I'm seeing a lot of misinformation in this thread. Stills don't "blow up". That was a myth perpetuated by law enforcement in the same spirit that smoking pot will make you go crazy. Making soup in a pressure cooker is far more dangerous than using a still. Distilling liquor is done at atmospheric pressure, no part of the equipment is ever under pressure.
this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2026
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You don't need initial pressure to have an explosion. Flammable vapors in a confined space, even at low pressure, can explode if ignited.
If it exceeds a particular vapor pressure, the ethanol fumes become too rich to explode, just like any other explosive vapor. The high vapor pressures of a still wouldn't lend themselves well to exploding. Fires, sure. But unless you're distilling over an open flame and something horribly wrong happens with your still, it's not very likely to burst into flames. Most small scale hobbyist stills are electric nowadays
The setup in the video is not a still. It's a device designed specifically to create an explosion. You could replace the ethanol with hairspray, WD-40, butane from a lighter, gasoline, nail polish remover, or any number of household items to achieve the same effect.
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False. My great grandpa was a bootlegger. There are and we're explosions and fires making hooch.
Home distilling is significantly different than bootlegging. The biggest batch that I start with is 5 gallons. Bootleggers were working with commercial quantities.
Yeah, making moonshine was a rural pastime in my country for ages, even when it was illegal, and the most danger from it that I've heard of is that the result smells and tastes pretty damn nasty.
Wikipedia says:
Alcohol concentrations at higher strengths (the GHS identifies concentrations above 24% ABV as dangerous) are flammable and therefore dangerous to handle. This is especially true during the distilling process, when vaporized alcohol may accumulate in the air to dangerous concentrations if adequate ventilation is not provided.
This sounds like it requires the air to taste like fortified wine.
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This is the biggest win for homebrewers since Jimmy Carter.
Everyone in this thread talking about how people are gonna blow themselves up, but ... okay? It's up to the individual to make sure that they're being safe and following adequate procedures. It's not like working on cars, RC/drones (lithium batteries), flying planes, and guns are all perfectly safe hobbies, and those are all very normalized.
In terms of safety surrounding unwanted product, like methanol, it's again the person's responsibility. Much like how it's up to the canner to make sure they're not giving people botulism or a kombucha to have only the wanted bacteria.
Presumably like homebrewed beer and wine, you can’t sell it, correct?
That would make it commercial use and not just personal.
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Man, a lot of people here just repeating the same old myths and police lines about moonshine making you blind and stills exploding. Not to be that guy but do some research.
Methanol poisoning is hugely overstated, sugar and grain mash don't produce enough for it to be dangerous. Fruit mash can, but it's easy to mitigate. Most cases of methanol poisoning are either the person purposefully drinking methanol or from alcohol that's been adulterated with it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_methanol_poisoning_incidents
Stills can start fires, if improperly operated, but so can gas hobs and we're not calling for a license to operate those. You really need to be making industrial quantities at pressure for it to explode. Looking at it as a cause of fires in countries where it's legal indicate that it's a non-issue. If you're worried about forest fires, don't make it so people need to hide in the woods and they'll do it at home.
It should be noted that it was the US government who intentionally poisoned the alcohol supply during prohibition. The people that attempted to drink this poisoned alcohol were the ones suffering of blindness and other complications.
Ah, an American classic. Sabotage a good thing, and then use an isolated incident to instill a hundred years worth of fear.
The danger comes from the distilling, which concentrates the miniscule methanol to dangerous levels. When I learned distilling, I was taught to throw away the first half cup or so to reduce methanol. In reality, methanol has a lower boiling point than ethanol, so you get mostly methanol in that first few shots due to the still warming up, but overall it's negligible. In a well controlled environment, it's technically possible to separate the two via this fractional distillation, but it's not something those early moonshiners really knew about.
In summary, I see home distillation in the same light as picking wild mushrooms: you really have to know what you're doing. As always, regulation and education is the answer here.
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Y'all know the risk of home distillers blinding themselves via methanol poisoning is way higher than the risk of them blowing themselves up, right?
Not really, it's the exact opposite. There isn't any more methanol in small scale shine than there is in homebrew beer. The risk is if you make a large enough batch that you can get a full bottle of just heads, and then decide to drink that for whatever reason. But even at moderate scales, that's not going to happen.
Yeah, but an explosion would be incredibly rare, too. So rare that I think even the "get a full bottle of just heads and then decide to drink that for whatever reason" would still manage to be more likely.
Only if you use fruits. Grain or sugar has very little methanol when fermented
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Nothing is going to change, there won't be any more stills blowing up in the future than there have in the past.
People who wanted to do this were already doing it. This just makes it legal. I doubt there were too many out there that wanted to, but we're holding off because of the law, and now they can indulge.
I feel this ruling is going to have explosive results.
For blindingly obvious reasons.
K, now make any and all drugs legal
The comments in this thread make it sound like it's super dangerous, its not and you have to fuck up so much to blind yourself or blow up.
iirc methanol and acetone both have a boiling point much lower than ethanol, so I think one would learn really quickly to discard the first little bit of distilled product, because it'd be nasty as hell. I never tried distilling but the issue seems like it'd fix itself, right?
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Can't read the Epstein Files if you're blind from methanol poisoning, remember to collect your tips and tails folks!
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So long as they're doing it for personal use and being safe enough to not blow up the neighborhood, I don't care. If they wanna sell for others to consume then obviously that's a whole other thing.
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I see a moonshine arisin
Wait, in the land of the free home distilling is illegal?
Not really, we have "laws" and as long as you weren't making money no one cared , we have TV shows of people in a competition with home distilleries, this is basically just fixing a outdated bullshit law from 158 years ago
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5th Circuit
It’s nice to know how to feel about a ruling before you even read the actual opinion.
This is the rare occasion where they actually got a ruling right, for once.
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Wait, the 5th circuit did something that isnt evil? What's the catch?
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My dad makes what I would describe as moonshine or vodka or something like that every year at home. We're in the EU though. I always found it odd it's illegal in the US
It's illegal in the UK too.
That said, so long as you're not selling it no one really cares
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If you do it wrong, or drink the wrong part of the finished product, you can go blind. So I get why regulation may be needed.
Except that was never the reason it was illegal, really. The government just wanted their tax money.
If we're banning it for safety reasons, we need to ban a lot more activities. have you seen what happens if people use a table saw or pool improperly? Even stairs are probably more dangerous than home distilling
Does this ruling nullify state law bans on home distillation?
Nice bit of good news if it does.
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I just want to distill water for humidifier....
I'm pretty sure you can do this regardless, the ban was for distilling spirits. Water distillers are like $70 on Amazon
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Truly entering our Hegseth era.
Here's a video on how to make moonshine.
Popcorn Sutton: This is the last dam run of likker... https://youtu.be/glQjCKAI4gA
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