolve it in water no hotter than 40 °C, warm to the hand."

Weisse variant: sour unboiled wort with a handful of crushed raw malt and a spoonful of sour-crock brine at 35 to 40 °C for a day, then pitch beer yeast

To check against

Sour-worting / kettle-souring practice; risk of unwanted organisms in unboiled wort; an experienced Weisse brewer should read this step; doc 92 gives history only

The verdict

AMENDED

Found

Głowacki et al., "Sour Fruit Beers: Ethanol and Lactic Acid Fermentation in Beer Production", Molecules 2025, PMC12388021 (kettle souring: lactic fermentation of the wort, "then boiling, cooling, and transferring to a fermentation tank for inoculation with yeast"); "Occurrence and Levels of Biogenic Amines in Beers Produced by Different Methods", Foods 2021, PMC8700637 (lactic bacteria, wanted or as contamination, are a main source of biogenic amines in beer; risk for people on MAO-inhibitor drugs); doc 92 p. 14 (historic Weisse: unboiled, mixed culture of Lactobacillus brevis and L. delbrueckii with yeast, pH 3.2 to 3.4)

Note

The historic method is correctly described: Berliner Weisse was not boiled. But the Bench asks the reader to sour warm, unboiled wort for a day with an undefined inoculum (raw malt and sauerkraut brine), which carries whatever else lives on grain, and the modern kettle-souring method published for this boils the wort after souring and before the yeast goes in. No official hazard figure was found and no experienced Weisse brewer has read the step, so the safe fix is to add the boil and a stop rule; the "it protects itself" claim holds only once it is truly sour. Proposed: "Hold it at 35 to 40 °C for a day, until it tastes sharp and clean, like lemon. If it smells of rot, sick or old cheese, pour it away. Then bring it to the boil for ten minutes, cool it, and pitch the beer yeast." (Ten minutes is a proposal, not sourced.)

Bee stings: not in this draft, but the Bench sends readers to the bee document's colony numbers without a sting warning; consider adding

To check against

doc 136 (1 to 3 % anaphylaxis); decide whether the bee year belongs here or in a later chapter

The verdict

AMENDED

Found

Ruëff et al., "Diagnosis and treatment of Hymenoptera venom allergy: S2k Guideline of the German Society of Allergology and Clinical Immunology (DGAKI)", Allergol Select 2023, PMC10580978 (about 3 % of the general population in Europe report systemic reactions to stings; beekeepers and their families much more often; stings are the most common cause of anaphylaxis in adults in German-speaking countries; 16 to 29 deaths a year in Germany 2015 to 2019, Federal Statistical Office, almost all adults, mostly men; a bee's stinger stays in the skin and should be scraped out sideways at once, not squeezed); doc 136 p. 33 (1 to 3 % systemic reactions)

Note

The check is right that a warning is missing, and the guideline gives a firm figure: about 3 in 100 people react to a sting with more than a swollen arm, and in Germany stings kill about 20 people a year. The warning belongs wherever the book first sends a reader to open a hive, whether that is here or a later chapter (owner's decision). Proposed: "Before anyone in the house goes near a hive, find out who reacts to stings: about three people in a hundred do, with more than a swelling, and in Germany stings kill about twenty people a year. Scrape a stinger out sideways with a fingernail or a knife at once; never pinch it. Anyone who, after a sting, has hives far from the sting, swollen lips or tongue, trouble breathing or feels faint needs a doctor that hour, and should keep away from the bees for good until an allergist has seen them."