Calculating time to reduce alcohol in wine using heating method

[JT Smith]

I was wrong, Milwaukee Instruments does describe the formula they use to calculate PA. It's in the manual.

The user can select the conversion factor so you have PA = factor * Brix. Or you can select what they call the "curve" which is a second degree polynomial. If that's how the unit comes by default maybe it explains your seemingly weird result. I dunno.

 

[JT Smith]

Looking for the Eden Mirin yesterday and our local Whole Foods doesn't carry it any more. Maybe another one of their stores has it or else I can buy it online. Anyway, I checked out the Eden website and here's what they say about removing the alcohol.

Mirin's alcohol content, about ten percent, quickly evaporates when cooked with food or may be removed by heating it to the boiling point, and allowed to cool before adding to uncooked foods.

https://store.edenfoods.com/mirin-rice-cooking-wine/

Pretty funny and also a little irresponsible.

 

[ArtZ]

I watched the video this morning and didn't get that it was either funny or irresponsible - did I miss something?

Also went to Marina Grocery in Milpitas. They have a dizzying array of Shaoxing wines. Here's a small sampling.

 

[JT Smith]

I watched the video this morning and didn't get that it was either funny or irresponsible - did I miss something?

Video?

I quoted text where they said you could remove the alcohol from the Mirin simply by heating it to a boil and then letting it cool. If you've been following this thread you'd know that's clearly not the case!

 

[JT Smith]

I think I see the Shaoxing wine I bought in one of your photos.

I found a bottle of the Eden Mirin at a different Whole Foods today. It's kind of expensive at $14 / 300ml. I tasted it and it is definitely better than the cheaper stuff. I'm going to throw that junk out. Mirin is very sweet! The Eden measured 46% Brix. Even accounting for the alcohol that's a lot of sugar.

 

[ArtZ]

I think I see the Shaoxing wine I bought in one of your photos.

I found a bottle of the Eden Mirin at a different Whole Foods today. It's kind of expensive at $14 / 300ml. I tasted it and it is definitely better than the cheaper stuff. I'm going to throw that junk out. Mirin is very sweet! The Eden measured 46% Brix. Even accounting for the alcohol that's a lot of sugar.

My error. https://store.edenfoods.com/mirin-rice-cooking-wine/ is not a video. sorry. I will try my ShaoXing on the Brix scale. Also bought a bottle 0% ABV. Chardonnay at BevMo. Will chill and try tonight. The Kendall Jackson low-alcohol was $14.99 and still came in at 9.0% ABV. Didn't buy this one.

 

[PAllen]

I think I see the Shaoxing wine I bought in one of your photos.

I found a bottle of the Eden Mirin at a different Whole Foods today. It's kind of expensive at $14 / 300ml. I tasted it and it is definitely better than the cheaper stuff. I'm going to throw that junk out. Mirin is very sweet! The Eden measured 46% Brix. Even accounting for the alcohol that's a lot of sugar.

One problem with these wines is US regulations: if a wine is to be sold at a store that lacks a liquor store license, it must have salt or something similar to discourage drinking. Fortunately, there is a growing trend for grocers to have liquor licenses, but I don't know about Asian markets. In any case, an importer of a wine mostly used for cooking narrows their market considerably if they import the superior product (the one with no salt).

 

[JT Smith]

One problem with these wines is US regulations: if a wine is to be sold at a store that lacks a liquor store license, it must have salt or something similar to discourage drinking. Fortunately, there is a growing trend for grocers to have liquor licenses, but I don't know about Asian markets. In any case, an importer of a wine mostly used for cooking narrows their market considerably if they import the superior product (the one with no salt).

It is kind of annoying. Is it just a U.S. thing, denatured wine for cooking?

All of the Japanese/Korean/Asian markets I visited and of course Whole Foods have full liquor licenses. I know that alcohol in supermarkets isn't universal in the U.S. There's a patchwork of regulations.

 

[ArtZ]

It is kind of annoying. Is it just a U.S. thing, denatured wine for cooking?

All of the Japanese/Korean/Asian markets I visited and of course Whole Foods have full liquor licenses. I know that alcohol in supermarkets isn't universal in the U.S. There's a patchwork of regulations.

Last night, I did some testing with the refractometer. All tests were on the Brix scale. Using distilled water, the instrument was checked for zero. This reading was correctly displayed. Both the Shaoxing at 15% ABV and the Free wine at 0.0 ABV were tested with Brix values of 7.2 and 6.7 respectively. I am thinking that Brix values are useless for anything I am trying to do.

 

[JT Smith]

Last night, I did some testing with the refractometer. All tests were on the Brix scale. Using distilled water, the instrument was checked for zero. This reading was correctly displayed. Both the Shaoxing at 15% ABV and the Free wine at 0.0 ABV were tested with Brix values of 7.2 and 6.7 respectively. I am thinking that Brix values are useless for anything I am trying to do

I think that it is the case, at least for wines, that the refractive index adds proportionally to the volume fraction of the ethanol. It sure wasn't obvious to me that it would work out that way but apparently it is true for some liquid mixtures. I looked a bit and found there is something called Arago-Biot approach for the RI of binary mixtures. It is basically that the refractive index of a mixture is the sum of the volume fraction of each times the refractive index of the pure substance.

I think this is why I got a straight line when I added ethanol to my reduced and reconstituted wine. For every 1% Brix difference the ABV differed by approximately 2.5% . So if you know the starting ABV, and you do, then after reducing and reconstituting you should be able to figure out the new value.

new %ABV = original %ABV - change in Brix * 2.5%

In the case of your FRE wine, it has at most only 0.5% ethanol so the Brix value primarily reflects the sugar (and other dissolved ingredients). My 14.2% ABV red wine was pretty dry and had an original Brix of 8.4%. If you divide 14.2% by 2.5% you get 5.7%. Subtracting that from 8.4% leaves 1.7% Brix, which represents the residual sugar (and other stuff). In contrast, the 10% ABV Mirin I bought recently was 45% Brix. That's mainly due to all of the sugar in that cloyingly sweet wine.

Of course I only did this experiment with one wine. Maybe it wouldn't work with your Shaoxing. Or maybe the curve wouldn't be linear. Or the slope would be different. You'd have to repeat what I did to find out for sure.

 

[PAllen]

The sugar content of the Eden mirin is remarkable given that there are no added sugars. The ingredients indicate 12 gm of sugar per 2 tbsp, none of which is added sugar. Most of the calories are from this sugar, which apparently all comes from the handling of the rice.

 

[JT Smith]

From what I understand mirin isn't really brewed in the conventional sense. Rather, alcohol is added to the rice/koji mixture in the form of a Japanese whisky called shochu. Sometimes I think sake is added instead but then it isn't "hon".

A long time ago I made amazake, which is just steamed rice and koji mixed together and held at temperature for a while (I think about 14 hours?). The enzymes from the fungus in the koji break down the starches in the rice, analogous to how the amylases in malted barley break down the starches in barley/wheat/rice/rye/oatmeal/whatever when making beer. Technically, sake, mirin, Shaoxing, etc are not wines, they're beers since they are derived from grain instead of fruit.

Anyway, amazake is just about the sweetest thing you could imagine. Well, the runnings from the mash tun when making beer is about the same. Both are basically syrups. Except that I think amazake contains a larger proportion of more complex sugars.

So I think (I think) that mirin is a mixture of sweet rice syrup and Japanese whiskey, aged for something like two months, and then filtered. Probably that aging part is key to developing aromatic compounds. The inexpensive "aji" mirin that is just a mixture of grain alcohol and sugars lacks complexity. It would be like mixing vodka with a small amount of grape juice and calling it wine.