Specific Gravity

[00:00] Alright Coalson, we are taking a break from watching Pacer's Bulls games and now we need
[00:08] some questions answered. We got some under Googles for us this week. What do you got
[00:12] for us?
[00:13] Are we doing under Googles?
[00:19] That was the play of it.
[00:20] I'm super excited.
[00:21] You told us we had to.
[00:22] He said we signed up for it.
[00:23] In the end it's going to be better and more true than Google can give you.
[00:32] Well, so my buddy Mike, Mike Morrow, a fan of the show, sent me a text a couple weeks
[00:43] back and was like, what do you know about proof on alcohol? And I was like, well, he's either
[00:50] asking me because I'm his bartender friend or because I do the under Googles and I hang
[00:57] out with smarter people than I am. I actually did kind of know the answer to this one. And
[01:04] so I responded and then started thinking more about it and don't really know. So my response
[01:10] was that the proof on an alcohol bottle is twice the ABV, which is the alcohol by volume.
[01:21] And so I know that much. And my assumption always was that that meant that it was the
[01:33] alcohol versus another liquid. So like so the proof would be the amount of alcohol versus
[01:43] like a gallon of water or something. Right. So if you if if all the alcohol in it was
[01:50] not divided by other things, it would be that much alcohol in the bottle. Because otherwise,
[01:58] alcohol by volume is the only thing you would need, right? Why do we need another metric?
[02:07] The only other information I have from from my bartending experience is that the proof
[02:15] of things over 100 proof are very flammable. And that's the stuff you use when you want
[02:21] to light something on fire. And so I was like, well, I sent this back to him. And I thought,
[02:27] well, maybe I'm, you know, maybe I knew enough to answer his question. But that same week,
[02:32] my dad was making bread, and he was proofing the bread. And I went, is are these connected?
[02:40] And then the words proof? Is that connected to the word proof as in proof of life or proof
[02:47] of, you know, some scientific proof? And I thought, I'm in over my head, I need to go
[02:54] to my friends to give Mike the appropriate answer, I need to go to the under beatables,
[03:00] and figure out the right answer. So are is the word proof connected to all these things?
[03:06] Are they all related? What is what is my theory on alcohol proof? Is that correct? What is
[03:14] proofing bread even mean? What do we got on proof?
[03:20] One thing I never understood was yeah, you're right. The proof in is the it's just it's
[03:26] always exactly you know, it's just double the it's double the ABB alcohol. Yeah. Why
[03:31] I never understood like, why since it's a it's a it's always double why even bother? Right? Why
[03:37] even bother having this is like, all right, you just take this and then double it. And that's the
[03:41] number. Like, what's the point of that? So I do have a suspicion on this. Okay. For the alcohol
[03:47] ABB verse proof thing. Probably, in the early days of brewing alcohol, what you did was just
[03:55] make grain alcohol, and then cut it was right. Right. So that gets you. That's your ABB though,
[04:03] right? So you're cutting your grain alcohol. Well, so but you always start from 100%. Right?
[04:09] You're like making grain alcohol, and then you're cutting it with something, right? So how much of
[04:15] that cutting you do gives you a proof. Right, which is actually technically a mathematical
[04:22] formula for whatever that's worth. I don't know if those two things are related. But like,
[04:26] if you always start with grain alcohol, which is 100% alcohol, and you pour in some other medium,
[04:34] you end up with, you know, somewhere between zero and 100 or something slightly above zero
[04:42] and something slightly below 100. Right? So that gives you the proof. Right. So okay, so if
[04:47] you're making a liqueur, right, those things tend to be lower proof. Just because there's that alone
[04:57] for let's leave liqueurs a lot. Well, no, no, no, but you're starting with grain alcohol, you put in
[05:01] 50% water, right? Now you're at 50%. Right. You're at 100. Right. You're one to one. Right.
[05:08] But but what's the point of the proof? If I know that I'm one to one, if I know that I'm
[05:14] 50% alcohol, why do I need 100 proof? Well, like I said, my early guess here is that just you
[05:22] started with grain alcohol. So the answer to this question was to what percent is this just
[05:28] pure grain alcohol, because 100% grain alcohol would just kill you dead. Right. So you can't
[05:36] drink. Yeah, so it'll, it'll mess you up. Good. No, ever clear is 120 proof. I believe or 110.
[05:46] I mean, yeah, like 150. You can even do like. So yeah, I think you can even do like 190 stuff,
[05:54] like you can get up there. But like, if you're pure grain alcohol, that stuff is like
[05:59] boarding on deadly real fast. So getting get into pop a Coalson's thing about the proving drawer,
[06:06] and I wonder if these two things are related. The the proving of bread comes from the use
[06:16] of active yeast. And the idea was that you you mix your dough and you mix in your yeast,
[06:23] and then you set it aside, and you allow it to prove, meaning that it will rise because
[06:30] the yeast is doing work. I like that. And it's spitting out carbon dioxide. It will literally
[06:36] it will grow and it will prove to you that the yeast is working. It's working. Right. Yeah. And
[06:40] so I wonder if similar to that early brewing methods were not distilling methods, but rather
[06:52] were fermentation methods like wine and beer, beer, right with yeast and other bacteria or whatever.
