How cold is too cold?

[Jake Holshue]

So we are shipping out a palate of product out to our state warehouse today, and the shipper asked us, "Will your product freeze?". Well the answer needed to be delved into a little further... its not just as simple as 'no its alcohol'.

Everything can freeze, eventually. Here in Montana the temperature tonight will be -17 degrees, with a slight wind. My math isnt the best in the world but our product we are sending is 86 proof, and it would take temps in and/or around -30 ish degrees. So as long as it gets there before tomorrow night when the wind chill factor sets in of about -25 degrees, we should be good...

Just thought I would give ya'll something to think about down in Florida, Arizona, New Mexico (Left Turn), Texas, etc....

Drink something warm for me!

Jake

[Jake Holshue]

So we are shipping out a palate of product out to our state warehouse today, and the shipper asked us, "Will your product freeze?". Well the answer needed to be delved into a little further... its not just as simple as 'no its alcohol'.

Everything can freeze, eventually. Here in Montana the temperature tonight will be -17 degrees, with a slight wind. My math isnt the best in the world but our product we are sending is 86 proof, and it would take temps in and/or around -30 ish degrees. So as long as it gets there before tomorrow night when the wind chill factor sets in of about -25 degrees, we should be good...

Just thought I would give ya'll something to think about down in Florida, Arizona, New Mexico (Left Turn), Texas, etc....

Drink something warm for me!

Jake

[Jedd Haas]

Jake, not sure on the issue of freezing. However another issue you might think about is contraction. As the alcohol gets colder it will shrink, creating a (partial) vacuum in the headspace. Depending on how tight your bottle seals are, I am speculating contraction might break the bottle. Now back to the freezing issue. Since alcohol contracts at colder temperatures and water expands when freezing, it might turn out to be a wash on that issue. I suspect the critical point for an answer on both issues is how much headspace you have in your bottles.

[grehorst]

I wouldn't worry about wind chill. I'm guessing your bottles won't be exposed to any wind...

[meerkat]

If your temperatures are in Fahrenheit you are at risk of freezing your bottles. At 86 Proof the freezing point is -14.6 Fahrenheit or -25.9 Celsius. If you get down to -25 Fahrenheit anything weaker than 100 Proof will freeze.

[Jake Holshue]

Well I'll let you know how it turns out. We barely got the palate to the truck due to the sheet of ice on the ground. Slipped and fell a couple of times.

I still think we'll be alright cause our trucking company will be shipping during the day, witch the high today is supposed to be -5 to -10 depending on where in the state its at.

[John McKee]

Jake,

One things that does happen....

If you don't chill filter your whiskey and it gets that cold while trucking, you can potentially develop a precipitate that is filtered out during chill filtering. So you might ship clear whiskey and by the time it gets to the shelf, it might be cloudy or murky.

BTW, it was -22 here in Butte this morning. Stay warm buddy.

Cheers

[Jake Holshue]

Well we just got word that the bottles all made it safe with no explosions, implosions, chill haze, or anything of the sort.

Hope ya'll never have to think about weather or not its too cold to ship your products!

[Natrat]

I'm a bit confused...

isn't "wind chill" the PERCEIVED effect of wind on the human body? If it's -17 out and blowing....it's still -17 out. Not -42.

But point taken about freezing! Almost might be worth shipping in REFRIGERATED trucks, just to ensure the climate control!

[Scottyh]

True, wind chill is the effect on the human body.