Freezing temperature of wines

For dry wines, a rough rule is that the freezing point is the negative temperature (as Celcius) of half the alcoholic content - so a 12% dry wine freezes at about -6C (21 F).

HTH,

Ben

Deriving the results from my long ago College Chemistry class, here is what I calculated:

The active "Antifreeze" in wine, C2H5OH, has a molecular weight of 46. Typical wine has a concentration of about 14 percent C2H5OH, or about

140 grams per liter. Using fairly rough calculations, 140 grams of ethanol is about 3 moles of solute in about 850 ml of water forming a 3.5 molal solution. Water has a freezing point depression constant of 1.86, so wine which is 14 percent alcohol will freeze at about -6.5 C, or about 20 F. Each percent change in alcohol concentration in this range will change the freezing point by a little less than one degree Fahrenheit.

Yes, this is true. But the "freezing" point that Bruce calculated isn't the point where the whole batch of wine freezes, but the temperature at which water starts to come out as ice crystals. As ice precipitates, the mother liquor (appropriate term!) becomes richer in ethanol, and resists freezing further- you will still have some liquid left at -40oC/F, which will be about 40% ethanol, but you'll have lots of slush mixed in with it. And I'm sure it would adversely affect the wine.

Cheers

While I agree that it's no longer wine, I'm sure that anyone who actually drinks brandy would disagree with your classification.

At the point that the wine reaches a slushy mixture at -40C/F, the liquid is no longer wine, it is brandy :o).

Unless you were stirring the mixture at this temperature you would have and ice brick with a liquor core.

an ice brick with a liquor core.

That would depend on the volume you used, as well as the rate of cooling. Anytime I've frozen wine (admittedly, on a scale of less than 5 gallons), I've had a uniform slushination.

Perfect answers everyone, thank you! And I now have a new favorite phrase - "uniform slushination"!

Unless you have achived complete dryness, sg 0.989 or somesuch, the remaining sugars make it yucky. Trust me. Bob

-- Remember; Tuesday is Soylent Green Day.

Bob,

I will have to keep that point in mind if I want to convert some of my second run "cooking wine" into brandy by sticking it out onto the back porch tonight. With a cold working on my sinuses, and the cold wind howling outside, a snifter full of brandy sounds about right.

It's not the remaining sugars so much as the remaining -everything- which makes it unpleasant.

Freezing out the water leaves all the other components behind- not only the alcohol and the sugar, but also the flavinoids, tannins, glycerol, fusel oils, &c., &c. What was wine may become more of a stew or a soup than a brandy, and your balancing goes straight out the window.

Cheers,

---The Mad Alchemist---

Email sent to the above address, unless clearly marked as wine or heraldry, will be deleted unread.

It's a spirit and contains all of the heads and tails that distillers like to get removed. Fusel oils and freinds can be pretty bad in high concentrations. If you do this with apple cider the New England term is apple jack, not apple brandy.

I think a spirit is, by definition, distilled, not jacked. They're called "spirits" because they would vanish from the retort and appear elsewhere. (See- a bit of knowledge of alchemy is occasionally useful!)

I think that's the proper term everywhere, not just New England.

Cheers,

I have never tried freezing wine before but it sounds interesting. I have 6 gallons of dry 2003 Vidal with a TA >1.05%. The wine is very nice but is undrinkable due to the high acid. Are there other risks in freezing the wine as with distilling such as concentrating the poison alcohols?

6 > gallons of dry 2003 Vidal with a TA >1.05%. The wine is very nice but

Freezing probably won't help that- it's more likely to concentrate the acid.

Yes- freezing or "jacking" the wine will concentrate everything, good and bad.