Wonder if...

This will work with whiskey? ;-)). I am not really fussed about the bubbles, or the spoon or Mythbusters. I just think you guys used this as an excuse to get tipsy on the weekend & had a fine time...

testing conditions

Was this experiment done at sea-level? I would be happy to volunteer to do a follow-up experiment inland at, say, Joburg elevation?

I'm just putting it out there...

Geologists and drinking

What I can ascertain as well as attest to is that you had the perfect group of people to test this theory ;-) ~ Fellow Geologist

Interesting Thought

It would be interesting to conduct whatever experiment entirely with spooned bottles. It could not be blind but one would be testing the hypothesis that spooned bottles all perform equally on the bubbly front. If there is a range of variation according to your bubble-counting techniques that are similar to the range of your observed differences between spooned and non-spooned bottles then it would mean your earlier conclusions that spooned bottles preserve bubbles more is not necessarily the correct one.

Test The Radiator Hypothesis

Do you guys plan to test your hypothesis? That is, your initial testing was interesting enough to generate a "radiator" hypothesis but I don't think it is conclusive. If you can compare an unspooned bottle that has cold air pumped into the reservoir with a spooned bottle then you could test the prediction that there should be no difference between the two (the null hypothesis). Again it should be a blind assessment of results against parameters of success and failure you have decided upon before even conducting the test.

I feel testing two bottles at a time relies too much on a 50/50 chance that if one of the bottles started out more bubbly in the first place then it could have been given the spoon. The same goes for photographing the bubbly in the glass - different glasses can generate huge differences in the amount of bubbling. More bubbling does NOT mean a wine contains more gas, just that it is releasing it quicker, which could be because of the glass it is poured into or some other factor not considered. Using more control bottles lowers the chance that the spooned bottle is accidentally more "bubbly" for whatever reason other than the effect of the spoon.

It is difficult to devise a proper scientific experiment and we are rarely taught how to do it at university unfortunately.

P.S.

I my post below I meant to conclude with, "If more than 90 percent of people tasting have difficulty in telling which one is the spooned bottle then it clearly does not work as advertised."

Spoon Effect Is Most Likely Bogus

I conducted an experiment for my wine-tasting club. We used six bottles of Villiera Brut, one of which had a spoon in it overnight. About 12 people were involved in the tasting afterwards and no-one knew which one was the spooned bottle, including the three of us who organized the experiment. We tasted and subjectively rated the bottles for fizziness. Only once all our results were in and once everyone had agreed what constituted success or failure (very important) was the spooned bottle revealed. Since we had all decided the spoon effect claims a significant and subjectively easily noticeable difference, we had to conclude the spooning effect was non-existent. The spooned bottle in no way stood out from the crowd and in fact was thought of as the least fizzy by about half the tasters. Any experiment of this sort should be double-blind, with no-one knowing which bottle is which until all the results are in, and the parameters for success and failure needed to be decided up-front to prevent soft-pedaling on the results later.

I believe this myth relies on people's misconception that champagne actually bubbles in the bottle, which in fact it hardly does. Once poured into a glass it bubbles because the glass is more dirty and dusty than the bottle and provides more anchor points for bubbles to form. Beer also retains its bubbles in the bottle to a surprising degree for the same reason. People who swear by this effect (for example Riva who posted above) generally have never tested non-spooned bottles or have once had a flat non-spooned bottle and assumed it was the lack of the spoon that caused the flatness, which is not a valid conclusion without a blind test using other spooned bottles of the same bubbly. Over three days it would really be easy to test using the condom method, for example, to measure residual gas amounts. But people get stuck in their prejudices which is why only a randomized double blind test can give us an answer to rely upon. Again, it is very important to recognize that the spoon effect promoters generally claim a big difference and noticeable difference, which can be easily disproven if you try. If fewer than 90 percent of people tasting have difficulty in telling which one is the spooned bottle then it clearly does not work as advertised.

Some really good suggestions here...

Thanks all, for your suggestions

When we (finally) get around to conducting the next phase of the research, they will all be taken into account (I have bookmarked this page).

And for those who wonder, actually there is a direct link to geology, geochemistry and materils engineering. The behaviour of lava is affected by the gas content and in that respect, the foam on a glass of bubbles can provide interesting clues. It all has to do with complex polymers and the differences between dry foam and wet foam. Wikipedia has some interesting stuff on foams (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foam) and how they behave.

Leon.

Condom method

For a simpler way to compare the residual dissolved CO2, just place a condom over the neck of each bottle, shake like mad, and measure the um … erection.

Re. Re. Champagne bubble myth burst

(Same "Anonymous" copy-paster here, thought about supplying my name or a nickname this time round, but let's remain - ahem - consistent, shall we?) :-P

I'm getting seriously off-topic here, but meh. It's what I'm good at, apparently!

Quote: "Now - who is going to support research and supply us with the next few cases of research material?"

Sadly, as I'm sure all of the scientifically inclined are painfully aware of, "there is no money in research". (Taking into account various other factors such as your field of expertise, general interest from the public, 'buzz-word' research, etc., of course.) So how are we going to persuade the non-scientific community (otherwise known as "the people with the money!") to sponsor our scientific endeavours?

