Thanks for all the responses, I really appreciate all the facts and
practical knowledge people have offered up. I've now made the attempt, but
like Doug I found that 40f champaign bottles immersed ~2 inches into a 20f
brine solution (the coldest I could get the brine solution to go) for up to
10 hours just don't freeze at all. On the other hand, I got a lot of things
done around the house after I figured out that the one hour freezing time
listed in Morse's 'Making Mead' was a fantasy. :-/

I've located a local supply house that sells a 10lb block of dry ice
(~-100f) for just under $20US. Given that I hate making multiple trips, I
spent half that amount on ice (I only needed to use half of it, but I had no
way of knowing that when I set out to the local Food King for ice) in my
first attempt, so I consider the cost well within reason. I'm fairly
confident that I can get the brine to drop a few more degrees using portions
of the dry ice block. And I spoke at length about the hazards of dry ice to
the shop worker who fielded my call, and feel fairly confident that I won't
be freezing off any limbs while working with this material. ;-)

I'll take pains to perfect my disgorging gear before the next try, as I
found that I could only use 12 of the 15 bottle holes in my rack, due to the
fact that my tray for resting the necks on doesn't have the surface area to
support all 15 bottles. So I live and learn in more than one way...

Friday night / Saturday morning (in the cool evening/morning hours) I'll
make my second foray into disgorgement. Wish me luck!


--
Cheers,
Ken