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Steeping using heat and what it means chemically
submitted almost 10 years ago by SillyShananagins

Arrhenius equation basically states that for every 10°C you add, the chemical reaction doubles. This is more of a rule of thumb and not a law, but it is pretty sound. I work in a very large production facility that has large rooms that are set to 40°C for this exact purpose. We place our product in these rooms to "age" for 24 hours and the results are pretty damn close to setting the product in a room temperature (~20°C) room for 4 days.

I am unsure if this equation works perfectly for the purpose of making liquid, but I would bet money that it is close.

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by TheAlmightyDalmost 10 years ago

Nicotine tends to degrade at over 50°C. Combine that with a database of aroma volitiles and the temperature they degrade at with your equation and you could predict the best temperature and time for your steep. That sounds like a lot of work though!

2 points
 
by SillyShananaginsalmost 10 years ago

I totally agree. My thoughts are if you put juice in a 40°C environment for one week, it would be like the juice sitting out at room temp for a month.

2 points
 
by TheAlmightyDalmost 10 years ago

A lot of us do already heat steep our juices but it's mostly guess work at the moment. It'd be cool if we could quantify it all.

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