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from the whether-tis-nobler-to-tap-or-not-to-tap dept.
Tech Review reports on some Danish experiments on beer foaming, https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614907/does-tapping-the-bottom-of-a-beer-can-really-stop-it-fizzing-over/ (likely also available on archive.is if you don't subscribe).
Among the great questions in science, one stands sadly neglected: Is it possible to stop a shaken beer can from foaming by tapping it before opening?
There are good theoretical reasons to think this should work. The tapping should release any bubbles that are stuck to the inside walls of the can. These should then float to the surface and dissipate, making the beer less likely to foam when it is opened. But is this true?
Today, we get an answer thanks to the selfless work of Elizaveta Sopina at the University of Southern Denmark and a few colleagues. This group has tested the theory for the first time using randomized controlled trials involving 1,000 cans of lager. And luckily for the research team, the result raises at least as many questions as it answers, ensuring a strong future for beer-related research.
[...] The cans were then shaken using a "Unimax 2010 shaker" for two minutes at 440 rpm. "Pilot testing revealed that this shaking method successfully mimicked carrying beer on a bicycle for 10 minutes—a common way of transporting beer in Denmark," says Sopina and co. Unwanted foaming must be at epidemic levels there.
The researchers then weighed each can, tapped it by flicking it three times on its side with a finger, and then opened it. Finally, they weighed the can again to determine the amount of beer that had been lost.
The results are palate tickling. Sopina and co compared the amount of beer lost for tapped and untapped cans that had been shaken and found no statistical difference—both lost about 3.5 grams of liquid to foaming.
They also found no meaningful difference between the cans that had not been shaken—when opened, they lost about 0.5 grams on average.
Personally, I don't have a dog in this fight, always drink bottled (or tap) beer. But for you can users I suggest that looking inside the can might be a more direct way to see what is going on with the bubbles--seal up a can with camera & light source inside, or make some cans with a small viewing window. But that might generate an answer, where the goal of this research seems to be to consume more beer...For Science!
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Thursday December 12 2019, @01:49PM (7 children)
I have long suspected that the tapping is simply a way to give people something to do for a few more seconds so the foaming goes down a bit. It's just in their heads if people attribute it to the tapping.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday December 12 2019, @02:08PM (3 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Thursday December 12 2019, @02:22PM (1 child)
I am referring to the foaming that happens when you open it. I only care what I get out of the can that goes in my face and not on the floor.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday December 12 2019, @04:16PM
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 3, Funny) by tangomargarine on Thursday December 12 2019, @05:30PM
Back in college we had one of those mini-fridges that technically had a separate freezer compartment, but it wasn't fully sealed between the fridge and freezer. So if you got those little pints of ice cream and wanted them to stay frozen, you had to dial up the coldness setting on the whole thing, basically.
My roommate would store ice cream in there, and I would keep cans of soda cool as well. (Can you guess where this is going...)
Since the temperature of the whole fridge wound up below freezing, but the cans are pressurized, the contents can't freeze because the pressure alters the freezing point. But when you take a can out and open it...
The pressure equalizes, all the water in the soda flash-freezes into a cylindrical block of ice, and the rest of the flavorings and whatnot gets violently ejected from the top of the can.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by maggotbrain on Thursday December 12 2019, @05:02PM (2 children)
My girfriend does this with her cans of soda. Taps lightly three times and opens. She is an Hawaiian native and says that her mother did this and her mother before that.
I consider it a quaint matrilineal, island ritual dating almost as far back as pre-statehood for them.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday December 12 2019, @09:18PM
Probably a tradition going on for millennia, right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by Magic Oddball on Friday December 13 2019, @09:51AM
I remember some of my friends in high school doing the same thing when opening sodas during lunch, and they were blond Californian girls. I don't think I've ever seen anybody do it otherwise, though.