Can I use cream of tartar instead of wine to avoid alcohol in a meat braise or risotto?
There's a few misconceptions there. Tartaric acid, malic acid, acetic acid, and citric acid are all &quot;heat stable&quot; in the sense that they won't boil or decompose at the temperature of boiling water. They'll evaporate over time, just like the water will, but if you take a bunch of lemon juice and boil it down, you'll eventually be left with a precipitate of mostly citric acid.
(Note that lemon juice itself is not 'heat stable', because other flavor compounds in it undergo hydrolysis and oxidation at cooking temperatures.)
The reason wine is used instead of lemon juice in risotto is for the taste; different acids taste different, there are flavors in wine other than acids, and the taste of classic risotto is derived from the flavors in wine.
Finally, while acidity does affect the rate of hydrolysis of collagen, as far as I know this effect is entirely dependent on pH, rather than on the specific acid used.
Tartaric acid, or cream of tartar, can be used as a substitute for wine if you're just relying on the acidity of wine, but other, more readily available acids will work just as well.