Explain why a tightly corked glass bottle filled to the brim.

C

chikis

Registered Senior Member
How many users in this forum know; have heard, have seen or have come in contact with a wine known as palmwine? The wine is naturally obtained from palm trees. If any of you (users) in this forum, know; have heard; have seen or have come in contact with a wine known as palmwine, then you must have an answer or a clue for the problem below:
Explain why a tightly corked glass bottle filled to the brim with fresh palm wine shatters on standing for some time.
 
In Islamic countries, I've had palm fruit juice, not wine, of course. However, in Saudi Arabia, I would make my own wine (from grape juice, water, sugar and baker's yeast - they sell no brewer's yeast). So after mixing the ingredients by shaking well, I had to let the new wine ferment for six weeks in a cool, dark place. I used dispenser-sized plastic water bottles. It was necessary to cap them with a balloon with a few pinholes in said balloon. Otherwise the gas formed as the yeast lived, died and then fermented would have burst the bottle - even a glass bottle.

Hence as your avatar said 'no man putteth new wine into old bottles (or wine skins).
 
No. Fermentation happens in wine, and would not cause this.

The specific gravity of palm wine is about 1.07, while the specific gravity of jaggery (the sugar cane like substance precipitated from it) can be as high as 1.08.

For a tightly corked glass bottle containing gasses from fermentation, no problem because the glass container is designed to keep the contents inside.

However, palm wine is so sugary sweet that it is not uncommon for the jaggery to precipitate out. Because the jaggery itself is ever so slightly more dense than the liquid from which it precipitates, a tightly corked bottle full of liquid will experience a negative pressure when this happens. The bottle collapses in, usually breaking it.

Jaggery is a prized ingredient to moderate spiciness, particularly in some asian and indian cuisine.
 
What are you saying? "No fermentation happens in wine" ??? "A tightly corked glass bottle (of palm wine) (?) "containing gasses from fermentation" ???

Didn't you just say there is no fermentation in wine ???

"The glass container is designed to keep the contents inside" - well of course that's what a glass bottle is designed to do, but it may not always succeed.

As you then state yourself: "However, palm wine is so sugary sweet that it is not uncommon for the jaggery to precipitate out. Because the jaggery itself is ever so slightly more dense than the liquid from which it precipitates, a tightly corked bottle full of liquid will experience a negative pressure when this happens. The bottle collapses in, usually breaking it"

So which is it? Wine ferments or it doesn't? Bottles never break or jaggery always causes them to break?

When the OP says 'shatter', I'm sure it's a synonym for 'break'. I'm also quite certain that when wine is made it ferments. I also know that pressure will shatter, or break, glass. What I don't know is what the heck you're talking about.
 
I've never heard of this. Is this a common problem with palm wine? What is done to prevent this from happening?
 
zgmc said:
I've never heard of this. Is this a common problem with palm wine? What is done to prevent this from happening?
Click to expand...

It's a problem with any kind of wine - when it's new, that is when the yeast is still active in it.

With grape wine, and most other kinds the new wine is placed in barrels that are ventilated in some way. Above, I wrote that when I made wine in large plastic bottles, I capped them with a balloon with some pinholes in it.

So after several weeks when the yeast have died and the resultant gasses have dispersed, the wine can be bottled and corked, or placed in skins or whatever.

Let's not call it a problem - it's the most necessary step and very thing that turns grape juice into wine. The OP was just creating a hypothetical situation, thinking hat none of us understood the fermentation process.

And only one of us has - the non-scientist! :eek:

It's a thing even Jesus understood and considered to be common sense. I say even Jesus since so many of you think he's mythological.

Riddle me this: how can a fictitious person knows things modern science forum members don't know? ;)
 
Dear moderators, how I wish this thread could be move to the Chemistry Forum. May you help me do that please?
 
Arne Saknussemm said:
It's a problem with any kind of wine - when it's new, that is when the yeast is still active in it.

With grape wine, and most other kinds the new wine is placed in barrels that are ventilated in some way. Above, I wrote that when I made wine in large plastic bottles, I capped them with a balloon with some pinholes in it.

So after several weeks when the yeast have died and the resultant gasses have dispersed, the wine can be bottled and corked, or placed in skins or whatever.

Let's not call it a problem - it's the most necessary step and very thing that turns grape juice into wine. The OP was just creating a hypothetical situation, thinking hat none of us understood the fermentation process.

And only one of us has - the non-scientist! :eek:

It's a thing even Jesus understood and considered to be common sense. I say even Jesus since so many of you think he's mythological.

