On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 10:28:34 -0500, "J F" > wrote:

>> Have you ever heard of or tried making ice wine with the same method?
>Apple jack is the product of frozen cider with the ice crystals removed.

I tried it once, but my filtration procedure was too clumsy to make
anything very nice.

>I'd hazard a guess that high teens is about as far as you go as the
>increased alcohol level will act as antifreeze and then if you cold enough
>the alcohol is start to crystalize as well.

The alcohol will NOT start to crystallize- the freezing point of
ethanol (-114.1 oC) is well below any temperature you're going to
encounter.

Any time you cool a mixture of two compounds, the higher-melting one
will start to crystallize (and precipitate out), rather than having
the entire solution freeze. The remaining liquid will then be richer
in low-melting component, and it will take a lower temperature to
cause more of the first component to precipitate.

So, to do this properly, you would have to chill the wine to the point
where it -just- starts to freeze. If you cool it too much, then you
have a bottle of slush, which is impossible to filter properly (in
-this- respect, I'm speaking from experience). If you have a
manageble quanitity of ice forming, you can filter off the wine, which
will have a higher percentage of alcohol than it started with. To get
ice to precipitate from this wine, you cool it a few more degrees.
This gives you a liquor with a higher percent alcohol again. Repeat
as required.

I don't have a phase diagram for the ethanol-water system, but I do
know that at -40oC, the remaining liquid will be 40% ethanol. As to
its potability, I'm not going to hazard a guess.

Cheers,

---The Mad Alchemist---
http://www.mad-alchemy.com
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