Blindness
(The Home Brew)
For years home brew had been
favourite past time amongst the ethnic community in Australia. With fruits like grapes and plum in abundance
and particularly cheap toward the end of their season, it had become one of the
pleasurable hobby for many to make their own favourite drink such as ouzo,
arak, and grappa. More often than not
those brew makers fabricate their own distillation apparatus by welding zinc or
brass tubes to copper pots often the likes of the old belly pots prior to the
washing machines. As it is a clandestine
operation this home laboratory is often hidden in the garage, or a shed at the
back of the house or in the basement. In
some cased the distillation tubes are bent and welded so that the whole
apparatus can fit into limited space. It
is important to note that when tubes are bent a sort of crevice or an empty
space in the bottom of the bend is formed.
This space or spaces depending on the number of bends in the apparatus
needs to be first filled before the brewed ouzo, or arak, or grappa starts flowing freely through
the tubes on its way to filling the bottles and flagons.
Many of you dear readers will
know that the fermentation process is chemically the reverse of the breathing
process in human. The alcohol that we
enjoy and makes us merry when we drink beer, wine or spirit is ethanol. Two carbon chain molecule with hydroxyl group
(OH) bonded to the end carbon. Methanol
which is very toxic to the optic nerve and causes almost instantaneous
blindness is one carbon with hydroxyl group at the end. Accordingly methanol has lower molecular
weight than ethanol and thus lower boiling point. Therefore when the home brewer lights the gas
or logs under the distillation apparatus methanol is the first to evaporate and
makes its way through the series of welded tubes filling the crevices. Exactly like a curled up poisonous snake
waiting for its prey. As the copper
gets hot ethanol now evaporate and makes its way through the series of welded
tubes. The methanol now in the crevices
gets carried to the bottles and flagons that start filling much to the joy and
pleasure of the home brewer. It is the
enjoyable end products of the clandestine operation. The first bottle or flagon that gets filled
will have the most lethal concoction for the optic nerve. Whether that first bottle or flagon contains
ouzo, arak, or grappa it poses serious and real danger of blindness to whoever
drinks from it.
In my next blog I will tell you
about Costa, a 35 years old school teacher who went to bed on a Sunday night
after attending barbecue in his neighbourhood and shortly after realized that
he could not see.
Cheers,
till next time.
Michael S. Abdul-Karim
