Re: Brandy instead of water

I guess it all depends on where you get your definition. From Wikipedia:

"A solvent is a liquid that dissolves a solid, liquid, or gaseous
solute, resulting in a solution. The most common solvent in everyday
life is water."

Admittedly, the article goes on to talk about how solvents should
ideally have low boiling points, be non-reactive with the solute, and
be easily separated by evaporation or distillation. Those are useful
properties for a laboratory or production process solvent. But when
it comes to extracting coffee from coffee grounds, what counts is that
the coffee compounds dissolve in the solvent. I think milk fits the
bill.

I'm not saying it's a good idea. I'm just saying that it is,
technically, a solvent -- a liquid capable of dissolving solutes.
It's a trivial semantic point, but usenet is all about trivial
semantic arguments, isn't it? ;) I think it would be an awful idea to
run milk through an espresso machine, but you could try it via other
brewing methods (e.g., French press), and it might result in a novel
extraction profile. Of course, you would be obligated to have your
coffee with milk in that case.

Milk isn't a solvent, it is a solution composed of a solvent and lots of other chemicals. You say as much yourself. While WP is often a valuable resource, I take my definition from the inorganic chem class I took eons ago.

We both know that water is a solvent, and that milk is mostly water, and that if you take the water out of the milk you are not left with anything remotely resembling a solvent. Next you'll be saying that chicken broth is a salt because it has some in it!

D




.

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