{"id":7538,"date":"2011-11-28T07:00:46","date_gmt":"2011-11-28T15:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=7538"},"modified":"2012-12-02T19:59:45","modified_gmt":"2012-12-03T03:59:45","slug":"alcohol-doesnt-really-cook-out-of-food-in-most-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2011\/11\/alcohol-doesnt-really-cook-out-of-food-in-most-cases\/","title":{"rendered":"Alcohol Doesn’t Really “Cook Out” of Food in Most Cases"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/a>Today I found out<\/a> alcohol does not “cook out” of food in most cases. \u00a0The myth that alcohol does all cook out stems from the fact that alcohol has a much lower boiling point temperature (173\u00b0 F \/ 78.5\u00b0 C) than water (212\u00b0 F \/ 100\u00b0 C). \u00a0Thus, if the temperature is above 78.5\u00b0 C, then the alcohol should boil off, right?<\/p>\n

A group of researchers in 1992 at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the University of Idaho, and Washington State University decided to find out. \u00a0In the end, what they discovered was that the “alcohol\u00a0cooks out” assumption didn’t turn out to be correct for the vast majority of ways most people prepare food with alcohol. \u00a0In their study, they used a variety of recipes with various sources of alcohol and a variety of\u00a0preparation\u00a0types, including simmering, baking, flaming, refrigerating over night, etc. \u00a0What they found was that the amount of alcohol remaining after cooking was in the range of 4%-85%. \u00a0The variations weren’t just dependant on how long you kept the temperature above alcohol’s boiling point either. \u00a0They also found that the other ingredients made a difference in the alcohol retention rate. \u00a0The size of the cooking vessel also greatly affected the alcohol retention rates. \u00a0The smaller the vessel, the more alcohol will be retained given some set cooking time, due to the smaller surface area for evaporation.<\/p>\n

In terms of\u00a0preparation\u00a0methods and times, their results were as follows (all of these assume the temperature is above 173\u00b0 F, which is the boiling point of alcohol; also, the size of dish and contents of the food mixture affect the results, so this is just a general\u00a0guideline):<\/p>\n