[07:02] And the it getting alcoholic is proof that the the yeast or the bacteria or whatever doing their
[07:12] job and fermenting the sugars that are that are there. Right. Yeah. How how it came to be a scale
[07:20] of exactly double baby be like I have no idea. But my only thing with that is that the second you
[07:26] take the cap off the bottle on a fermentation process, you're pretty much done. Like there's
[07:31] no way to prove that. Is there? I mean, well, then like, do you figure out specific gravity,
[07:40] right? Which is how they figure out ABV. Yeah, that's not how we did in Kentucky in the 1920s.
[07:47] Well, I can, you can definitely prove if something's over 100 proof by lighting on fire.
[07:55] Right. Again, once you've uncorked it, right? But how do you prove it during the fermentation
[07:59] process? Right. Right. You don't think they took like little samples and I just I mean,
[08:06] we know what the line is 17 percent alcohol or a beer is, you know, eight point five versus four
[08:13] point three. Like we know that the percentage of alcohol. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's fairly easy
[08:20] once you have it in a, you know, in a once you can put it in a Bunsen burner, you can you can
[08:27] figure it out. Right. But like my problem is like why you've got it corked while it's actually doing
[08:32] its work. I yes, I absolutely question those people's abilities to slip through a syringe,
[08:40] take out a sample, test that. But I think you have to keep it completely airtight. I think you
[08:46] could you could expose it to air briefly. Isn't that what I mean? It's still going to be anaerobic
[08:53] oxidation. I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. I don't know how much that messes up the
[08:58] process. I mean, I'm sure it briefly slows it down because because they would rather use oxygen as a
[09:04] fuel than whatever else it is. But yeah, I don't know. But so anyway, my connection was yeah,
[09:15] that maybe it's a proof thing. The other idea that I had is maybe proof came around to skirt
[09:22] alcohol laws or something like that. So that it was just sort of a code that that's good.
[09:29] Rum runners might use that's like, yeah, yeah, I got this, you know, 80 proof, you know,
[09:38] cola over here or whatever. And and that would be code to people that knew what was going on.
[09:43] So I will say that like whenever I hear proof, the first thing I think of is like a math
[09:49] problem, right? Okay. Yeah. So do these things derive from math?
[09:56] Well, yeah, that's like a primary question. I mean, everything is described by math.
[10:03] Do we at least in this multiverse, do we decide to prove bread or get the proof of alcohol from a
[10:13] term that was previous to that which is coming out of math? Or is it the other way around?
[10:17] I mean, as soon as the like proof is probably some Latin word that means
[10:23] show me the proof. Yeah, prove right. So like, you prove you're proving that the yeast is working,
[10:32] you're proving the fermentation is working, you're proving the math, like,
[10:36] they're probably all related terms because they all like etymologically all come from the same
[10:42] place. Sure. But I don't know if that actually answers the specific question about alcohol.
[10:52] But so we think the reason it's the reason it's double is just like,
[10:56] potentially, it's like, is a code to anti bootlegging thing.
[11:01] I mean, that's one theory could definitely be as Coalson and Harper suggested just a
[11:08] easy formula or whatever to
[11:09] Yeah, you're doubling the alcohol by volume. It's I again, I think it's compared to
[11:17] like water, right? Like if there's if it's 40% ABV, it's 80% alcohol.
[11:25] If you compared that thing to water, right? I don't know. You sound saying that makes sense?
[11:30] Well, no, I don't. I mean, my idea was basically you have two mediums and you're combining them,
[11:35] right? So you basically you start with 200%, right? You've got grain and medium
[11:41] call what call a water, right? And so when you combine them, you end up with
[11:48] whatever X percentage of 200%. And that gives you proof. Like that's where
[11:52] Okay, that's what I feel. I feel like you could just do it as easily without,
[11:56] you know, right, you could do it without the but it sounds more batter ass.
[12:01] Yes. It's gonna sell better.
[12:06] All right. All right. All right. So we were kind of close. Okay, so the term proof dates back to
[12:13] 16th century England when spirits were taxed at different rates, depending on their alcohol
[12:18] content. Some of the terminology and methodology spread to other nations, blah, blah, blah.
[12:25] In England, spirits were originally tested with the basic burn or no burn test.
[12:31] In which alcohol that would ignite was said to be above proof and alcohol which was
[12:40] not which would not burn was said to be under proof. The breakpoint
[12:44] was defined as 100. And was the basis for taxation. Okay,
[12:49] doesn't make sense because we like that stuff on fire.
