RE: DIY CO2 and alcohol byproducts3

["Lee Boon Chuan" <lee.bc at ellipsiz_com>]

Jade Rubick:
"If I understand it correctly, the main reason the DIY CO2 systems stop 
working after a while is because the alcohol concentration in the 
mixture gets too high, and the yeast starts dying off.

Doesn't alcohol evaporate into air?

Would it be possible to just uncork the DIY system every week or so, 
let it evaporate, and then hook it back up? Has anybody done this, and 
if so, how long does it work before petering out?"

~~~~~~~

If I don't remember wrong, alcohol is toxic to yeast at about 14%.  That's 
is probably why you do not get wine with higher alcohol content than that.

Alcohol forms a solution with water.  At concentration of <14%, not much
alcohol will evaporate from the solution at room temperature.  So you are
unlikely to remove any significant amount of alcohol by venting the solution
at room temperature.

BC (Singapore)