Comments:
Might be true in Belfast & London. In south Alabama, in summer, using tap water, the wine will be about 80°F.
Posted by billH at March 25, 2017 7:39 AM
The reason Ice works is because of what I find to be a most remarkable number: 143.
A BTU (British Thermal Unit) is the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of one pound of water by one degree F.
To cool wine (ignore the bottle)- let's say about 24 oz's from 70 to 40 requires 45 BTU's.- 1.5 Lbs * 30 degrees.
If you had water at 32 degrees to bring it all into equilibrium you'd need about 5 1/2 pounds of water.
If you had Ice @32 degrees you'd only need about 1/3 Lb of Ice.
That's because of the magic number 143- it requires 143 BTU's to change 1 Lb of Ice @32 to 1 Lb of water @32,- about 80% of the energy it would take to take that water and get it to boiling point.
That's why we don't use boiling water to clear snow and ice on any scale.
Posted by Bill Jones at March 25, 2017 11:53 AM
When I was in Boy Scouts, we used an Orange crate for a fridge.
We setup the crate vertically. put a pan of water on top. Then covered the whole contraption with a burlap bag. Then put a weight on top of contraption so the top of the burlap bag was submerged in the water. This acted as a wick which caused the water in the pan to wick the water through the burlap, causing evaporation which kept every item in the orange crate to be kept cooler than outside.
Posted by Dan Olson at March 25, 2017 2:58 PM
Dan - when I lived in west Texas in the early '50s we had commercially made evaporative coolers that cooled a house or other type building the same way your orange crate reefer worked. Besides cooling, they raised the humidity to a comfortable level instead of dropping it like air conditioners do. They were a bitch to keep clean though. Lots of gunk would accumulate on everything inside the thing. They may still be in use out west for all I know.
Posted by billH at March 26, 2017 7:14 AM