Talk:Alcohol proof

message: The use of the numbers 4,7, 100 and 175 in the first (History) section seemed pretty confusing. I have tried to clarify it.
87.194.252.37 (talk) 06:46, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The numbers 4, 7, and 100 are explained in this section.  The number 175 pops up, and seems arbitrary, because this is an arbitrary definition. Any other definition of "100 proof" would simply result in some other arbitrary-seeming number.Wahrmund (talk) 19:38, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

text: Think the explanation is still a little unclear, trying to come up with something a bit easier to understand AJGordonWright (talk) 16:09, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arithmetic 

message: Is that 95% alcohol limit true. Over here in Finland the pharmacists bottles all claim 96%. Maybe the folks accross the pond just rounded that 190 proof down to the nearest ten? -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick 05:15, Oct 31, 2003 (UTC)
Also it might (or might not) be worth explaining that two liters of 100° proof alcohol contain what would, if separated, be one liter of pure ethanol and a little over a liter of water and other things, since the liquids shrink a little when combined.
The azeotrope of water/ethanol is close to 95-96%.  I'm guessing that it is just a preference thing.
:That's QI. Not sure whether it fits the article though. Stanstaple (talk) 18:32, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: 95, 96?

message: As far as I'm aware ethanol is extremely hydrophilic. So, as soon as it is exposed to air, it will pull water molecules from the air and dillute the ethanol to roughly 95% alcohol. I believe you can get the percentage up to 98% by doping the ethanol with methanol, or other substances that are generally unsafe to drink. The only way to have 100% ethanol would be to put your ethanol in a vacuum, where there would be no other molecules to dillute your alcohol. Of course, as soon as you opened your 100% ethanol vacuum packed bottle, it'd almost immediately drop to 95% as the air hit it. Even if you drank it from the vacuum pack with a straw, the ethanol would grab moisture as it touched your throat, and drop to roughly 95% before it hit your stomach. So, for those of you looking for a shot of 100% ethanol, you're out of luck. (I'm about 95% sure that this information is correct. However, I'd recommend someone check with a chemist before posting this outside of the discussion page.)
:Not quite. It would take quite a while to pull 5% volume water out of the air. Very pure alcohol is produced by a number of processes like salt drying, lime reaction, and three-part azeotrope distillation. However, "pure alcohol" is not sold to the ordinary public in most places. Rmhermen 00:22, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alcoholic Proof Redux 

message: It might be worth mentioning (or not) that the world outside North America and Europe doesn't use  "proof" and won't have a clue what it means. It's therefore probably sensible not to give the proof of a beverage without the equivalent ABV, especially in Wiki articles describing various spirits. --Charlene.vickers 04:39, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think millions of people in Europe don't have a clue what "proof" means, hence the number of people who wrongly talk of "% proof", or even misread "proof" or "° proof" as "% proof".  This is all the more reason to always give ABV.  To both of you: If you find an article that gives proof strength but doesn't give the equivalent ABV, please fix it! — Smjg (talk) 21:38, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proof outside the Western world 

message: Unless I'm missing something, I don't really see why a description of the alcohol production process is necessaRy here, in an aRticle about a unit of meaSurement. Maybe the passage here could be integrATed with saY fermentation.
:If you mean the "Alcohol content in beverage production" section, then I agree, it has no relevance whatsoever.  It doesn't even mention proof, it's all about ABV. AJGordonWright (talk) 16:13, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Production passage necessARy? 

message: ABV, the unit that is commonly used at percent ... shouldn't that be "at present"? Maikel 15:20, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Percent, present?

message: To ensure that the brandy being used as payment has not been watered down or was of good quality, it was proved by dousing gunpowder in the rationed brandy, and testing to see if it would ignite. If it didn't ignite, the solution had too much water in it and the proof was considered low or "underproof".
Great story.  But why go to all this length and not simply light the brandy you're trying to test?  I know from experience that if you want to flambée anything and therefore need alcohol that burns, you have to get the 54% ABV stuff.  And according to the article, 54% ABV roughly equates 100° proof.  So I suspect that "proof" simply means "alcoholic drink that burns".  Maikel 15:59, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You can burn ordinary 40% booze if you warm it first, so burning is not a practical test.  Man with two legs 21:05, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Why gunpowder?

