Martin Golding > wrote:

> On Sat, 14 Feb 2004 01:30:29 +0100, Victor Sack wrote:
>
> > Rodney Myrvaagnes > wrote:
> >
> >> The study in question is by J. Augustin, E. Augustin, R. Cutrufelli, S.
> >> Hagen, and C. Teitzel in "Alcohol retention in food preparation,"
> >> Journal Of The American Dietetic Association, Vol 92, No. 4, April 1992.
> >> ***************end of paste
> >>
> >> It doesn't sound worth looking for, if it doesn't identify starting
> >> points, or is the above referring to a different paper?
> >
> > The study used to be available online; it no longer is. From what I
> > remember of it, it used scientific methods, meaning all the necessary
> > measurements, starting and otherwise, were done. Real-life recipes were
> > used, one of them by Escoffier, IIRC.
>
> "All the necessary measurements" is not easily compatible with "real
> life recipes".
>
> Alcohol/water mixtures boil fairly predictably, the boiling temperature
> and the vapor mix are tightly dependent on the proportions in the liquid.
> Unless some separation technique is occurring (an oddly shaped pan lid
> or fortunate configuration of an aluminum foil cover is acting as a
> reflux head) the amount of alcohol remaining should be perfectly
> predicted by the percentage of alcohol at the start, and the percentage
> of liquid boiled away (or remaining). ANY cooking method that cooks off
> at least half the liquid will essentially eliminate the alcohol.

So, if you boil some wine until half of it is cooked off, all the
alcohol is eliminated?

> Conversely, a cooking method that retains all of the liquid should fail
> to eliminate much of the alcohol. The referenced study identified neither
> the starting percentage of alcohol nor the proportinon of liquid
> evaporated during the cooking.

Do you have an access to the study, or do you go by memory? I seem to
remember - and my memory is notoriously unreliable - that those
percentages were identified...

Victor