Hi Everyone, I've been invited to sell my pots at a wine festival in June. I make stoneware pots but I wanted to make some wine cooler pots for this event and I was wondering if stoneware will work as a wine cooler. All my glazes are cone 6. If I just bisque them, will that work? I want to at least put some glaze on maybe the bottom third of the pot. Do I need to make the little saucer for it to sit on? Does anyone know if stoneware wine coolers work if they are fired to cone 6? Thanks, Sandi
Hi Everyone, I've been invited to sell my pots at a wine festival in June. I make stoneware pots but I wanted to make some wine cooler pots for this event and I was wondering if stoneware will work as a wine cooler. All my glazes are cone 6. If I just bisque them, will that work? I want to at least put some glaze on maybe the bottom third of the pot. Do I need to make the little saucer for it to sit on? Does anyone know if stoneware wine coolers work if they are fired to cone 6? Thanks, Sandi
Hi Everyone, I've been invited to sell my pots at a wine festival in June. I make stoneware pots but I wanted to make some wine cooler pots for this event and I was wondering if stoneware will work as a wine cooler. All my glazes are cone 6. If I just bisque them, will that work? I want to at least put some glaze on maybe the bottom third of the pot. Do I need to make the little saucer for it to sit on? Does anyone know if stoneware wine coolers work if they are fired to cone 6? Thanks, Sandi
This is only a guess but 'no'. You need something that is going to absorb water. It is the evaporation of the water that cools the 'cooler'. I have only seen low fired terracotta wine coolers. I could be entirely wrong - JMO. Donna
Bisque will absorb water just fine (otherwise it'd be pretty hard to get the glaze to go on, in normal use!).
The issue here is that if you are going to have porous bisque, which you need for the evaporation, you won't be able to fire it much higher than (say) cone 04. Now if you want to put glaze on the bottom third (or wherever), there are plenty of low-fire cone 04 glazes around. The problem (in my limited experience) is that they will craze on stoneware. That may or may not be a problem for this application: You don't need a food-safe surface, so the only issue is whether there would be some adverse effect like the absorbed moisture causing the glaze to pop off (which I guess might be true even if the glaze didn't craze, since there will be so much absorbtion). So the only thing to do is test.
If the glaze doesn't work, you might want to try some sort of staining, inlay, engobe, etc. Or maybe just carve it up real pretty and let that be the decoration.
Best regards.
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But they want to glaze the inside and fire to cone6 which would not do well IMO. If it were just bisque fired (cone06) I agree that might work fine. It might work to try a low fire glaze inside only but I don't think that will keep it from weeping... It has been a long time since I played with lowfire glazes.
Stoneware does not absorb water. Wine-coolers cool because the water they have lain in has been absorbed and then evaporates. The evaporation causes the cooling.
In other words - earthenware - not stoneware - is the thing.
That means that you COULD glaze, but not at stoneware temperatures.
We had one such cooler that just had a little dish to set under it (if it weeps). That dish could always be glazed, I guess.
It is so that unglazed porous ware will cool by evaporation, but it may not cool that much or that fast. I've found that those wines that are designed to be consumed cold or icy, lose quality fast as they warm. I was pondering making a wine cooler and, for me, it would have to contain ice so glazed stoneware would be fine.
I was thinking of making a double walled one ( I may have seen one ). The wine bottle is in the center and a perforated wall keeps the ice away from the bottle so it's easy to pull out and put back in. The wall is perforated so the water can cool the bottle. Water and ice cools faster than just ice and salted ice water is supposed to be the best.
Unfortunately, double walls will end up making it bigger and heavier. Could you put some of those freezer packs in to avoid using bulky ice cubes? Details details.
If you want it that chilled then what you want is a container larger enough to hold the bottle, and the width of the ice cube (plus when you are making it the percent shrinkage you will get in the clay between making and last firing). You put in ice and water (half way up), then your wine bottle. The water allows the ice to move freely and you don't have to worry about getting the bottle in and out. You would want a towel of course to wipe the bottle down or you could simple put it in a decorative plastic bag that the bottle could then slip in and out of. This is what they do for Champaign and many other chilled drinks.
This was a 'duhh' moment for me as well. I just never put 2 and 2 together. You fill a tub or ice chest full of ice to keep drinks chilled, have a terrible time getting the cans and bottles down into the ice, then the ice melts and the hard part is sticking your hand into the ice water to pull out the drink. Moving things around and adding more drinks is no problem. When I read that you are supposed to put water in with the ice of your wine coolers so that the bottle goes in and out easily, I wanted to smack myself upside the head. Donna
i make wine cooler ice buckets. make a "chip n dip" style bowl, and put holes into the inner one like a collander. fill the outer one with ice and add water. put the wine bottle in the middle one. the wine bottle gets cold and th eice cubes do not get in the way of the bottle.
But if you add water then the ice cubes don't get in the way. They simply slide away. The ice bucket must be large enough to hold the width of the ice (plus a smidge) and the bottle. If you make a double walled piece then it has to be large enough for the cubes, the bottle, and the inner wall. JMO but a double walled piece doesn't make sense to me unless there is something I'm missing. If it didn't have holes then the bottle would stay dry but it would not be as chilled. How in the world do you get both walls up so high? I can't even imagine throwing that piece. Have I rambled enough yet?
Throwing that tall isn't an issue. Throwing a doubled wall cylinder that tall and that wide is. I image the inner cylinder as ~ 4"+ shrinkage in diameter - the outer wall ~6".
This isn't something I want to do. As I said the bucket would serve the purpose in my minds eye. I just can't imagine Steve making the piece. It strikes me as difficult at best. I would love to see a video of it.
the idea of a BIG chip n dipper is handy for lots of things. thing big. a big bowl in the middle with a BIG bowl on the outside is handy to have as a refridgerator for potaoe salad. put ice in the outer bowl, then the inner bowl with potatoe salad stays cold.
or use an ice ring on the outer bowl and cover the ice with shrimp. use a more "nomal" size inner bowl for the shrimp sauce.
for wine i use a tall-ish cylinder for the bottle holding part, with (no holes to the bottom so it doesn't leak to the table) holes to the outer bowl which is also tall-ish. this make a great water chiller. certainly it's just ice water, but COLD.
ever hear of beer can chicken? the idea of emptying 1/2 a can of beer (my GOD! don't just pour it on the ground!) and add spices and bar-b- q sauce into the can. stuff the beer can up a chicken's butt, and bar- b-q on slow with the chicken standing up.
~ well, i made another chip n dipper bowl to do the same thing since i don't often use beer cans (more into bottle beer). the inner thin cylinder holds the beer-spice stuff. it goes up a chicken's butt, and the outer bowl helps support the overall chicken in the bar-b-q.
here's a fast rendering of a "beer can chicken" roaster made from clay, OR the idea of a wine cooler that would have the ice cube kept away from the bottle.
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beer can goes "up the chicken" where stuffing usually goes. heneeds to sit up on top of the can. so this roaster (without the holesto cook chicken) would be a roaster pan with the fluids in the middleportion.
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