In a Dutch science quiz the following question is asked:

On New Years Eve you want to present champagne with a nice layer of
foam. How can you get the foam stable?
A. By adding a splash of beer
B. By adding a spoon of sugar
C. By blowing nitrogen in it

I did some searching on the internet, but I'm not able to find the
answer. I found that you can get more foam by adding sugar. This is
because the dissolved carbon dioxide can form more easy on the rough
surface of the sugar. But that doesn't mean the foam is stable.

Does anyone have experience with this situation. Please let me know

Bert

Bert Harleman wrote:
> In a Dutch science quiz the following question is asked:
>
> On New Years Eve you want to present champagne with a nice layer of
> foam. How can you get the foam stable?
> A. By adding a splash of beer
> B. By adding a spoon of sugar
> C. By blowing nitrogen in it
>
> I did some searching on the internet, but I'm not able to find the
> answer. I found that you can get more foam by adding sugar. This is
> because the dissolved carbon dioxide can form more easy on the rough
> surface of the sugar. But that doesn't mean the foam is stable.

I have no experience with this situation, but by process of elimination
I'd choose A: as you say, the sugar just nucleates bubble formation and
doesn't prolong them and nitrogen will do nothing to prolong the
lifetime of the bubbles. My first choice would be to add some soap (or
any other lipid) to your Champagne if you want persistent bubbles, but
I'm not likely to try that experiment ;-)

Mark Lipton

Thanks Mark.

I found out that beer has a stable foam. I wonder what ingredient causes
the stability. The question remains if beer has a positive effect on the
champagne-foam

Bert Harleman > wrote in news:4578327e$0$7818$dbd4f001
@news.euronet.nl:

> In a Dutch science quiz the following question is asked:
>
> On New Years Eve you want to present champagne with a nice layer of
> foam. How can you get the foam stable?
> A. By adding a splash of beer
> B. By adding a spoon of sugar
> C. By blowing nitrogen in it
>
> I did some searching on the internet, but I'm not able to find the
> answer. I found that you can get more foam by adding sugar. This is
> because the dissolved carbon dioxide can form more easy on the rough
> surface of the sugar. But that doesn't mean the foam is stable.
>
> Does anyone have experience with this situation. Please let me know
>

I wouldn't think that you would want to have foam on top of a glass of
Champagne, but rather, persistent bubbles (the smaller, the better)?
d.

Bert Harleman > wrote:

> I found out that beer has a stable foam. I wonder what
> ingredient causes the stability.

Here's the answer - highly scientific, from an Article called,
"Effervescence in a glass of champagne: /A bubble story/":

<http://www.europhysicsnews.com/full/13/article3/article3.html>

| We also compared the behaviour of champagne bubbles with that of
| beer bubbles. It was found that beer bubbles showed a behaviour,
| very close to that of rigid spheres [5-7], thus confirming a
| previous study [10]. This is not a surprising result, since beer
| contains much higher amounts of surface-active macromolecules
| (of order of several hundreds mg/L) likely to be adsorbed at a
| bubble interface than champagne. Furthermore, since the gas
| content is lower in beer, growth rates of beer bubbles are lower
| than those of champagne. As a result, the dilution effect due to
| the rate of dilatation of the bubble area may be too weak to
| avoid the rigidification of the beer bubble interface.

I'm not sure that I understand this /in toto/.

M.

Bert Harleman > wrote:

> On New Years Eve you want to present champagne with a nice layer
> of foam. How can you get the foam stable?
> A. By adding a splash of beer
> B. By adding a spoon of sugar
> C. By blowing nitrogen in it

If you want stable foam, serve beer. The rest is bullshit, sorry.

But if you want to know what the authors probably want as answer,
then I would have said B), sugar - until 2 minutes ago.

I did the test: half a glass of champagne*), with a few drops of
beer**). Much to my astonishment not only did it work, but the
result was very drinkable, obviously because of the very small
dose of beer.

But still - I would *never ever* do it.

*) NV René Geoffroy Brut Premier Cru; on the back label it says the
grapes came from the 2002 harvest, and also statesd "Empreinte" and
"à Sacha", so it seems to be kind of dedicated.

**) Austrian 'Reininghaus Jahrgangs-Pils 2006'; the latter being the
harvest year of the hop.

M., now sipping a decent glass of the champagne without beer - and
not from a flute (an outdated concept, imnsho, as have have stated
repeatedly), but from a glass that looks like a Vinum Extreme or
Spiegelau Authentis all-purpose glass: Bought at EUR8.99 for a
sixpack (an incredible price) at "Hofer", which is Aldi's name in
Austria.

