The experiment did not match the original question:
Original Q:
“I have been told by someone who claims to know that you can preserve the carbonation in a half-consumed bottle of champagne by hanging a silver spoon upside down in the neck…”
Experiment:
“We uncorked all three bottles and attempted to insert a silver spoon into one…”
The problem here is more than just the spoon being too wide to fit in the bottle (try a teaspoon not a gravy spoon). The proposed method of preserving champagne bubbles with a spoon specifically referred to a “half-consumed” bottle of champagne. I don’t know what kind of parties you go to, but generally I don’t open a bottle and immediately decide that I’m no longer thirsty, thus necessitating a way to keep a FULL bottle fizzy.
If you had read the question properly, and performed the experiment as described, there would have been no problem with the spoon, or in this case chain, providing “an abundance of nucleation sites where bubbles could form”. There should be a fair amount of clearance between the bottom of the spoon and the actual liquid.
I must say that I too am probably a victim of superstition, as I routinely put a tespoon in the neck of half-empty champagne (well, Australian sparkling white wine) bottles. However I was never told that the spoon had to be silver. Mine are generally stainless steel. I’ve never really questioned it, but then I rarely have any wine left over!
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Nice, but we still need an answer to the other question. Does putting a commercially available stopper in the neck make any difference?
Cecil’s experiment seems to suggest that the stopper helped, but I have difficulty interpreting the difference between “the condom inflated fully” and “the condom inflated and champagne leaked out the bottom of it”.
Besides which Terry’s experiment seems to suggest that carbonation takes quite a few days to dissipate and Cecil’s experiment was only performed overnight.
This is probably a lot more important than the initial question, because people are spending good money on these stoppers, whereas a teaspoon is an ordinary household item.
I’d do the experiment myself but:
A) I can’t afford the $5 a bottle.
B) I can’t resist those $5 bottles.
Do you really need an experiment to confirm putting a stopper in the neck is better than no stopper? Try it with a 2 L soda bottle. Same difference.
The difference between 1) filling the condom and 2) filling the condom and some spilling out - 1) only gas goes into the condom. 2) Not only does gas go into the condom, but liquid bubbles up into the condom, too, which is how it leaks out.
From your OP:
Incorrect. There should not be clearance between the bottom of the spoon or chain and the contents. Re-read the question that Cecil answered.
I’ve bolded for emphasis. It clearly states the spoon handle is into the champaigne itself, no clearance. Also, mumbling about electrolysis would require direct contact between the fluid contents and the spoon. Without contact, there’s no circuit.
Actually, I’d say that there is a contradiction in the question which I missed earlier. You are certainly right about eloctrolysis, so the spoon suspended in the liquid is probably what the question meant.
However, the question still states “half-consumed”.
Now I’m not sure what kind of spoons you’re used to dealing with, but the handle would have to be very long for it to reach the liquid in a half-consumed bottle, which is probably why the spoons didn’t fit in the neck.
When I was told (almost certainly errroneously) that putting a spoon in the neck helped keep the fizziness, it didn’t involve contact with the liquid. No explanation as to how this was meant to work was given, and none sought (the folly of youth).
So the upshot is, it’s all bunk. The two experiments show this to be true. One with contact, one without. Case closed.
Also, if you’re so convinced that the stopper is the way to go, can you tell me why? I can see that it would keep the gas in the bottle, but how does it keep the gas in the liquid?
Carbonised beverages have CO2 contained under pressure.
When the pressure is released (opening bottle) the gas comes out of suspension as bubbles. If the bottle is fully stoppered, pressure will gradually build up till equilibrium is reached and any CO2 will remain in suspension till the bottle is reopened. Any object placed in the neck of the bottle, unless it fully seals it, will not help one iota.
The spoon may cause bubbles through electrolysis (perhaps) but if bubbles are what one wants then one may smack the bottle sharply on its base onto the table - this shocks some bubbles out, a pinch of salt will cause more bubbling (forget the taste).
Drop an Alka Seltzer in - all the bubbles one want, then some
This “spoon in the Champagne bottle” is something that I’ve seen done sometimes in France, so I tried searching the web in French, to see if someone had something to say about that. I’ve found for example http://owen.monblogue.com/commentaires/owen/11085
To summarize briefly: winemakers from Champagne have investigated this, and as can be seen on the figure, the spoon has no noticeable effect compared to no spoon. The tests were run with bottles coming from the same batch (cuvee), so as to minimize variations between them, and with 1/3 and 2/3 of the volume left.
