I’m just putting this down here as it took me such a long time to get an answer to this same question. When I first looked into doing this the one thing I was really worried about was methanol poisoning. I know they say you only produce a little bit and all that, but the fact is that there was some produced and I was really worried about screwing up some variable in the process, like for too long or at the wrong temperature and accidentally making a whole batch of methanol rather than ethanol.

Well there’s a few details which people don’t talk about too much that cleared this all up for me. What confused me was that you ferment plants to make ethanol and I knew it was the sugar in the plants that form the ethanol, but what I didn’t realise was that while methanol is also made from plants it’s not the sugar that forms it, it’s actually a substance called pectin, which is found in the cell walls of plants. I assume that’s why wood is used to ferment for methanol, because it’s more fleshy and there’s more pectin. I also assume that’s why you don’t get any methanol using turbo-yeast, because the small amounts of methanol in regular fermenting are formed from the pulp of the plants and from the nutrient used.

So basically, if you’re sticking to regular sugar washes then it’s be a scientific breakthrough if you managed to give yourself methanol poisoning, just make sure you don’t accidentally buy sawdust instead of sugar.

http://www.wikignole.be/wiki/New_Distillers_FAQ

Basically, seeing as there appears to be evidence that plastics can leech out into water when stored in plastic bottles, it seems logical that alcohol (as a solvent) would have a similar effect. The amounts concerned are probably very small, but it would be remiss of me to recommend that people do this when it could potentially impact on their health.

Or to put it more bluntly, if it was me then I’d probably switch to glass containers (pretty cheap at Ikea) as soon as possible. There’s a small risk from what you’ve already done, but in the ‘real world’ it’s *probably* minimal. The choice is yours!

“For now, just know that most people would say that plastic and alcohol do not mix, and that you could be risking your health if you choose to do so.”

(sorry, i don’t know how to use tags apparently)

I searched here for an article on the risks associated with alcohol/plastic interaction, but couldn’t find one. Should I be concerned? Should I dump out this vodka I’ve been infusing?
Thanks!