Greetings,

I'm about to embark on my first attempt at disgorging. I've read a great
many references to help me settle my nerves. I consider this my last chance
to ruin what was at first a wonderful chardonnay, even if lacking completely
the oak character that I enjoy, and then a tasty, if cloudy, champaign.
Wish me luck that I blow my chance...

What I haven't been able to find in any reference is any mention of the
quantities of salt and water used to make the brine solution the necks will
be frozen in. Not a single web site, magazine, pamphlet, or book has
ventured into a discussion of salt/water ratios. Not being a chemist, I
have only the layman's knowledge that water with sufficient dissolved solids
will remain liquid at a temperature below the freezing point. And I must
assume that the ice I'll be purchasing at the local convenience store will
be a decent amount cooler than, say, 30f, so that it'll be able to bring my
brine solution enough below freezing to do it's trick and freeze the
champaign in the necks of my bottles. But it would give me a great deal of
piece of mind to be able to find someone, somewhere, who could say "I've
used a brine solution of 4 lbs salt in 4 gallons of water. Added 10 lbs of
ice, and it worked great!"

Any tips from those who have managed this franky rather daunting task for
the home winemaker will be greatly appreciated!


--
Cheers,
Ken

Try this, they may be able to give you direction.



tdd@
tdd-grilliat.com




"Oberon" > wrote in message
...
| Greetings,
|
| I'm about to embark on my first attempt at disgorging. I've read a great
| many references to help me settle my nerves. I consider this my last
chance
| to ruin what was at first a wonderful chardonnay, even if lacking
completely
| the oak character that I enjoy, and then a tasty, if cloudy, champaign.
| Wish me luck that I blow my chance...
|
| What I haven't been able to find in any reference is any mention of the
| quantities of salt and water used to make the brine solution the necks
will
| be frozen in. Not a single web site, magazine, pamphlet, or book has
| ventured into a discussion of salt/water ratios. Not being a chemist, I
| have only the layman's knowledge that water with sufficient dissolved
solids
| will remain liquid at a temperature below the freezing point. And I must
| assume that the ice I'll be purchasing at the local convenience store will
| be a decent amount cooler than, say, 30f, so that it'll be able to bring
my
| brine solution enough below freezing to do it's trick and freeze the
| champaign in the necks of my bottles. But it would give me a great deal
of
| piece of mind to be able to find someone, somewhere, who could say "I've
| used a brine solution of 4 lbs salt in 4 gallons of water. Added 10 lbs
of
| ice, and it worked great!"
|
| Any tips from those who have managed this franky rather daunting task for
| the home winemaker will be greatly appreciated!
|
|
| --
| Cheers,
| Ken
|
|

(Clyde Gill) wrote in message . com>...
>
> The salt and ice trick was how we intended to go about disgorging, but
> I've been wondering lately if a bed of dry ice pellets might be more
> effective?!
>
> clyde

I'm not an expert in thermodynamics (nor do I play one on TV), but I
was once told that dry ice was not as effective because the water in
the brine solution would conduct the heat much more effectively.
Basically this is because of the increase in contact area compared to
even small ice pellets.

Of course, we could always pour a glass of liquid nitrogen and freeze
a room temp. bottle in no time.

Andy

(JEP) wrote in message om>...
> (Clyde Gill) wrote in message . com>...
> >
> > The salt and ice trick was how we intended to go about disgorging, but
> > I've been wondering lately if a bed of dry ice pellets might be more
> > effective?!
> >
> > clyde
>
> I'm not an expert in thermodynamics (nor do I play one on TV), but I
> was once told that dry ice was not as effective because the water in
> the brine solution would conduct the heat much more effectively.
> Basically this is because of the increase in contact area compared to
> even small ice pellets.
>
> Of course, we could always pour a glass of liquid nitrogen and freeze
> a room temp. bottle in no time.
>
> Andy


It sounds like you are referring to the difference between having some
liquid in contact with the bottle, as opposed to dry pellets?

The technique I'm talking about incorporates alcohol with the pellets,
which would allow for the same transfer, only with colder temps.


clyde

On 4/9/04 12:42 PM, in article
, "Clyde Gill"
> wrote:

> (JEP) wrote in message
> om>...
>> (Clyde Gill) wrote in message
>> . com>...
>>>
>>> The salt and ice trick was how we intended to go about disgorging, but
>>> I've been wondering lately if a bed of dry ice pellets might be more
>>> effective?!
>>>
>>> clyde
>>
>> I'm not an expert in thermodynamics (nor do I play one on TV), but I
>> was once told that dry ice was not as effective because the water in
>> the brine solution would conduct the heat much more effectively.
>> Basically this is because of the increase in contact area compared to
>> even small ice pellets.
>>
>> Of course, we could always pour a glass of liquid nitrogen and freeze
>> a room temp. bottle in no time.
>>
>> Andy
>
>
> It sounds like you are referring to the difference between having some
> liquid in contact with the bottle, as opposed to dry pellets?
>
> The technique I'm talking about incorporates alcohol with the pellets,
> which would allow for the same transfer, only with colder temps.
>
>
> clyde

Yes - dry ice/alcohol should work well, Clyde.

I have not done this process, but we use dry ice/solvent all the time in our
chemistry laboratory.

FYI - dry ice is -78 °C. Quite cold and a slurry of dry ice/alcohol should
freeze the cap quite rapidly.

--
Greg Cook
http://homepage.mac.com/gregcook/Wine

(remove spamblocker from my email)

(Clyde Gill) wrote in message . com>...
>
>
> It sounds like you are referring to the difference between having some
> liquid in contact with the bottle, as opposed to dry pellets?

Yes.

>
> The technique I'm talking about incorporates alcohol with the pellets,
> which would allow for the same transfer, only with colder temps.
>
>

That sounds promising. If you have a very cold freezer, you could
probably go with just the alcohol unless you were handling a lot of
bottles.


Andy

>
> That sounds promising. If you have a very cold freezer, you could
> probably go with just the alcohol unless you were handling a lot of
> bottles.
>
>
> Andy

The total will be about 1000 bottles. We will probably do a limited
amount of disgorging at first. Would be nice to knock out a majority
of them in one swat. If it's not already obvious, this is our first
try at methode' champagnoise. Though I'm versed at the process from
doing it at another winery, they had some decent equipment. So, much
like the rest of my winemaking, we have to make do for now.

Among the 'junk' that was here when we arrived was what I'm thinking
must be a rack to hold the inverted champagne bottles into the ice:

http://peacefulbend.com/test/images/disgorgerack.jpg

I'm pretty sure that this came from an old Catholic Seminary in St.
Louis called St. Stanislaus. It can hold four cases at a time, so I
can imagine that the necks would freeze in that amount of time. We'll
place the riddled bottles into a chest freezer before starting the
operation to get the wine temp as close to freezing as feasible. This
alone will limit the volume we can disgorge at a time, but there's no
real hurry for this wine. It's more for fun than profit.



clyde
Steelville, Missouri, USofA
http://www.PeacefulBend.com