You might have seen people place bottles of wine in ice baths or even put them in a freezer. Doing this cools the wine, that’s a given, but there’s more to it than just cooling. Wine changes along with the temperature.
In some cases, alcohol content can change along with a temperature change such as freezing. Usually, freezing lowers the alcohol content because of two different reactions:
- The water portion freezes faster, which causes the alcohol to get pushed out of the mix.
- Alcohol evaporates quickly, particularly when the bottle gets thawed without being sealed tightly.
However, the alcohol content in wine stays the same as long as it’s sealed tight and thawed completely.
Now, what more do you need to know about freezing wine? In this post, we explain what you need to know about chilling and freezing wine -and what happens to it!
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Can you put wine in the freezer to chill it? for how long?
Wine can chill in several ways, including putting it in the freezer. Some people would worry about leaving it in for too long and causing it to freeze instead. Generally, about 30 minutes to an hour is enough time to get a good cool-down.
If you’re only looking to make your drink cold, there would be no need to keep it in the freezer for too long. But if your goal is to reach the right amount of chill, you’ll need to get a few more things in check.
The key to getting your wine chilled perfectly is by knowing how long you should keep it cooling. You can determine this by differentiating the levels of alcohol and water in your wine.
If your drink consists of more water content than alcohol, it will cool faster. This happens because water has a freezing point of 0 degrees C. The molecules in water stick to each other much quicker than that of alcohol -which is why it can cool at a warmer temperature.
But if the drink had more alcohol content, it would need a longer time to chill. Alcohol molecules are not as sticky as that of water. Therefore, it requires a cooler temperature to cool the drink itself.
How long does it take a bottle of wine to freeze?
A bottle of wine is likely to freeze in about 5 hours after being put in the freezer under normal kitchen freezer conditions. However, varying types of wine come with different amounts of alcohol content. Because of this, the amount of time it takes to solidify the wine differs.
An alcoholic drink consists of two key components: alcohol and water. Identifying the content of your wine is the best way to get an estimate of how long it would take to freeze the wine, particularly with the use of a regular kitchen freezer. The mix of both will determine where your wine’s freezing point lies. This is because the freezing point of water is warmer than the freezing point of alcohol.
What is the fastest way to chill wine in the freezer?
Most restaurants tend to use a method that doesn’t require a freezer but imitate the idea instead. They do this through a bucket of ice -also known as an ice bath. The bottle is dipped in the ice bath and left to chill until needed without the worry of unwanted freezing.
Admittedly, this is the best way for you to chill wine. However, there may be situations where you won’t have a bucket of ice available around you. In that case, you might need to use your kitchen freezer as an alternative.
Considering the temperature of a usual freezer, a bottle of wine won’t need too long before it chills. But there are ways for you to speed up the process, even in simple ways.
A trick you might have come across is wrapping the bottle in a wet towel. To further prove this theory, Blonder experimented on the process. However, the results show this method isn’t ideal under normal conditions, where a freezer gets filled with other things. The towel ends up insulating the bottle because there’s less room for cool air to circulate. Although, this is worth considering as long as the conditions are right.
Another method is by flipping the bottle -literally! Science proves a bottle stored in the freezer horizontally can chill faster than if the bottle gets placed vertically. The explanation for this is as simple as heat transfer. There is more area for heat transfer to occur when the bottle is horizontal. As a result, the cooling process happens around 50% faster.
What happens if you leave a bottle of wine in the freezer?
Before you leave your wine in the freezer, remember that it still contains a certain amount of water. And when water freezes, it expands.
The most damage that can happen to your drink is that you won’t be able to drink it at all. There’s a possibility the bottle will break due to the expansion of the water.
Because of the heat loss inside the glass, the temperature on both sides of the bottle becomes unequal. This contrast causes further expansion, leading to the glass becoming more brittle.
This theory further explains why frozen bottles tend to break when they get subject to a sudden change in temperature. In some cases, bubbly drinks end up exploding when put under these circumstances.
Other than the glass problem, the content of your drink is less likely to change. Alcohol content takes longer to freeze, therefore making it possible for the frozen water to push it out. It may also evaporate when the cap of the bottle is loose. If the alcohol component completely freezes with the water, the alcohol content levels have fewer chances of changing.
In Closing
Hopefully you now feel a bit more knowledgeable about freezing your bottle of wine! Curious about other reactions when it comes to freezing? Check out more content here at ForFreezing.
