from the great massive universe of things i did not know

Does alcohol burn off in cooking?

You know, the scary part is, reading the logic and remembering high school chemistry, this really should have been self-evident. And yet.

I'll accept any counter-arguments, because hello, my mind is blown. Also, you do not have to eat your pork well done. Let's all thank cracked because mind? Blown.

I feel like such a loser. A loser that should have been cooking things with everclear for work parties. Would have livened them up right quick.

Comments

[batdina]

you know, when I first heard this some time last year, all I could do was crow: I have refused to eat anything with alcohol in it since I got sober 22 years ago and people made fun of me saying "It'll burn off".

Hah. I say HAH.

[seperis]

I KNOW. It's like, an entire lifetime of conditioning of burning off and no, it takes three hours to burn off.

I support your HAH'ing wholeheartedly.

[sara]

*nods* Yeah, I knew about this because someone I know was told, while going through rehab, that eating foods cooked with alcohol could make him show positive on alcohol tests.

I still use a little rice wine in a couple of things, but it's a very little (and he never did test positive after eating my cooking, so....)

[lilacsigil]

I was pleased when I learned that because it meant that I wasn't being ridiculous when I said I could taste the alcohol in cooking! I don't drink (or wear alcohol-based perfume) because it all tastes/smells pretty much the same to me (i.e. nasty), so I only put alcohol in dishes that are going to cook for a long time.

[seperis]

The thing is, in rum cake and when cooking with wine, I usually tasted it at least a little, but I assumed that was--well, literally only flavor because of the entire burn-off theory.

Mind? Still so blown.

[lilacsigil]

Yes, my partner will cook with wine and spirits for flavour, but I mostly just taste the alcohol ...but that was impossible because it was burned off!

[cereta]

Well, in rum cake, the rum isn't reduced much at ALL, really. It's added to syrup after it's removed from heat.

[neotoma]

That explains why I can always taste alcohol in baked foods -- and considering how much I don't like the taste of alcohol, I avoid anything that has alcohol in it if the menu is kind enough to note it.

The fact that most chefs use alcohol to 'open' flavors means that I have occasionally had an unpleasant surprise when eating out.

[cereta]

I suddenly feel very, very strange about the face that one of the first real foods Frog would eat was my tuna pasta made with white wine.

[tricksterquinn]

If it makes you feel any better, my first "real" food was sauerkraut and beer. My parental wasn't even TRYING not to have it be alcoholic...

[feanna]

I did know about this. But I also only found out quite recently (maybe a year ago?). But then I've never really eaten much food with alcohol in it anyways (hardly ever).

[seperis]

Liquid vanilla used in cookies is what I thought of, but the amount is so miniscule to begin with that I can't imagine it would be a problem.

[lexstar29]

The only reason I knew this was because when I was five my mother and grandmother made a traditional English apple pie, which uses cider in the pie liquid, they then added hot cider into the custard when making it, and made a hot spiced sauce with more cider. My brother and I got drunk as anything on that desert and giggled madly in our twin beds for hours and hours! Mt grandmother's dry response was, 'Apparently they are wrong and alcohol doesn't burn off!' So I had always assumed, but it's very cool to have it confirmed!

[azurehart]

This explains why my Mother's yams are so popular around the holidays. She makes them with a fuckton of brandy. I've been calling them "drunken yams" for years, looks like I was right.

[jamafanta]

Crap. I clicked on the Cracked.com link. I'll resurface before work tomorrow, I hope... ooh, Your Mom Lied: 5 Common Body Myths Debunked!

[crabby-lioness.livejournal.com]

That's why the double boiler was invented in the first place. Ancient Egyptian chemists couldn't heat alcohol over a fire without burning it off, which was killing their research until they put a pot of water between the fire and the pot of alcohol. According to legend an Alexandrian woman scholar named Mary invented that, leading to the name it goes by in Europe, the "bain Marie" (Mary's bath).

[geeklite.livejournal.com]

cracked is uber-educational.

alcohol cooking off

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, Alton Brown did a Good Eats where they demonstrated how much bourbon cooked off in cornbread recipe; not much.

And yeah, supposedly you can now safely cook pork until an internal temp of 145 but uhh no thank you. Even if all the pork produced in America is "effectively" parasite free I've taken too many parasitology classes to trust that.

[gwendolynflight.livejournal.com]

I feel I should apologize to my teetotaler roomie for trying to get her to eat coq au vin. o.0

[nrrrdy-grrrl.livejournal.com]

Come on now; nothing's worse at a work party than some alcoholic pig.

[traveller.livejournal.com]

this is actually really, really upsetting.

[inu-spockya.livejournal.com]

yeah, they're right, not much cooks off, really. not even when you flame it, there's always some left. even putting beer in a pot of chili and cooking it for a long time, there's still gonna be alcohol in it.

I know cos it always gives me heartburn, even if there's just a taste of it my stomach gets annoyed.

as for the pork -- nah. so not going there, know too damn much microbiology, and not about to trust the meat producers to keep me safe. watch Fast Food Nation, you'll never order another fast food burger again, serio.