[12:53] No, this makes no sense at all. Let me just stop right here. Okay, so
[12:58] they decided that they were taxing stuff that burned as opposed to stuff that didn't burn at
[13:06] different levels. Yeah, you just tax it differently. Okay, and I mean, I get I kind of get that part
[13:15] because they're metric people. Right. Well, sort of. Right. And interestingly, alcohol's flammability
[13:23] is highly dependent on temperature. Thus, a hundred proof could range anywhere from 40
[13:30] to 90% ABV in normal air temperatures. Okay. Okay, I can see an 80% at 22 degrees,
[13:39] which is basically room temp 100 proof would be 60 ABV, 60% ABV.
[13:45] Talking Celsius, obviously. So it was not until 1816 that a legal standard based on specific
[13:59] density, which is the way you actually measure alcohol percent by volume, was defined in England,
[14:06] 100 proof was defined as a spirit with 12 13th the specific gravity of pure water at the same
[14:13] temperature. From the 19th century until January 1 1980, the UK officially measured alcohol content
[14:21] by proof spirit, defined as spirit with a gravity of 12 13th that of water and equivalent to 57.15
[14:32] ABV. So it's not exactly double, but maybe the United States.
[14:38] Let's see. Oh, yeah, it's definitely double in the United States. That's, I promise that.
[14:44] I love how this came down to specific gravity. I was like, these are a bunch of dudes making
[14:50] prohibition stuff, but nope, specific gravity. Yeah. And then in the US, it just looks like they
[14:56] were like, uh, let's just, um, let's just double that. Yeah. So it says the term was
[15:01] originally used in England and was equal to 1.8 to one times the alcohol by volume in the
[15:07] United States. Alcohol proof is defined as twice the percentage of ABV. Yeah. We're like,
[15:12] that sounds hard. That's too much math. And, and everybody else, uh, just uses ABV now.
[15:21] Like proof is just, we're the only country in this rockiness right now. Canada doesn't use it
[15:26] anymore. Yeah. Uh, according to Wikipedia, I'll buy it. I mean, I'm sure that look like, so in
[15:35] the States, I'm sure you have to print the percent of alcohol. Yes. Yeah. So in a sense,
[15:44] it's, it's, yeah, you have to prove that it's alcoholic enough to burn. Now, do we know if
[15:51] that's related to proof? Well, okay. So here we go. So I've got proof is from the Latin pro bear
[15:57] to prove, um, meaning act of proving is early 14th century. Meaning act of testing or making
[16:09] trial of anything is from the late 14th century. Um, meaning standard of strength or distill
[16:16] liquor is from 1705. According to at monline.com on some level, like once, once you, once you say
[16:28] the word specific gravity, it's almost certainly from the same place, right? Like, yeah. Adjectable
[16:36] sense proof against is recorded in the 1590s, uh, extended senses involving tested powers such
[16:43] as fireproof, waterproof and foolproof. Um, and then Shakespeare, uh, came up with shame proof.
[16:52] How do you become shame proof? If you just, if you just jackass for long enough,
[16:58] you'll eventually shed what was formerly known as shame.
[17:04] The emotion formerly known as shame. That's correct. Now it's just a
[17:07] glyph that I had tattooed on my face. Well, I'm going to say that we won. I mean,
[17:19] that much is clear. Yeah, this is no game five. It says that, um,
[17:29] proofing bread comes from the old French provere, which comes from the Latin pro bear. Um,
[17:37] dude, that Latin was tight, by the way, your pronunciation was excellent.
[17:44] Was the, you were there.
[17:49] Italian pro barre from probis worthy, good, upright and virtuous. Just saying.
[17:55] I want to give a shout out to my wife. She made bread today and it was awesome.
[17:58] Dude. Homemade bread. It's like a special, special thing. It's real good.
[18:03] Oh, shout out and happy birthday. Catherine, did we shut that out?
[18:09] I don't think we did bad on me. Happy birthday, Catherine. I missed this.
[18:14] I was leaving the window for her husband to do it. Well,
[18:20] the thing is though, like, she's going to hear the same, whether we
[18:25] shout out to the show, you know, give the shadow on the show or not. So yeah, exactly.
[18:30] Coalson, are you, are you satisfied? I am. I don't know why. Um, if, if, if the yeast in the bread and
[18:41] the, you know, the fermentation of alcohol is directly connected and I can't seem to find
[18:47] anything. Um, but I think we're just going to assume that, right?
[18:54] I mean, I think that the same terminology, I mean, it's just this, the concept is the same.
[19:00] I agree. It proved to me that this is what it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
[19:05] We're literally undergoing a scientific, a scientific test in both circumstances.
[19:11] Yep. Fair enough. And, and those things can go awry, right?
[19:19] Was that a bread joke? Well, the bread can go awry.
[19:23] Actually, they both can go awry for sure.
[19:27] Rye whiskey. Yeah. So nailed it. Nailed it. Yeah. Chop the mic on that one. Nice work.