Hi Michael,

Great job! Ik have some beer in house, but no champagen yet, so I
couldn't do that test.

Can you also tell me how long the foam of layer lasted?

Cheers!

Bert

> Bert Harleman > wrote:
>
>
>>On New Years Eve you want to present champagne with a nice layer
>>of foam. How can you get the foam stable?
>>A. By adding a splash of beer
>>B. By adding a spoon of sugar
>>C. By blowing nitrogen in it
>
>
> If you want stable foam, serve beer. The rest is bullshit, sorry.
>
> But if you want to know what the authors probably want as answer,
> then I would have said B), sugar - until 2 minutes ago.
>
> I did the test: half a glass of champagne*), with a few drops of
> beer**). Much to my astonishment not only did it work, but the
> result was very drinkable, obviously because of the very small
> dose of beer.
>
> But still - I would *never ever* do it.
>
> *) NV René Geoffroy Brut Premier Cru; on the back label it says the
> grapes came from the 2002 harvest, and also statesd "Empreinte" and
> "à Sacha", so it seems to be kind of dedicated.
>
> **) Austrian 'Reininghaus Jahrgangs-Pils 2006'; the latter being the
> harvest year of the hop.
>
> M., now sipping a decent glass of the champagne without beer - and
> not from a flute (an outdated concept, imnsho, as have have stated
> repeatedly), but from a glass that looks like a Vinum Extreme or
> Spiegelau Authentis all-purpose glass: Bought at EUR8.99 for a
> sixpack (an incredible price) at "Hofer", which is Aldi's name in
> Austria.

Are there any foaming agents that are added to wine? Had an Asti
recently that maintained a fine foam suspiciously long. Even when
there was a just a few drops in the bottom of the glass they had foam
on them.

--
Steve Slatcher
http://pobox.com/~steve.slatcher

Mike Tommasi wrote:
> Bert
>
> nog een ding, if you want the bubbles to form don't use a glass that's
> too clean.

Another trick used by some ladies in the Victorian era was to scratch
the inside bottom of the Champagne glass with one of their diamonds.
Several fine scratches act as nucleation points that cause a much more
rapid release of bubbles, and the effect is more spectacular in a tall,
thin glass. Of course the Champagne does not retain the sparkle nearly
as long.

There also are products to add a creamy head to cocktail shaker drinks.
I don't know if just the bubbles produced in Champagne would be enough
agitation to work well, or not. One brand name in the US is Creamy
Head. It contains propylene glycol, polyoxethylene sorbitan sterate,
sorbitol, citric acid, and 1/10 of 1% potassium sorbate.

> Bert
>
> nog een ding, if you want the bubbles to form don't use a glass that's
> too clean.

Goeie tip, Mike
If the surface is rough the bubbles originate more easy

On Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:16:19 +0100, Michael Pronay >
wrote:

>If you want stable foam, serve beer. The rest is bullshit, sorry.

Great minds think on similar tracks!
>
>snip<
>
>M., now sipping a decent glass of the champagne without beer - and
>not from a flute (an outdated concept, imnsho, as have have stated
>repeatedly), but from a glass that looks like a Vinum Extreme or
>Spiegelau Authentis all-purpose glass: Bought at EUR8.99 for a
>sixpack (an incredible price) at "Hofer", which is Aldi's name in
>Austria.

Ditto again. Flutes tend to the "less is more" theory which allows you
to serve 48 of your closest friends from one bottle of bubbly.

I've used my Riedel Chardonnay Vinum Series for champers for many
years and find they work very well at the task.

Which reminds me, time to start looking around the Texas wasteland for
a suitable bottle of Bollie for my New Year's celebration. Wonder if
I've got enough saved up for a Grand Annee?


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
www.thunderchief.org
www.thundertales.blogspot.com

"cwdjrxyz" > wrote:

>> if you want the bubbles to form don't use a glass that's too
>> clean.

> Another trick used by some ladies in the Victorian era was to
> scratch the inside bottom of the Champagne glass with one of
> their diamonds.

In the article I cited, the theory of scratching glass t help to
form bubbles is rejected, with *very* good arguments, btw.

M.

Ed Rasimus > wrote:

> I've used my Riedel Chardonnay Vinum Series for champers for
> many years and find they work very well at the task.

<clapclapclap!>

M.

Bert Harleman > wrote:

> Can you also tell me how long the foam of layer lasted?

Well it was not a "layer" of foam, ok, a layer just a few seconds,
but then the "couronne" (the foam at the rim) remained extended to
something like 1/5 or 1/6 of the glass and seemed to remain stable
.... well, "stable" for about a minute before I drownd the sip ;-)

M.