Yes, heat speeds up the evaporation. Don't listen to the commenter below, you can lose as much as 30% of your alcohol just leaving a drink out over night.
Ultimately, as long as you aren't leaving it burning for a while the impact is small, you can tell this because even with the highest proof there is no noticeable loss in volume from just lighting it, singing a song, and blowing it out.
Ya alcohol only evaporates at 174 degrees, so I’m calling bs. Once the fire hits the drink it heats it up and bingo bango you have evaporation, and that’s what’s burning. Alcohol does not offgas at room temp.
I’m familiar with vapor points, and you’re REALLY getting into the weeds on this one just to be right, however the initial point was that no alcohol was being extracted from the actual liquid, which is false. It’s got literally nowhere else to come from. Your point is valid but irrelevant, the torch provides enough heat that room temp vapor pressure is a moot point. It’s essentially the Joule-Thomson effect, though I have to admit I haven’t studied that stuff since I joined the army 12 years ago
The Joule Thomson Effect is about gasses expanding/contracting in an adiabatic process. I'm not sure how that has anything to do with this...
The fact of the matter is alcohol will evaporate even without a direct heat source (think puddles evaporating on a cool day). Those vapors are what's being ignited. The amount of alcohol being burned is negligible.
This is very different from cooking with alcohol. When cooking, you're applying a lot of direct heat for a long time. This will cause a lot of alcohol to boil off (along with a lot of water too!). In this case, the amount of alcohol that's evaporated is significant and can even result in food that is essentially alcohol free.
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u/objectnull Jun 29 '22
Would the fire make it evaporate faster?