Champagne Q?

[T_Baggins]

So I was goofing around EcKraus' site and found two methods of making champagne, but both stated that 11.5 ABV is the highest you want to start with... why?

 

[podz]

Because you will raise the alcohol even still during secondary fermentation and due to the high carbonation champagne intoxicates you faster and stronger than flat wine.

 

[delvorak]

Why would carbonation get you more drunk than flat? Assuming the same volume was consumed?

 

[mikder82]

The carbonation increases the surface area of the liquid. More surface area allows for quicker absorption. The final "buzz" is the same based on volume, just one acts a little quicker.

 

[BrewandWineSupply]

Higher alcohol does not carbonate as well as lower alcohol, try to carbonate everclear.

 

[TexasWine]

The carbonation increases the surface area of the liquid. More surface area allows for quicker absorption. The final "buzz" is the same based on volume, just one acts a little quicker.

Actually, the latest scientific evidence indicates the bubbles in carbonation make you bloated, and your body's response to this is for your stomach to kick into overdrive trying to rid your system of what's in it. Therefore the alcohol hits your upper GI tract quicker causing a higher concentration of alcohol to hit your system than if you were drinking a flat beverage.

 

[T_Baggins]

Hmm...some of this makes sense... but not much. I do understand and believe the fact that carbonation gets you buzzed up faster, but not maybe stronger. From personal experience I find that drinking 1 beer gives me more of the heady feeling right away, as compared to my wine which has more than twice the ABV. Also, drinking the beer with a straw (gets more of the carb down your gullet) is more effective than not using the straw. On the other hand, BrewandWineSupply's theory makes some sense as well. I'm not sure how or why the science works out, but i do believe HIGH alc content may be harder to carbonate, but would 5 more points over 11.5 be impossible to carb? Or would it just taste like crap? I will be attempting a champagne, but I will follow EcKraus' recommendation. After achieving good results I may toy with bumping it up a bit.

 

[TexasWine]

Seems like we got a little if topic for a few posts. I believe your question was more along the lines of "why isn't it physically possible to carbonate a higher ABV", which is not addressed by the debate of why carbonation leads to quicker intoxication.

If I were you I'd look up the solubility of CO2 in ethanol. Should be easily found using Google. Engineering Toolbox is a great website for such information. What I suspect you'll find is exactly what someone else here said; it's more difficult to carbonate alcohol. It may be that above 11.5% you can't get high enough volumes of CO2 for it to be very bubbly, which is a requisite for champagne.

Let us know what you find out!

 

[T_Baggins]

Seems like we got a little if topic for a few posts. I believe your question was more along the lines of "why isn't it physically possible to carbonate a higher ABV", which is not addressed by the debate of why carbonation leads to quicker intoxication.

If I were you I'd look up the solubility of CO2 in ethanol. Should be easily found using Google. Engineering Toolbox is a great website for such information. What I suspect you'll find is exactly what someone else here said; it's more difficult to carbonate alcohol. It may be that above 11.5% you can't get high enough volumes of CO2 for it to be very bubbly, which is a requisite for champagne.

Let us know what you find out!

Will do.

 

[brazedowl]

Actually, the latest scientific evidence indicates the bubbles in carbonation make you bloated, and your body's response to this is for your stomach to kick into overdrive trying to rid your system of what's in it. Therefore the alcohol hits your upper GI tract quicker causing a higher concentration of alcohol to hit your system than if you were drinking a flat beverage.

Do you have a link to that article? I'd love to read about it. All I could find was THIS and it didn't give a mechanism, just that in some people carbonation showed increased the rate of adsorption, in some people it had no effect or a decreased the rate of of adsorption.

 

[podz]

Part of the problem is also that if you need to be freezing to remove the yeast slush plug then the higher the alcohol content the more difficult it is to freeze anything.

 

[TexasWine]

Do you have a link to that article? I'd love to read about it. All I could find was THIS and it didn't give a mechanism, just that in some people carbonation showed increased the rate of adsorption, in some people it had no effect or a decreased the rate of of adsorption.

Hey brazed. That is the correct study but unfortunately I don't have a copy of the full article. Either way it does look like I jumped to conclusions. From the synopsis I read there's nothing 100% conclusive on the mechanism. Seems that there are several theories, one being the idea I mentioned.

My apologies for throwing an undocumented and unverifiable claim out there. Should have read a little more carefully.

 

[TexasWine]

Curiosity got the better of me and I started poking around for solubility information. Turns out I didn't find anything right off the bat on the internet so I modeled this myself while eating delicious leftovers my wife made a few days ago.

If I've figured out how to use the attachments feature in this forum correctly, attached you should find a chart showing the solubility of CO2 in an ethanol/water mixture of various concentrations. I made a few assumptions:

-mixture was purely water, ethanol and CO2
-temp = 60F
-press = 50 psig (probably a little high, but it'll show the correct trend)
-equation of state (PRSV, I think)

My interpretation is that CO2 solubility doesn't really start to taper off until you get to around 30% ethanol. Beyond that point its diminishing returns.

I'm sure the solubility will be impacted by things like sugar content, but I don't have any way to really model that type of fluid.

So, in conclusion, my vote is to bump it up as high as you want!

View attachment Book1.pdf