[possiblevictim]

My beloved family likes to subject me to the fragrant aroma of some sweet alcohol vapours. Refreshing.

Sarcasm aside(wanted to make sure my brain is somewhat intact)
It's killing me. At least psychologically. I'm afraid it might be something toxic like methanol.

I guess for you to be able to tell what the fumes might consist of you'd need to know some more details.
The brew is made of sugar and yeast, sometimes it's distilled without even being ready. I think the ''container'' in which the distillation takes place is made of aluminium, sometimes it's some random pot.

To be clear I don't care what's in the drink, it's all poison as far I'm concerned, kinda hope it is.
I'd really appreciate if you could help me out on this one.

[jeffmoonchop]

I would hope it isn't methanol because if they drink that stuff they'll die but not before going blind. but the reaction for distilling ethanol releases carbon dioxide. So unless you're in an airtight room you should be ok unless they pump out tons of the stuff.

[Ben Bob2]

Isn't there a serious explosion hazard if the poster can smell alcohol vapor?

[Intanjir]

If he is actually smelling ethanol then yes that would be an explosion hazard.
He is almost certainly smelling other chemicals as ethanol has an extremely mild odor.

Distillation is not a reaction. The carbon dioxide was produced earlier during fermentation.

They really should be venting to the outdoors.
They wouldn't drink the foreshots, why would they want to breathe them?
When absorbed, ingested substances pass through the liver which gets a first shot at detoxification.
Inhaled substances enter the bloodstream directly without passing through the liver.
Venting outdoors also reduces the fire hazard. Houses have all sorts of things inside them that can catch fire.

It shouldn't be that hard for them to run a wide pipe out a window.
If they are already doing that and the smell is strong then they have a leak and they ought to address it as it would be reducing their yields.

The gases are probably not extremely toxic, but there is no reason to tolerate an exposure so trivial to remove.

[possiblevictim]

To clear some things out(pun intended) it's my alchholic grandfather doing this stuff. He's just trying to get his fix.
There is no concern for quality. Once he even drank some diluent out of despiration.
It's a pretty amateur set up on a kitchen stove. He couldn't be bothered to install vents or anything. It's kind of a sneak n hide operation.
.
I don't think there is that much of a fire hazard as the moonshine isn't very potent ethanol wise given the brew for fermentation is usually prepered overnight.

Now he's distilling or rather deploying a biochemical weapon out of some random pot/bowl/bucket of an unknown material. Which in my uneducated opinion can pose a risk of creating harmful substances in a form of gas.

What sucks the most is he does this while I'm sleeping. I often wake up to find out I've been inhaling something all night that I probably don't want to inhale.
If I'm up before he does this I have to sit outside or in the basement for hours.
My room isn't at all airtight, the fumes actually go through my room out of the unsecured windows following the airflow.

The reason I'm asking you this is so that I have some external confirmation that this is a big deal, that my concern for my health and safety is valid. So that I could confront my grandma(enabler) to take my concerns seriously.

I need to know what the fumes could potentially consist of.  So that I could confidently state it's not just in my head!
At the very least It's disruptive, demoralizing, demotivating this bieng normalized if not harmful physically on a neurological scale.


In my opinion this post belongs more in the organic chemistry sub where I originally posted this as I'm not asking for practical advise but rather for guessing potential chem reactions of a specific scenario.
Where I'd be likely to get the answer I'm looking for.

[billnotgatez]

Your post was likely moved here since the people who do brewing for personal use are likely to watch this board. The organic board is used more for students trying to learn in school. The members who post there are typically in a very controlled laboratory environment which is not your situation.

As an aside, your posts appear to be derogatory to home brewing which might have turned off any of our home brewers who might have answered.

There might be a professional brewer who maintains a work environment that may call for monitoring gasses on this forum, but that is probably an outside chance for a response.

Additionally, we have no idea what your family member has in the pot, but if it is products of fermentation then there are all sorts of aldehydes, ketones, alcohols and whatever that could be generated during the boiling. People have been doing this for centuries without any real negative results.

Most of us on this forum are chemistry students or chemistry buffs and would probably not want to play the role of "Dear Abby" to your family situation.

I am impressed with the time members have taken to answer what they can to your request. Maybe there will be more responses, but if not I hope you understand.

As part of our forum rules we encourage people to learn on there own.
To that end I did a GOOGLE of
The chemistry of alcohol production
and got several hits that should be informative.

By the way, if you have not read the forum rules --
Click on the link near the top center of the forum page.
Forum Rules: Read This Before Posting.
http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=65859.0