Friend of mine swears that the best way to preserve the bubbles in opened champagne is to suspend a spoon in the bottle. He just inserts the handle of a teaspoon into the bottle and lets it hang there and he’s convinced that will keep the bubbly…bubbly. I can see no rational reason for it, and would, if it were left to me, just put a stopper in the bottle, to keep the pressure up and keep the bubbles in solution to the degree that increased pressure in the bottle would do - if only slightly. But the notion that an open bottle, even with a spoon hanging in it, would somehow keep the effervescence is ludicrous to me. But I’ve been stupid - and adamant - before, so I’m wondering if anyone knows of any evidence or science that would support this, to me, silly assertion. I doubt Cecil is listening, but this used to be right in his wheelhouse. In any case, Dopers - any help? xo, C.
Cecil listened:
ETA:
Someone else who actually tried it as well (and found that it didn’t work):
Sounds like bunk to me. I agree with you, a spoon hanging from the mouth of the bottle is not going to convince the co2 to stay in solution.
I don’t think I’ve ever had the ocassion where I needed to keep an open bottle of champagne bubbly. It’s usually poured and consumed long before it could go flat.
Why not just open two bottles, and put the spoon in one of them?
Why not just open three bottles, and put the spoon in one of them and drink the third?
Christ - a search for this comes back with chefs and writers with “proof” it works:
Apparently they don’t get the idea of “proof” requires a control group
So I’m guessing your friend has seen one of these reports with these “experts” who insist it works - while they would have gotten the same results if they had left regular champagne in the fridge.
People like to belive stuff like this - I’d run my own tests, but this is beyond silly - and those that have run ACTUAL tests come up with the expected results.
Apparently Champagne holds it bubbles if refrigerated VERY well - even better than just opened champagne - no I did not type that wrong - I’m not saying it is true, but Harold McGee (the guy that did the whole copper bowl thing with eggs and is a well known food science writer) is:
http://news.stanford.edu/pr/94/941221Arc4008.html
So if you are comparing opened refrigerated champagne after 24 hours - it is likely still to be pretty bubbly - compared to unopened champagne. Obviously what you have to compare is a spoon vs something else.
What Cecil actually discovered when he tried it was that your typical spoon handles won’t fit into the mouth of a typical 750 ml champagne bottle.
He concludes that nobody who makes this claim has ever actually, y’know, tried it.
after reading Cecil’s report, I would conjecture that people, seeing the bubbles around the silver (spoon, chain, whatever) drew the conclusion that there more bubbles and went on from there.
I knew someone about 30 years ago who did this with pop (soda) bottles and swore of the efficacy. Of course it’s not true.
Found this.
The best way to keep champagne from going flat is to drink it!
Or that’s the worst way, depending how you feel about champagne. (And your head the next morning.)
Mythbusters also took this one on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdHDtx71PhA
Not surprisingly, re-corking worked better for them. Putting a spoon in, I believe, was worse than just leaving the bottle open and unbespooned.