message: The point is: wherever the term is used, in America or elsewhere, the definition is always "twice the ABV."  No one thinks of it in terms of the 18th century British usage.  So how is that misleading?  Also, the term is not "modern" in the U.S. Wahrmund (talk) 20:32, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, you thought it was ancient history!  The British definition was used in every supermarket not that long ago and is familiar to British people over the age of about 35 who remember that most gin and whisky were 70 degrees proof (corresponding to American 80 proof).  It also will be relevant to books and newspaper articles that are not all that old.  For example, the Dick Francis thriller Proof is still available new.  I do not remember exactly what happened when ABV took over, but I vaguely remember a period when both measures were printed on bottles. It is unlikely that the American definition has ever been used in Britain. Man with two legs (talk) 11:13, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Alcoholic proof

message: Is there a difference between 200 proof and lab grade "anhydrous" ethanol? 4.255.55.13 (talk) 18:59, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Not according to http://www.pharmco-prod.com/pages/ep1.pdf , which says 200 Proof Ethanol is often referred to as “Dehydrated”, “Anhydrous”, or “Absolute Ethanol”. --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 06:33, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  anhydrous ethanol? 

message: The article explains where the British  relation 7:4 comes from, but does not mention why and when the American 2:1 relation was introduced.  --194.24.138.3 (talk) 18:34, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  why 2:1? 

message: The article claims "Thus, the definition amounted to declaring that (4÷7) × 175 = 100 degrees proof spirit." which means nothing, as (4÷7) × 175 equals 100 regardless of the definition of alcoholic proof. A more accurate claim would be "Thus, the definition amounted to declaring that if a fraction x of a spirit was ethanol, then that spirit is x × 175 degrees proof." Can anyone else find a better way to put it? smithers888 (talk) 02:37, 7 May 2010(UTC)
:That is all very well, but the text needs to point out the reason for the choice of 175 as the multiplier. They could reasonably have decided (perhaps because of measuring error or the use of a different kind of gunpowder) that a ratio of  5:7 would be declared to be 100 degrees proof spirit. Then the multiplier would be 140 instead of 175. So pure alcohol would be 140 degrees proof instead of 175 degrees, which would considerably compress the scale.
:Or they could have decided that the top of the scale would be 200 degrees proof. Then the formula would be (1÷2) × 200 = 100 degrees proof spirit, which is the standard that was introduced in America.  In the event, they used the "rum+gunpowder+match" standard which resulted in the 175 multiplier.  See the "Arithmetic" section above. Wahrmund (talk) 22:12, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  This sentence does not make sense 

message: The only difference between ABV, US proof, and UK proof is the number of parts by volume of the whole thing the alcoholic portion is compared with.  These parts are respectively 100, 200, and 175.  (So 100% ABV is 200 proof US and 175 degrees proof UK.)  Except for that, this article and Alcohol by volume are about exactly the same thing.  The fact that ABV historically had older units which are still used in places does not seem like a good reason for having two whole articles.  Redirecting Alcoholic proof to Alcohol by volume (after suitably merging the contents) would avoid creating the impression that there is a more substantive distinction between the two concepts.  For example the second sentence of this article says "The UK now uses the ABV standard instead of alcoholic proof," but this is misleading because the US now requires the ABV standard on all labels too, and no longer requires the proof though it permits it.  Thoughts?  --Vaughan Pratt (talk) 21:28, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge with [[Alcohol by volume]]?