Riddle me this: how can a fictitious person knows things modern science forum members don't know? ;)
Click to expand...

THanks. I realize that the fermentation process creates gasses. Unless it was your first time making wine, you surley wouldnt bottle it before the process is complete. Even if you did, wouldnt the cork blow before the bottle shattered? Because of this, danshawens explanation makes more sense...
 
zgmc said:
THanks. I realize that the fermentation process creates gasses. Unless it was your first time making wine, you surley wouldnt bottle it before the process is complete. Even if you did, wouldnt the cork blow before the bottle shattered? Because of this, danshawens explanation makes more sense...
Click to expand...

You understood the oxymoronic danshawens? He seemed to want everything both ways.

I thought he was going to say the cork would blow out, but he didn't.

I would also think the cork would blow out before the glass shattered, but I think the whole reason the OP emphasized the tightness of the cork was to preclude that as an answer to his hypothetical problem.

In reality, an experienced vintner would know to vent the new wine.
 
yeast, lactic acid, and acetic acid are all part of the fermentation process of palm wine.

yeast types: Saccharomyces, Candida, Endomycopsis, Hansenula, Pichia, Saccharomycodes and Schizosaccharomyces
lactic acid bacteria: Lactobacillus plantarum, Leuconostoc mesenteroides and L. mesenteroides subsp. dextranicum
acetic acid bacteria: ???
 
youreyes said:
yeast, lactic acid, and acetic acid are all part of the fermentation process of palm wine.

yeast types: Saccharomyces, Candida, Endomycopsis, Hansenula, Pichia, Saccharomycodes and Schizosaccharomyces
lactic acid bacteria: Lactobacillus plantarum, Leuconostoc mesenteroides and L. mesenteroides subsp. dextranicum
acetic acid bacteria: ???
Click to expand...

So what's your point?
 
Arne Saknussemm said:
You understood the oxymoronic danshawens? He seemed to want everything both ways.

I thought he was going to say the cork would blow out, but he didn't.

I would also think the cork would blow out before the glass shattered, but I think the whole reason the OP emphasized the tightness of the cork was to preclude that as an answer to his hypothetical problem.

In reality, an experienced vintner would know to vent the new wine.
Click to expand...

I dont think he meant wine doesnt ferment. What I thought was plausible is that a negative pressure could cause the bottle to crack.
 
Arne Saknussemm said:
It's a thing even Jesus understood and considered to be common sense. I say even Jesus since so many of you think he's mythological.

Riddle me this: how can a fictitious person knows things modern science forum members don't know? ;)
Click to expand...
You complain about people going out of their way to bash religion in non-religious threads, and then you go out of your way to bring religion into a non-religious thread... :bugeye:
 
gmilam said:
You complain about people going out of their way to bash religion in non-religious threads, and then you go out of your way to bring religion into a non-religious thread... :bugeye:
Click to expand...
Not so. it was there, just below the cork. The answer to the OP's question is a well known saying of, oh my God, the person he uses as an avatar. Maybe your just mad because you didn't know the answer. Thank you for paying attention though.
 
I make my own beer. I also make my own wine (just bottled the 2013 riesling last weekend).

If you cap beer or cork wine before fermintation is complete you can either blow the cap, the cork or the bottle can explode. It is due to waste carbon dioxide produced by the yeast as it eats the sugar. The most common method to carbonate homebrewed beer is to add a small (specific!) amount of sugar to the wort before bottling, the yeast that is in the beer will consume the sugar and produce carbon dioxide and pressurizing the beer enough to have the carbondioxide go into solution, carbonating the beer. If you add too much sugar when trying to carbonate the beer in a few days you get BOOM!
 
danshawen said:
However, palm wine is so sugary sweet that it is not uncommon for the jaggery to precipitate out. Because the jaggery itself is ever so slightly more dense than the liquid from which it precipitates, a tightly corked bottle full of liquid will experience a negative pressure when this happens. The bottle collapses in, usually breaking it.
Click to expand...
The difference in density is pretty small so the change in volume would be pretty small. It seems unlikely that the bottle would implode because of a relatively small decrease in air pressure inside.
 
sideshowbob said:
The difference in density is pretty small so the change in volume would be pretty small. It seems unlikely that the bottle would implode because of a relatively small decrease in air pressure inside.
Click to expand...

Yeah that is ridiculus. A bottle will not implode if you draw a vacuum on it and a bottle full of liquid at room temperature will start to for vaporize when the pressure is decreased too much, maintaining the pressure, so there will never be an extemely high vacuum anyway.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top