Making Alcohol?

Question

i made some alcohol using water yeast and sugar, i found the recipe online and wanted to give it a try and see if it actually works. well its been sitting for about 15 days and it has stopped bubbling and im pretty sure its ready. My question is, is there any way that the mixture could have turned to ethal alcohol by now, because i really dont want to go and drink a gallon of that and die or go blind. so if any one knows please let me know and dont answer if you dont know because this could really hurt me if it has. thank you for your real (meaning not made up guess or bullshit) answers

this was made with bread yeast (if it makes a difference) and its not really beer because i didnt add hops or anything like that

Answer 1

I drank some homemade beer that sounds like what you've made. It didn't give us any trouble.

Answer 2

Yeah, you made alcohol alright...ethyl alcohol (ethanol). If you were to to distill it, it would just be stronger...not a different kind.

You also haven't made anything toxic or dangerous. What you DID make is just nasty tasting...not too far from prison pruno (less actual fruit for flavor).

Sugar, water, and baking yeast are pretty much the simplest components to a beer/wine fermentation. The actual ingredients in them are what lend the specific flavors and characteristics that make each style unique. Chemically speaking, there aren't any components among your ingredients that would generate any toxins such as methanol in an quantity to be remotely hazardous (if even at all).
Translated: What you've made will not harm you...only offend your tastebuds. It will taste nasty.

When you taste it, if it tastes sweet, then the yeast hasn't consumed all the sugar. If it tastes tart (but not vinegar-y) then the sugar has been consumed and the yeast is done doing its thing. Understand that yeast needs more than JUST sugar to thrive, so without any additional nutrients, it may not survive to consume all the sugar...sometimes consuming other yeast cells as nutrient (autolyzing) so you won't be able to expect a high concentration of alcohol, no matter how much sugar you added...perhaps as much as 5-6% (like beer)..

Also, baking yeast isn't used for brewing beer/wine for the simple fact that it wasn't bred for that purpose. The primary difference is that baking yeast doesn't flocculate...it doesn't clump together and settle to the bottom when there's no more sugar left to consume or if the alcohol concentration gets high enough to kill off the yeast. When it doesn't settle, or rather, when it stays suspended in the final "beer" then no matter what, you wind up with a yeasty tasting brew. It's rich in B vitamins and other nutrients, so it's not bad for you, but it does taste funky. There are possible means of clarifying the suspended yeast from your brew, but if you're going to that effort, you may as well have gone to the effort of getting it right from the beginning instead of fixing something not-quite-right from the start.

Answer 3

Well first you need to know bread yeast can only ferment to about 10% give or take (sorry I made this # up) anyway even high quality turbo yeasts can only tolerate up to 25% ABV before dying off. What you have to worry about are higher alcohols Methanol, (makes you blind) but unless you made 100 gallons you don't have anything to worry about (maybe a bad hangover) considering the tiny amounts produced. To cause harm, you would have long been dead from alcohol poisoning (an impossible amount to drink)
Just remember there are allot of myths & disinformation about producing alcohol and I hope this helps, you don't really have much to worry about unless you are mass producing and distilling, everything else is realitivly harmless the worst thing you have to worry about is after all the time you spent only to end up with a horrible disgusting end product that your dog wouldn't even drink

Answer 4

Did you read this before you try?
http://www.at-bristol.org.uk/Alcoholandyou/Facts/howisitmade.html ???
You need Glucose from let´s say sugar cane to make it!
I know what I am talking about. I live in Brazil; the largest alcohol sugar cane producer in the world.

If I may suggest pour your "precious" liquid into the toilet and flush it. BUY ready alcohol from a drugstore, maybe, or so. Here we can buy it in supermarkets or drugstores in one liter (30 ounces) bottle for "cleaning" windows etc. Yes, there are people who drink it but usually the paramedics must come along!

Forget it. Only people who don´t have access to regular READY alcohol try to make it at home. People in prisions for example. They get ananas slices - FOR EXAMPLE - and wait for the yeast FROM it to get ready. I repeat, for example.

It´s TOO risky for you to YES get blind or DIE after drinking this your * liquid, you have just made.

Hope I have helped.

Answer 5

Its not turning to ethyl alcohol, its turning to vinegar! Try it out before it goes to far. Ethyl alcohol, isn't that a distilled type of alcohol, bootleg? You're talking wine-it just turns to vinegar. You could have bottled it about a day ago. It just takes two weeks and then, when the bubbles slow down(not stop), you bottle the stuff.

Answer 6

take a risk, just do it.