message: Using the OIML scale or the Gay-Lussac scale is essentially the same as measuring alcohol by volume except that the figures are expressed in degrees, not percentages. This states that OIML scale uses degrees, but I only see references to percentages in the referenced OIML recommendation #22. Alcohol by volume page does refer to degrees Gay-Lussac though. I realize that this is supposed to be a direct quote (can't verify) and there's not much to do in terms of editing it, but it is somewhat misleading and perhaps should be omitted. Aurimas (talk) 00:53, 3 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusing quote from ''The Joy of Mixology'' 

message: I once read a rather authoritative book on spirits (don't remember the name or author, sorry) that told the story of measuring the proof of rum for the Royal Navy but for a different purpose. According to this article, it was done to show the men that they weren't receiving watered down rum. But I thought the real reason was much more practical: to prove the rum on board ship was not flammable, a very important consideration in the age of wooden ships, especially if they have to go into battle. In the account I read, the ships were NOT allowed to carry rum at or above 100 proof because it was a potential fire hazard. This account much more sense than what is in the article. Does anybody else know any better?209.179.40.208 (talk) 23:37, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: I've seen that too, but can't remember where. It would make a good addition to the article if we can find a source. Kendall-K1 (talk) 23:08, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is the part about rum and the Royal Navy correct? 

message: The gunpowder process and the fact that sailors drank rum is attested in the sources, but no connection between the two is included. Furthermore, one of the citations specifically states that proofing was for tax purposes. I find the connection with sailor's rations dubious.
Dalzay (talk) 05:51, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm pretty sure the real reason is given in the previous talk page section "Is the part about rum and the Royal Navy correct?" It would be good to dig up some sources. Kendall-K1 (talk) 14:36, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

text: I took a stab at fixing this. I took out the Ministry of Rum source because although it talks about sailors being paid in rum, it doesn't connect that practice to "proof". Whoever wrote that section had a vivid imagination. Kendall-K1 (talk) 16:51, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  No citation connecting proof to sailors. 

message: Why does the article say proof (in England) is "about 1.821 times" the ABV, and then later say 57.14% (or 57.15%) which is 1.75x (not 1.821x)?
78.149.230.39 (talk) 20:42, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maths mistake? 

message: As with most online sources, this article indicates that the ignition of gunpowder dowsed in the liquor was the original proofing test, and even lists a seemingly reliable source for such a claim... But I'm having a hard time swallowing this story. Why, in the 16th century, would tax collectors and distillers be buying and wasting gunpowder (which assumedly was expensive) on a test for which you could obtain almost the exact same results by simply lighting the alcohol itself? Why would anyone even associate alcohol with gunpowder?
It seems to me that the story of testing alcohol on naval ships to make sure it was "navy strength," and therefore would not ruin their gunpowder if it spilled, (which seems to be a very real practice) is getting confused with the basic concept of testing liquor for alcohol content by doing the obvious thing of burning it.
Based on this hunch, I checked out the PDF listed as a reference 1. It's a rather informal response to a question about the origin of "proof" written by a chemistry professor, William B. Jensen, from the University of Cincinnati. In it, Prof. Jensen claims the origin is gunpowder burning and provides as citation pages 561–575 of the book The World of Measurements: Masterpieces, Mysteries and Muddles of Metrology by H. A. Klein. However, upon doing a word search through this whole book, I can find no use of the word gunpowder at all. Reading the pages cited by Prof. Jensen the book only has this to say of the origin of proofing:<be> 
::::::"The concept of a standard or normative "proof" strength was operative in Britain from the early days of the burn-or-no-burn tests. It paralleled the normative concepts of applied to brewing..." –this is found on page 564
I see no reason to assume this is referring to gunpowder... why would it be, especially without explicitly mentioning gunpowder anywhere in the book?
Based on all of this, I propose we: remove the Prof. Jensen reference and (at the very least) list the idea of gunpowder burning alongside the more basic concept of just burning the alcohol, the latter of which should list the H.A. Klein book as a citation. Are there any strong feelings about this? Cheers, Skoulikomirmigotripa (talk) 19:57, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  The persistence of the burning gunpowder origin