Removing alcohol

] Hallo, ] ] Just a quickie for you wine experts :) Does boiling remove the alcohol ] from mead/wine, and if so, how long should it be boiled?

You must boil it for many hours, in order to remove all liquid, leaving only a sludgy residue. Then just add water back in!

Just kidding. Don't boil yer wine. Spoils the taste.

-E

Thanks for this :)

Ruiseart. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Mist Covered Mountains" new CD from RavensWing available now ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Salut/Hi Ruiseart agus Ceit,

le/on Fri, 14 May 2004 19:48:42 +0800, tu disais/you said:-

Despite what others have said, I'm afraid you cannot remove all alcohol from wine just by boiling it. What happens with mixtures of liquids which form contsant boiling point mixtures, (this is a mixture where both liquids evaporate in such a way as their proportions do not change) is that when you start boiling, the liquid which is present in larger proportion will boil off first, and then the mixture boils away, keeping the same proportion of both. Alcohol and water (major components of wine/mead) make a constant boiling mixture, and so when you heat wine, first alcohol boils off (as the "cbm" contains less than 10% alcohol) and then when the cmb proportions are reached, both boil together. So that means that the only way to remove ALL alcohol is to boil the wine/liquid dry.

To take an example (I don't remember what the proportions of alcohol/water in a cbm are, but for the sake of the example, I'll call it 5% alcohol), Say you heat 1 kilo of wine at 13% alcohol (130 gms) to boiling point. First of all more alcohol than water will evaporate, until you end up at 5% alcohol. As a complete guess, let's say 80 gms alcohol and 20 gms water, leaving 50 gms alcohol and 850 gms water. From then on, further boiling - even to half volume - will only reduce BOTH components in equal proportion, so you would lose 25 gms alcohol and 425 gms water, leaving still 25 gms alcohol etc.

Sorry to those who thought otherwise, but this is simple physical chemistry.

Is this a serious question?

We assume boiling would ruin the taste of wine.

You can buy alcohol free wine, I have a bottle I bought 6 or 7 years ago. Never opened it, looks like crusty old grape juice, but I understand alcohol free wine tastes more like wine than unfermented grape juice. Maybe one day I'll actually taste some.

If you're cooking with wine, don't worry about the alcohol for non drinking people, it will all burn off.

I doubt mead comes without alcohol, though. But who knows.

Not according to Ian? Anders

50 > gms alcohol and 850 gms water. From then on, further boiling - even to half > volume - will only reduce BOTH components in equal proportion, so you would > lose 25 gms alcohol and 425 gms water, leaving still 25 gms alcohol etc. >

Thankyou for this :)

Ruiseart. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Mist Covered Mountains" new CD from RavensWing available now ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~