Friday, July 23, 2010

Getting Serious Alcohol Levels in Wine

I was amazed to learn recently that beer can be made with an alcohol by volume (ABV) of over 20%. The Samuel Adams Utopias weigh in at 27%. Impressive until you learn that BrewDogs Sink the Bismarck! checks in at 41%! That ABV is achieved because alcohol freezes at lower temperatures than water and so by freezing the beer you can selectively remove water (as ice) from the solution thereby increasing the alcohol concentration.

This would be an ideal way to get more alcohol into Barossa Shiraz - wouldn't that really upset the anti-high alcohol league! It also sounds like the perfect, completely unnatural, wine - that would tick-off even more people.

The easiest way to increase alcohol in any wine would be to freeze some until its slushy (in a container that won't break) and then just pour off the unfrozen liquid. That should be high in alcohol. I wouldn't try this at home, but there is no reason why you shouldn't!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Of course, when you concentrate the alcohol this way, you're also concentrating everything else in the wine too - flavour, colour, acidity, and sweetness...

Anonymous said...

Yes it surely would upset the anti-high alcohol league!

Anonymous said...

Yes, even i am of the same view that it might affect anti-high alcohol league !!!

Anonymous said...

Yes concentrating alcohol in this way also tends to increase the concentration of other ingredients as well

barbara cooper said...

Yes, It sounds more like the perfect, completely unnatural wine - that would tick-off even more people.

wine books said...

I'm not a member of the anti-high alcohol league! But ...

you're not expecting 41% when you grab a beer!