Beer percentages OOP WAS:Re: [Sca-cooks] MY DAY IN CLASS

[CorwynWdwd at aol.com]

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In a message dated 1/29/2003 6:41:07 PM Eastern Standard Time,
anne_du_bosc at yahoo.com writes:

> I think part of the confusion over the percentage of alcohol in beer comes
> from the difference between proof and percent.  For some obscure reason,
> proof is twice percent, so if a beer is 6 percent, it's 12 proof.  What my
> father-in-law (a cousin of Baron Corwyn's) was getting as he lay under the
> worm with his mouth open was probably nearly 200 proof.
>

Proof was supposedly (as I remember being told) determined by whether upon
burning a set amount of the liquid on some gunpowder, the powder would be dry
enough to fire after the liquid was burned (GOD I hope that makes sense).
That works out to something like 52 or 54 percent alcohol apparently. For
some reason we here in North America settled on 50% as the number for
"proof", therefore something is proof if it's 50% alcohol. Everclear is
almost 200 proof, as it's almost pure alcohol. Keeping alcohol from taking on
water is difficult because (A) there's so much of it on the planet and (B)
the Alcohol molecule is sort of a ring that accepts the water molecule quite
well thankyouverymuch...

At least that's how I understand it. Mordonna can tell you, we Woodwards like
our alcohol, and have a family tradition with it <G>.

Corwyn

To be humble to superiors is duty,
   to equals courtesy,
   to inferiors nobleness.   __ Richard Saunders (Ben Franklin)