As weird as it sounds, I prefer my soft drinks to be as flat as possible. I really dislike carbonation (it’s the unpleasant throat-burning sensation that’s at the top of my reasoning). My current method of ridding a bottle of carbonation involves shaking, then slowly releasing the cap until the carbonation bubbles near spillage, then closing, waiting, and starting all over again.
Are there any other methods or tricks of getting rid of a drink’s carbonation as quickly as possible? Any food-safe chemicals I can add to make CO2 go bye-bye? I know leaving a drink out at room temperature will result in quicker carbonation loss, but it’s not very practical when you want to drink it and it’s warm…
Add some barium chloride to the drink. Unles you want to actually drink it. Then don’t do that. Maybe iron sulfate would do the trick. Still, don’t drink it.
Some folks like to drink hot Dr. Pepper - heating it up on the stove. I suppose you could heat up your soda a 2 liter at a time, then re-bottle it and refrigerate.
Mechanical agitation is already the best way. Your problem is, your container leaves no room for the gas to escape without bringing some of the drink with it. Pour your 16 oz bottle into a 2 litre bottle and try shaking that.
More specifically, pour into a glass (a glass with ice works best), and stir it around a couple times with a spoon.
I used to do this as a kid when I’d drink Vernor’s ginger ale.
You could also maybe add a pinch or two of table salt and wait for the fizz to go down.
EDIT: Or go with WarmNPrickly’s suggestion. It might actually be best to go through a restaurant, though. Ask the manager if they have any that are about to go out of date that they wouldn’t mind “losing track of.” If I recall correctly, the 5 gallon bag-in-boxes of syrup are somewhere around $20-$30. I’m sure if you ask around enough, you could find someone willing to part with them.
You can buy cola syrup at most pharmacies, though you may have to order directly from the pharmacy and wait a couple of days. People use it to soothe an upset stomach.
Pour a glass and leave some room, like half full on a 32oz cup. Sprinkle a little sugar in it, just a generous pinch should do. It should fizz up as the the sugar forces the CO2 out of the solution.
Whenever I used to get the sort of stomach virus where you can’t keep anything down, my mother’s remedy would be to take a large plastic tumbler (like 32oz) and pour a cold coke into it from a height of 12-18 inches. This removed most of the carbonation. If it has to be absolutely flat, you can do that a few more times.
I don’t think this is right. IIRC the only substance that would force CO2 out of solution is more CO2. There is no reason a beverage that already contains massive amounts of sugar would react that strongly to another pinch of sugar.
