"Vicky's Tricks"

Serving Tip : salt+ice+water to make your wine colder, faster!

It happens that you have guests around and forgot to put bubbles in the fridge for the aperitif. Unless you have a special machine to low down the temperature of the wine in a minute, you’ll have to stick to the freezer or to ice cubes. Coming from far and impatient to celebrate the evening, you can’t make your friends wait longer. 

It’s the same when as a wine sales representative you arrive in a café to meet the sommelier and there oh horror! the rosé is warm. Geoffrey Rolland, in charge of wines at « Aux Armes de Bruxelles » by the Grand Place gave me this tip :

«  Just pour some salt on ice cubes & water to get the wine colder, faster. » The waw effect also come with the sound of melting ice – a good way to impress your friends and make them wait ;-) .  

Water freezes at a lower temperature when salty, so putting salt on ice will make the ice cubes melt faster, liberating some really cold water drops on the bottle surface, faster. It is one thing to know this, another to use it in your ice bucket!

And it is true, if you add up to 30 grammes of salt to a liter of water and ice, it will lower the temperature of the mix of one degree. The ice is going to melt faster and this mix salt/water/ice will be able to go until -15°C. Whyyyy ?

Explanation : Salt when in contact with some ice, will disturb the balance of water’s molecules that became very tidy when it changed into ice. Disturbed, the ice will melt liberating water at the ice temperature. But, for this reaction takes place, it needs energy and so the heat will be taken in the direct environment of the reaction : the ice bucket. This environment will then loose some heat and the mix’s temperature will lower down. Et voilà ! You’ve created some cold!

This will happen faster if you stir the ice/salt/water when adding the salt to foster contacts between the 3.

It is like when we put salt on road when it snows, just that the energy is taken to the atmosphere that would need much more to get colder ;) .  For some of the same reasons, when the lack starts freezing, there is no ice on the sea because the freezing temperature of the sea is lowered down. And finally, if you want to cook your pasta faster, adding salt to it will make the boiling temperature higher.

Find the Fleurie & the Provence de Vicky Aux Armes de Bruxelles (13 rue des Bouchers, 1000 Bruxelles) a legendary brasserie to enjoy Belgian specialties and if you’re lucky, you’ll be given the table of Jacques Brel. .

Major Source : http://www.cvc.u-psud.fr/spip.php?article152 

geoffrey rolland armes de bruxelles

jacques brel armes de bruxelles

Miss Vicky Wine 304 posts

My father is a wine maker in beaujolais and I go sip wines everywhere. I was first know as a wine blogger, today I also write in French on a national magazine online plateform that is hosting my wine blog. They wanted someone to give a fresh twist to the French wine world. They got me. Read more

No Comments

There are no comments in this article, be the first to comment!

Leave a Reply

* Comments first need to be approved to show in this post.