• At Least 69 People dead, 169 Hospitalized in Mozambique From Bad Beer at A Funeral
    29 replies, posted
[quote]MAPUTO — At least 69 people died over the weekend in Mozambique after drinking home-brewed beer, a local government official told state television. The mass poisoning occurred when people attending a funeral on Friday in the village of Chitima in central Mozambique fell ill, with seven fatalities initially confirmed on Saturday morning. "As we prepared to determine the cause of death of people we began to receive a lot of people with diarrhea and other muscle aches. After that we began to receive dead bodies from several neighborhoods," Paula Bernardo, the district director for Health, Women and Social Action, told the public broadcaster. She said at least 169 remained in hospital.[/quote] Is this ironic or sad? SOURCE: [url]http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/bad-beer-kills-least-69-people-hospitalizes-169-mozambique-n284441[/url]
what a fucking nightmare
Seems like it must have been poisoned, even in the worst case circumstances I don't think beer could go bad enough to kill that many people, and still be even remotely drinkable
Jesus Christ that's horrible.
Crocodile bile in the beer made it poisonous
[QUOTE=hypno-toad;46923717]Seems like it must have been poisoned, even in the worst case circumstances I don't think beer could go bad enough to kill that many people, and still be even remotely drinkable[/QUOTE] Likely messed up in the brewing proccess. While ethanol is merely poisonous, methanol will straight out kill you at minimal quantities. If they drank any amount of beer, even a jug and the concentration of methanol was too high, they'll be lucky to be only blind, never mind any lesser injuries. It's really dangerous.
^ yeah like he said [QUOTE=hypno-toad;46923717]Seems like it must have been poisoned, even in the worst case circumstances I don't think beer could go bad enough to kill that many people, and still be even remotely drinkable[/QUOTE] Not really, since the artical states it was home made beer it could have easily been just made wrong, moonshine and other things are notoriously dangerous if made improperly, mainly because people either try to "speed up the process", give it a bit more kick, or substitute/mis-use ingredients. [URL]http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/edible-innovations/moonshine3.htm[/URL] There is a reason if you look up a homebrew kit they usually send you clear instructions, and exact amounts only
[QUOTE=Ogris;46924096]Likely messed up in the brewing proccess. While ethanol is merely poisonous, methanol will straight out kill you at minimal quantities. If they drank any amount of beer, even a jug and the concentration of methanol was too high, they'll be lucky to be only blind, never mind any lesser injuries. It's really dangerous.[/QUOTE] Is that why you're supposed to throw away the first batch of beer or something?
[QUOTE=Ogris;46924096]Likely messed up in the brewing proccess. While ethanol is merely poisonous, methanol will straight out kill you at minimal quantities. If they drank any amount of beer, even a jug and the concentration of methanol was too high, they'll be lucky to be only blind, never mind any lesser injuries. It's really dangerous.[/QUOTE] Weren't the hallucinations attributed to the wormwood used in absinthe actually due to high methanol levels in the drink?
It makes you think.. if that one person hadn't have died, 69 others would be alive. What a chaotic series of events.
Here's a nice little write up about methonal and the dangers of home-brewing without proper research, and care to what you are doing. It's a bit harder than "ferment some shit" [url]http://www.clawhammersupply.com/blogs/moonshine-still-blog/7207958-methanol-will-moonshine-make-you-blind[/url]
oh boy I know a lot of people from Mozambique, hoping they aren't relatives, this is horrible news
[QUOTE=Ogris;46924096]Likely messed up in the brewing proccess. While ethanol is merely poisonous, methanol will straight out kill you at minimal quantities. If they drank any amount of beer, even a jug and the concentration of methanol was too high, they'll be lucky to be only blind, never mind any lesser injuries. It's really dangerous.[/QUOTE] Unlikely methanol. You can't get fatal concentration of methanol from consuming something that naturally fermented, be it fermented fruit or a low alcohol content drink. Beer and wine aren't distilled so they can't have the critical concentration of methanol. Diarrhea and muscle spasms aren't symptoms of methanol poisoning by the way, the most obvious and immediate symptom is going blind.
[QUOTE=Sir_takeslot;46924185]Is that why you're supposed to throw away the first batch of beer or something?[/QUOTE] No, don't know where you heard that you heard that you have to get rid of your first beer either. All this talk about creating a deadly batch of homebrewed beer by screwing up the brewing process is BS unless they were making something that in no way resembles beer, or they used some batshit crazy ingredient that western homebrewers don't use that is lethal when fermented. And if they were being unsanitary, the kind of infection you'd have to get for a result like that would not yield a drinkable end product anyway.
