# It's powder, you see? So it's not dangerous! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 6, 2007, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-powder-you-see-so-its-not-dangerous/406985 "2007-06-06T14:13:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-powder-you-see-so-its-not-dangerous/406985/21 "2007-06-06T17:11:46Z")
[QUOTE=Celyn] Heck, selling beer in bags sounds an odd concept to start with. A bit messy, I’d think, but then again with a bit of practice, I’m sure one learns how to cope. 🙂 [/QUOTE] I know Third Street Aleworks in Santa Rosa sells beer-in-a-bag, though it’s basically the same mechanism as boxed wine, and it won’t keep as long. It’s a little more wieldy than a growler and the tap is convenient, as well. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Dave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/46a35a/32.png) [@Great\_Dave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Dave)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-powder-you-see-so-its-not-dangerous/406985/22 "2007-06-06T17:59:15Z")
I had an old backpacking book that referred to powdered wine and beer- only available in Japan or Europe, though. And that was published in the late 80s. ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-powder-you-see-so-its-not-dangerous/406985/23 "2007-06-06T18:06:52Z")
[QUOTE=Redfrost] Thanks for the info. I should never listen to a priest in recovery (Father Joseph Martin). He used it to talk about the similiarity of effects between alcohol and ether. I’m a subtance abuse counselor and this is in one of the videos that many of my co-workers show. I think maybe he was painting with a broad brush. [/QUOTE] Well, they both destroy brain cells, but you’ll find folks sniffing ether rather than drinking it. It’s really toxic compared to alcohol. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-powder-you-see-so-its-not-dangerous/406985/24 "2007-06-06T18:21:15Z")
I wonder if they’re not simply trapping the alcohol in some kind of [absorbant polymer](http://www.watersorb.com/index.htm) and then mixing that up with some Kool-aid & sodium bicorbonate … or something. I, too, am willing to accept that I might be some kind of idiot. \*God this place is frustrating–I start a thread in MPSIMS on Velveeta and it gets transferred to CS and then turns hostile; I start a Pit thread and it turns into a GQ. I give up, where’s my Iocane at? \* ---
**Author:** ![Solfy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Solfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Solfy)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-powder-you-see-so-its-not-dangerous/406985/25 "2007-06-06T19:08:06Z")
Assuming the spray drying process mentioned above is feasible, what you have is not “powdered alcohol.” What you have is a powder that contains alcohol in liquid form. In which case I imagine it would still be regulated in the states like any other product containing ethanol suitable for consumption. (regulated and taxed to the hilt) There is one other way to have “powdered alcohol,” but I can’t see any product on a store shelf being maintained at -114deg C. Powdered water beverages are much more marketable. ---
**Author:** ![mischievous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@mischievous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mischievous)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-powder-you-see-so-its-not-dangerous/406985/26 "2007-06-06T20:02:28Z")
> [@](#): > > According to the manufacturer, the powder is produced in the following way. A solution of water and alcohol is mixed with maltodextrin and then spray-dried at relatively low temperatures. Each molecule of alcohol is encapsulated by dextrin during the spray-drying process and the smaller water molecules are allowed to pass through the surface and evaporate. There is about a 5% loss of alcohol on the surface of each droplet. Well, five minutes experimentation suggests this is bullshit. We don’t have any maltodextrin in the lab, but I grabbed some maltose, some dextrose, and a short-chain starch which should have similar properties to maltodextrin. Adding a small amount (around 10% by volume) of pure ethanol to any of these simply causes them to clump up - they don’t stay as a powder at all. Adding more ethanol (about 40% by volume) results in a slurry of poorly-dissolved stuff at the bottom, with an excess of liquid on top. Again, not much resemblance to a powder. So, my seat-of-the-pants experiment suggests that maltodextrin _ **might** _ be able absorb 4.8% ethanol, but that’s 4.8% of the volume of the _ **powder** _, not the final drink. Assuming that the powder is mixed in roughly ten-twenty times as much liquid, that means the final drink has 0.5-0.25% alcohol. Not much to worry about. Additionally, I don’t actually beleive that maltodextrin will encapsulate alcohol. Maltodextrin is not known to assemble into the kind of larger multi-molecule structures which could do this. When dried, it just forms rough crystals, which wouldn’t encapsulate more than the occasional random molecule. I’d have to see some more evidence than a novelty drink company’s website to be convinced of this one. mischievous ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-powder-you-see-so-its-not-dangerous/406985/27 "2007-06-06T20:18:54Z")
Won’t somebody please think of the children? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-powder-you-see-so-its-not-dangerous/406985/28 "2007-06-06T21:31:36Z")
The only way I see this being possible is if the liquid alcohol was actually being encased in water soluble microcapsules. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-powder-you-see-so-its-not-dangerous/406985/29 "2007-06-06T21:32:53Z")
> [@](#): > > Won’t somebody please think of the children? Apparently, Booz2Go’s marketing department was doing just that. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-powder-you-see-so-its-not-dangerous/406985/30 "2007-06-06T22:00:14Z")
