Re: Newbie Questions On Corks, etc. ?

Jose wrote:
> On Sat, 26 Jul 2008 15:49:51 +0200, Mike Tommasi wrote:
> 
>> With a standard neck diameter of 1.85cm, this means the liquid will
push
>> up the neck by 2.67 cm, just over an inch. Much more if it is a high
>> octane zin :-)
> 
> Really?  I know expansion occurs (that's what they taught me in science 
> school) but that much?  So I did an experiment.  I took a regular 750, 
> filled it to the brim with industrial grade hydrogen hydroxide, at 103 
> degrees F (more or less), and corked it up tight (using my usual split 
> method of using a wire to let the air out).  Then I stuck in the fridge 
> overnight.  The level had dropped a good half to three quarters of an 
> inch.  Wow!
> 
> Well, maybe that's just trapped g***** making its way slowly to the 
> surface, so I put the bottle in the sun and summer air for a few hours, 
> and the level rose halfway or more to the original level.
> 
> Making allowances for the fact that I was using a degenerate form of 
> alcohol, rather than a carbonated one, and for the imprecision in my 
> work, I'm convinced.
> 
> Funny how the real world works.
> 
> I still maintain however that if you start with cool wine, and keep it
in 
> the cooler, that the expansion due to temperature changes will not be 
> much, since the temperature change will not be much.
> 
> And... if you leave no ullage when you cork up a room temperature wine
in 
> a smaller bottle and put it in the fridge, all that will happen is that 
> as the wine contracts, air may be drawn in which would have otherwise 
> been trapped by the ullage.  So no loss there either.

You would have to fill to the rim at the highest temperature that you 
want the bottle to tolerate. Which means heating it up (bottle and wine) 
to that high temperature.  Not good.

If your use room temperature and then store in fridge, but the fridge 
breals down in august, you have a mess...


-- 
Mike Tommasi - Six Fours, France
email link http://www.tommasi.org/mymail