[QUOTE=Splarg!;46925063]No, don't know where you heard that you heard that you have to get rid of your first beer either. All this talk about creating a deadly batch of homebrewed beer by screwing up the brewing process is BS unless they were making something that in no way resembles beer, or they used some batshit crazy ingredient that western homebrewers don't use that is lethal when fermented. And if they were being unsanitary, the kind of infection you'd have to get for a result like that would not yield a drinkable end product anyway.[/QUOTE] Yup, infection is far more likely than methanol poisoning. Salmonella or someshit.
This could be the result of non-proper measurements, not getting rid of the first three jars or so of moonshine, bad ingredients... Loads of things can go wrong while brewing moonshine. Which is a damn shame really.
My father makes moonshine and it's a pretty tedious process that you need to be careful with. But methanol poisoning is pretty unlikely because methanol is one of the first impurities to burn off, it comes off from the first still and is pretty easy to get rid of. Also, the OP says it's beer and not moonshine, the two are made in pretty different ways. With moonshine you will want to get rid of the first bit of the batch, but beer is different, and it's usually not distilled (with a few exceptions).
beer is almost impossible to methanol if you do it right. Homebrew beer wouldnt be a thign if it was
[QUOTE=Splarg!;46925063]No, don't know where you heard that you heard that you have to get rid of your first beer either. All this talk about creating a deadly batch of homebrewed beer by screwing up the brewing process is BS unless they were making something that in no way resembles beer, or they used some batshit crazy ingredient that western homebrewers don't use that is lethal when fermented. And if they were being unsanitary, the kind of infection you'd have to get for a result like that would not yield a drinkable end product anyway.[/QUOTE] I was thinking of Moonshine, according to Cyr.
Why are people talking about moonshine when it's beer?
Beer poisoned with crocodile bile kills 72 in Mozambique [url]http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/01/13/contaminated-beer-kills-dozens-in-mozambique/21684741/[/url]
[QUOTE=Gwoodman;46924254] this is horrible news[/QUOTE] That's facepunch news for ya.
[QUOTE=jr;46926740]Beer poisoned with crocodile bile kills 72 in Mozambique [url]http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/01/13/contaminated-beer-kills-dozens-in-mozambique/21684741/[/url][/QUOTE] what..? How the hell does anyone think putting croc vomit into a booze brew is a good idea?
[QUOTE=JohnFisher89;46924173]^ yeah like he said Not really, since the artical states it was home made beer it could have easily been just made wrong, moonshine and other things are notoriously dangerous if made improperly, mainly because people either try to "speed up the process", give it a bit more kick, or substitute/mis-use ingredients. [URL]http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/edible-innovations/moonshine3.htm[/URL] There is a reason if you look up a homebrew kit they usually send you clear instructions, and exact amounts only[/QUOTE] If you are making a normal beer that only includes grains like barley, wheat, oat, rye, or malt extract you will never make anything lethal. Aside from making bad tasting beer, it is actually pretty hard to fuck up beer. Distilling on the other hand involves concentrating alcohol by boiling the alcohol off and collecting it, which CAN give you a lethal concentration of things like methanol.
The crocodile bile explanation is basically uncited and appears to have been invented somewhere along the way, it's more likely that it was a plant product added during the brewing process. [url]http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkroll/2015/01/12/what-is-crocodile-bile-and-is-it-really-poisonous/[/url]
[QUOTE=amos106;46927207]If you are making a normal beer that only includes grains like barley, wheat, oat, rye, or malt extract you will never make anything lethal. Aside from making bad tasting beer, it is actually pretty hard to fuck up beer. Distilling on the other hand involves concentrating alcohol by boiling the alcohol off and collecting it, which CAN give you a lethal concentration of things like methanol.[/QUOTE] This. The first part of distilling alcohol (the head) is pure methanol.
[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;46926925]what..? How the hell does anyone think putting croc vomit into a booze brew is a good idea?[/QUOTE] Why does your post imply the person who would do this would have good intentions????
[QUOTE=Gvazdas;46930463]Why does your post imply the person who would do this would have good intentions????[/QUOTE] I can imagine someone being fucking stupid easier than I can imagine someone trying to commit mass murder at a funeral.
horrifying how the fuck could this happen?
I'm assuming it's methanol poisoning, and it's pretty damn hard to fuck up the brewing hard enough for bacteria producing methanol to appear. Methanol poisoning isn't terrible hard to treat either.
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