Concerning Champagne and its bubbles, last year a study was published (http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/la0115987) that is quite thorough on the subject. In particular, they discuss an interesting thing: it seems that you need particles in your glass to have the little streams of bubbles.
Oooops. On the Champagne graph… Cuillere means spoon. So, “sans cuillere” is without spoon, “avec cuillere” is with spoon, “avec bouchon stoppeur” is with stopper, and “avec capsule” is with cap (like on a beer bottle, the rightmost bottle on the image). I suppose everybody had translated “pression du gaz” into “gas pressure”.
So the more airtight you can make the bottle, the better. It all becomes clear (or bubbly).
In fact I seem to remember a kind of stopper that actually had some kind of pump attached, in order to force air into the airtight bottle. I presume this was to increase the pressure in the bottle and therefore decrease the amount of CO2 coming out of suspension, as per GoatTosser’s explanation.
Has anyone else heard of such a thing or did I dream it?
Maybe it’s something I could market (assuming I dreamt it up which seems unlikely).
Having another look at the picture on that graph (on the French site), I must say it seems like it’s not very cost effective to use a crown seal (bottle top) every time you have a half-finished bottle of wine.
Besides which, any self-respecting wine expert will tell you that it’s better to finish a bottle of wine in one sitting.
Many wines do benefit from maturation over time, but rarely is this the case once you have removed the cork. Apart from a brief period of decanting of course.
Yes, there was a pump cap that is marketed for soft drinks. I’m not sure how effective they are. Part of the distinction that is overlooked is that the pressure in question needs to be the partial pressure of the particular gas, not just total pressure. Pumping your half full bottle of soda with regular air would seem to me to not do much to increase the carbon dioxide content in the bottle. I suppose some, since air has CO2. I used to have one years ago, and don’t recall a noticable effect through regular use.
At least, you need some sort of irregularities. In addition to dust specks, scratches or pitting in the glass will work, too.
As for the caps with pumps on them, they won’t change the amount of dissolved CO[sub]2[/sub], since they don’t change the partial pressure of CO[sub]2[/sub] above the liquid. But wouldn’t they cause ordinary nitrogen and oxygen (that is, air) to dissolve in the liquid to a greater than normal degree? It seems to me that it’s just the total amount of gas dissolved which matters for “fizziness”, and that the composition of the gas wouldn’t be too relevant.
Hmmm, interesting notion Chronos. So I guess we need an extensive experiment to determine the actual levels of gas absorbtion caused by the pump cap. Then we can plot the data comparing pump pressure versus gas dissolved for various amounts of liquid in the bottle. Then’ we can find out how truly effective the pump cap is at retaining fizziness.
Hello everyone,
I’m a virgin to the boards so take it easy on me the first time o.k. (Bite my ear or something)? Now on to the problem at hand:
It’s not that I don’t believe in the conclusion of any of these experiments. It’s perfectly obvious by now that there aint a damn thing on the periodic you can drop in a bottle of Crystal that provides a valid reason for not drinking the whole thing in the first place…but something in that French experiment stinks. Making only one assumption (that the pressure was measured by affixing some type of gage to the top of the bottle, like E…er…Cecil’s condom) we know that the noted pressure is actually a fuction of the rate of effusion out of soultion into the bottle, then from the interior of the bottle out of the portal the top.
Does it strike anyone else as odd that the rate of gas effusion from the bottle remains constanant after they are all opened (or reopened in the case of the stopper model)? Anyone who has opened a bottle of bubbly before would know that the intitial rate of effusion out of the top of the bottle is considerably higher than even a few minutes later. Big bottles go POP (or BANG if you’re one of the “shake-it-up” drunks at my parties), one could argue then that the increased effusion is brought about by the server shaking bubbles out of solution before uncorking. Ok, but even after the curve should NOT show a direct relationship between time and gas pressure. What about the density of CO2 versus air? What about the capacsitance co-efficient of the air in the open bottles as compared to that of the more recently opened? What about the temperature of the champagne itself (pertaing to the capasitance co-efficient of the champagne)? Are they going to tell me that the four bottles sat in a lab for two days at a constant temperature (no so farfetched I guess, but still). And what about the osmotic properties of the champagne proteins, the very proteins that allow the formation of bubbles in the first place, in terms of a semi-permiable membrane between the champagne and the CO2 vapor cloud. (ok, that was more of a joke). I just don’t see how all 4 bottles could release gas at the same rate and thus have a similar decline in pressure.
Anyway, open fire ladies and gents, it’s just a thought. Let me know what you think either way. Corrupt french champagne scientists or baseless nitpicking to the extreme on my part.