[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus] Don’t know, but during the Prohibition era\* there actually was a company that sold “wine bricks”; the instructions on the product basically told you not to add water to it and do one or two other procedures, because then you’d be making wine which would be illegal\*\*. [/QUOTE] I’ve not heard of these before but I suspect they didn’t actually contain alcohol in the ‘brick’ state - they sound like they might have been a combination of dried yeast, dried fruit extracts and sugar - so you’d have to dissolve them and allow them to ferment. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-powder-you-see-so-its-not-dangerous/406985/31 "2007-06-06T22:37:56Z")
The “status” of this story, according to the [Museum of Hoaxes](http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/permalink/powdered_alcohol/) is: > [@](#): > > Apparently it’s real ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-powder-you-see-so-its-not-dangerous/406985/32 "2007-06-06T22:44:08Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] I’ve not heard of these before but I suspect they didn’t actually contain alcohol in the ‘brick’ state - they sound like they might have been a combination of dried yeast, dried fruit extracts and sugar - so you’d have to dissolve them and allow them to ferment. [/QUOTE] I read the same Time-Life book–I had the impression that it was simply dehydrated grape juice. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2007, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-powder-you-see-so-its-not-dangerous/406985/33 "2007-06-06T22:56:03Z")
[QUOTE=Biffy the Elephant Shrew] I read the same Time-Life book–I had the impression that it was simply dehydrated grape juice. [/QUOTE] Which, if it was not pastuerized before drying, would contain lots of wild yeasts. Plenty to start fermentation. I’ve made hard cider plenty of times simply by taking freshly pressed apple juice, pouring it into old wine bottles, sealing the top with a balloon, and waiting. A few weeks later, alcohol. This is the way wine was made for centuries, just squeeze the juice and wait, the natural yeasts on the grape skins did the rest. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-powder-you-see-so-its-not-dangerous/406985/34 "2007-06-07T08:15:58Z")
[QUOTE=ASAKMOTSD] Probably works for Canadians who have been selling milk in plastic bags for many years… 😉 [/QUOTE] I had to Google to see this and found [this](http://www.thethirteenthstep.com/sa/1623210332_milk.jpg) informative fellow. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-powder-you-see-so-its-not-dangerous/406985/35 "2007-06-07T12:33:47Z")
[QUOTE=Redfrost] Thanks for the info. I should never listen to a priest in recovery (Father Joseph Martin). He used it to talk about the similiarity of effects between alcohol and ether. I’m a subtance abuse counselor and this is in one of the videos that many of my co-workers show. I think maybe he was painting with a broad brush. [/QUOTE] When I was in rehab, I saw a videotape of this guy. IIRC, his main theme had something to do with the chemical similarity of ether and alcohol; if you doubled the chemical formula of ether, it became the chemical formula of alcohol or vice versa. The point, if there was one, was that alcohol is too a drug—that is, his spiel was to convince people that alcohol was as much of a drug as heroin, cocaine, etc., etc. I think maybe he was making the point that alcoholics were, in fact, drug addicts. ---
**Author:** ![Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7993a0/32.png) [@Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jamaika_a_jamaikaiake)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-powder-you-see-so-its-not-dangerous/406985/36 "2007-06-07T14:28:32Z")
[QUOTE=Pushkin] I had to Google to see this and found [this](http://www.thethirteenthstep.com/sa/1623210332_milk.jpg) informative fellow. [/QUOTE] Magyarországon, tej zsákban jön is. I mean, in Hungary, milk comes in bags, too. [Friss tej](http://www.levmilk.sk/index.php?page=3194) ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-powder-you-see-so-its-not-dangerous/406985/37 "2007-06-07T14:35:24Z")
[QUOTE=Jamaika a jamaikaiaké] Magyarországon, tej zsákban jön is. I mean, in Hungary, milk comes in bags, too. [Friss tej](http://www.levmilk.sk/index.php?page=3194) [/QUOTE] Milk comes in bags everywhere…fun bags! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Redfrost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9fc29f/32.png) [@Redfrost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Redfrost)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-powder-you-see-so-its-not-dangerous/406985/38 "2007-06-07T15:25:21Z")
[QUOTE=LouisB] When I was in rehab, I saw a videotape of this guy. IIRC, his main theme had something to do with the chemical similarity of ether and alcohol; if you doubled the chemical formula of ether, it became the chemical formula of alcohol or vice versa. The point, if there was one, was that alcohol is too a drug—that is, his spiel was to convince people that alcohol was as much of a drug as heroin, cocaine, etc., etc. I think maybe he was making the point that alcoholics were, in fact, drug addicts. [/QUOTE] I agree. I should have put a smilie in there next to his name. ---
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-powder-you-see-so-its-not-dangerous/406985/39 "2007-06-07T17:45:42Z")
[QUOTE=ASAKMOTSD] Probably works for Canadians who have been selling milk in plastic bags for many years… 😉 [/QUOTE] See [here](http://home.cogeco.ca/~husky66/Milk/steps/) for details. Milk bag holders are sold in fretty much all groceries and houseware stores in our area (and at any Victoria’s Secrets for **kidchameleon** ). ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-powder-you-see-so-its-not-dangerous/406985/40 "2007-06-07T17:55:16Z")
[QUOTE=Jamaika a jamaikaiaké] Magyarországon, tej zsákban jön is. I mean, in Hungary, milk comes in bags, too. [Friss tej](http://www.levmilk.sk/index.php?page=3194) [/QUOTE] And mayonnaise (and tomato paste, and a bunch of things as I’m sure you know) comes in a toothpaste tube. What an odd place. (Really, not just Hungary, a good portion of Europe does this) 😉 Actually, the tomato paste in a toothpaste tube is brilliant. Sometimes, I just need a little tomato paste. Opening a whole can and using only a teaspoon of it is such a waste. I try to reuse it, but I only end up using tomato paste maybe once a month. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-powder-you-see-so-its-not-dangerous/406985.md?page=1)