Exploding wine reduction

October 1, 2006 1:37 PM

Why did my merlot reduction explode in my face and how do I keep it from happening again?

It started with olive oil in a non-stick pan, a little garlic and some root veggies, sauteed for five minutes at medium high. I put those in the crock pot, then put a little more oil in the pan and browned the pot roast--about three minutes a side. Put that in the crock pot, and then was instructed to add 1/2 cup burgundy (I used merlot) to the oil in the pan and reduce to a few tablespoons. I was happily scraping up the little brown bits while the wine bubbled, as I've done many times before, and then this large bubble formed in the middle of the pan and exploded in my face! And all over the ceiling, walls, and floor. While I was rescuing my eyes and face from the burn, I heard it happen a few more times. I finally took the pan off the heat after I determined that my face and eyes would be fine.

So, what happened and how to I prevent it next time? I usually deglaze in a cast-iron skillet, but this time it was non-stick. There was probably a tablespoon of olive oil in the pan, some bits of garlic and onion, and some fat and water from the meat. I had also salted and peppered the meat before removing it from the pan, so there might have been some of those in the mix.

Is it any of those things? Was it too hot--the whole time at medium-high? I've done this before, but never had any trouble. I will continue to cook with wine, but it'd be nice to know what caused this.

posted by aimless to food & drink (14 comments total)

Sounds like your pan and/or your burner might have a hot spot, and you accidentally created the perfect condition to create a bubble over it. I bet if you did this 100 times, you'd never see it again.
posted by frogan at 2:01 PM on October 1, 2006

I'm thinking it's something to do with the nonstick pan? (It's not a good idea to use one for what you were making anyway as you don't get the fond you need for a good pan sauce with nonstick.)
posted by CunningLinguist at 2:15 PM on October 1, 2006

Yes, if i had been making a pan sauce that really mattered--not just going into a crock pot for nine hours--I would have used my sticky pan. The recipe said to use either, so I just grabbed my biggest (it was 8 am on a Sunday and I was a little apathetic).

I'm sure I've never read that it's dangerous to reduce wine in a non-stick pan, though, so the hot spot idea makes sense. It must not happen that often. We have a flat-top (glass? ceramic?) stove, which I find makes a weird, airless connection with my pans. Seems like air circulation would be a good thing beneath a pan.
posted by aimless at 2:37 PM on October 1, 2006

It sounds as if the wine became a thin elastic layer on the bottom of the pan. In a regular pan this layer would have stuck too tightly to the pan to blow a bubble, but in a non-stick it was able to peel away from the bottom, then burst.
posted by jamjam at 3:31 PM on October 1, 2006

What is "fond"? just asking.
posted by zek at 3:49 PM on October 1, 2006

The fact that it was a violent enough explosion to reach the ceiling and walls is amazing. I hope someone can answer this definitively because I make wine reductions all the time and I have never seen anything close to this, not even at very high temps.
posted by vronsky at 3:52 PM on October 1, 2006

As for the original exploding merlot: I think that somewhere in your oily nonstick pan you formed a blob of superheated wine, which then exploded when you poked it with a meat crumb. Nasty! Hope you're OK.
posted by flabdablet at 4:17 PM on October 1, 2006

I'm not so sure that vigorous scraping is a good idea with a non-stick pan anyway; you could take off part of the coating -- and incorporate it into your sauce. Yum!
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 4:44 PM on October 1, 2006

Reduction sauces never turn out as good in non-stick pans, because you need some of the brown bits to stick to the bottom and caramelize. I find it hard to believe that any kind of superheating happened, but I guess anything can happen.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 5:42 PM on October 1, 2006

I like the superheating idea. Bet the nonstick surface was really smooth. But I still think it's a one-in-100 shot.

>> What is "fond"?

Fond is the little brown bits at the bottom of a cooking pan, where bits of food and other oily bits have broken off and caramelized from the heat. When you deglaze a pan to make a sauce (i.e. pour a liquid into it, like wine), you scrape the fond off the bottom of the pan to get it floating into the sauce, because fond = flavor.
posted by frogan at 6:52 PM on October 1, 2006

It may have had something to do with the viscosity of the mixture. I once met a chef who had been severely burned heating honey. The top was cool enough to form a skin, while the bottom vaporized. It exploded in his face, and stuck like napalm.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 7:26 PM on October 1, 2006

I think it's a combination of superheating and bad luck. Nonstick pans tend to be thinner and made of aluminum which both lead to superheating. Combine that with just the right ratio of wine to protein to other stuff, and you have very sticky goo with a very hot spot in the middle which could easily cause a giant bubble.

Then again I've had big bubbles in my heavy pans too, but nothing like what you describe.
posted by TungstenChef at 11:46 PM on October 1, 2006

Now that I think about it, I've had some pretty big bubbles from balsamic vinegar reductions. Balsamic is pretty much wine with more sugar in it (and vinegar instead of alcohol, but that doesn't affect things here). Those root veggies you started with probably leaked out a good bit of starch and sugar which contributed to the stickiness.
posted by TungstenChef at 11:59 PM on October 1, 2006

It sounds like it must be the pan. I will certainly not use that one for this task again.

I do love the idea that there was some superheating going on in my very own kitchen. Thanks for reminding me why I kind of liked chemistry so many years ago.

My eyelids were a little red and sensitive yesterday, but are fine today. Glad it wasn't honey or napalm!
posted by aimless at 3:24 PM on October 2, 2006