I have just found out that some people refuse to cook with wine if they have children. It has never occurred to me that a glass of wine in a risotto or stew might be a problem, and I’ve been happily serving it up to my son (there’s a stew in the oven now). Being a fan of reason and logic I decided to run the maths.
After 2.5 hours of cooking, 5% of the alcohol will remain (source).
To take a real world example, cooking “Jools’s favourite beef stew” uses half a bottle of wine in a stew for four people. Assuming you cook it for 2.5 hours (quick for stew) the alcohol percentage of the wine will be reduced to 0.675%. A full serving will contain 8.75cl of wine (half of a 70cl bottle shared between four servings), 0.675% of 8.75 is 0.0590625cl of alcohol.
For comparison, and ignoring that the alcohol is further diluted by a massive amount of stew, a 330ml (33cl) can of shandy will contain 0.132cl of alcohol.
Cue the old timers talking about spirits for toothache.
Dean Sas 