See, I feel we have two potential problems here: (1) people would think "Don't they have anything BETTER to research?!", and therefore not support us, or worse, (2) "Who the hell CARES about that myth, anyway?!", and therefore not support us... Oh wait, there's a (3)... SCTO: Science Confirming The Obvious. The general public isn't necessarily impressed with cutting-edge research that actually proves (or disproves) something that, anecdotally, "was already known"... Absolutely no appreciation of the fact that only AFTER the research was done that there is now actually factual evidence for something they've "known" all along! Leading to the same conclusion - therefore not support us. Sheesh...

So eish, good luck Leon, I'd support your endeavour but alas, I'm scientifically inclined (Physiology, in case anybody is wondering...) and as such not part of the non-scientific / money-filled community!

Regards,
Anonymous :-D

Spoon in the champagne (sorry: cap classique) bottle

I would have thought the spoon would need to be silver, not stainless steel. I seem to remember from school chemistry way back that the silver acts as an antioxidant and catalyst of some kind. With any wine you need to prevent it from oxidising - a layer of carbon-dioxide does the trick. Best is to simply finish the bottle though ;-)

pH

Hi (same T as below), has anyone tested for pH of the liquid? Initially the liquid should be more acidic with the presence of more carbonic acid (dissolved CO2 in H20 = H2CO3) as the liquid de-gasses the pH should increase making it more alkaline. If you properly measure for this surely it might be the best indication of the presence and or amount of CO2 (or bubble) dissipation in the champagne? This is just a guess, any opinion on this is welcome.

Hmm to Spoon

I find that spooning (as in cuddling) with your champagne bottle also keeps it from going flat. Although, i'm not sure if it was given the chance to go flat? Oh well! *cuddles up with a bottle of bubbly*

Re. Nice experiment

I like the "destruction of venturi effect" model you propose T, and we need to design a test for this too. Anyone got any bright ideas of how to measure airfow inside a closed fridge?

Regards
Leon

Re. Champagne bubble myth burst

The Stanford results are really interesting and warrant critical assessment. (The mythbusters claim is simply too anecdotal to be worth anything). So clearly what we need to do next is a double blind experiment using two streams.

With a uniform wine (same estate, same vintage), test the radiator hypothesis by varying the spoon. Use a small one, a large one, a runcible spoon, and do the same with different materials. Monitor the temperature drop in the bottle and look for correlations with mousse preservation.

Then repeat across different suppliers/vintages/blends...

What I am confident is that in our experiments using Pierre Jourdan Brut are (i) repeatable (we did it three times) and (ii) statistically significant. Hard, quantified data.

Science in action. Don't you just love it :-).

Now - who is going to support research and supply us with the next few cases of research material?

Champagne bubble myth burst

Errm, a quick Google later and I found the following website - I'll post the results (I'm the same guy that posted the "Details on Mythbusters' experiment" comment, by the way):

===

Champagne bubble myth burst: Forget the silver spoon
http://news.stanford.edu/pr/94/941221Arc4008.html

...
The spoons, silver or stainless, were not especially successful in maintaining the sparkle of the wine. But spoons and all other treatments worked better than re-corking the bottles. At least in this test, re- corking seemed to be the best way to make champagne lose effervescence and taste.

Leaving the bottle open and untreated worked better than hanging a spoon inside. In fact, the two bottles left open in the refrigerator for 26 hours averaged a higher score than any other treatment - including just-opened champagne.

These results are complicated by the fact that no two bottles that received the same treatment got the same score. The researchers suspect this result is in the nature of sparkling wine made by the champagne method. Each bottle is a separate micro-environment, going through part of the fermentation, clarification and refilling process on its own.
...

===

Guess the jury's still out on this one... Conclusion / Recommendation: More research is needed! (Job Creation in Science - done!)

Details on Mythbusters' experiment...

...as found on WikiPedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MythBusters_special_episodes) (Don't you just love copy-paste research...!)

Myth statement: Placing a silver spoon in a bottle of champagne will make the bubbles last longer.

Status: Busted

Notes: The spoon actually reduces the fizziness of champagne. In a blind taste test when compared to several controls (opened champagne, re-corked champagne and unopened champagne) both Adam and Jamie ranked the spooned champagne the lowest in terms of fizziness.

===

Now, the two things that made their experiment (probably?) more accurate that yours, are the blind taste testing and the addition of several controls. However, a combination of both your and their experiments might yield some interesting results! After all, your photography method is more quantitative whilst their tasting method is more qualitative.

However, if we were to retest and find that "spoon" vs. "recorked" doesn't show any significant difference in bubbles, but (likely?) a significant difference in temperatures... That would probably refute your hypothesis of the spoon as a radiator?

Regarding T's experiment, it would be nice if there were actual pressure measurements available to support his hypothesis... Perhaps we should combine all three experiments to reach a conclusion from different viewpoints?

Bugger, I guess the only real contribution most scientists (or those like myself, at least?) make to other's research is to point out potential flaws! (Or to suggest a combination of different experiments.) Good attempts nonetheless, chaps!

The Mythbusters aldo did

The Mythbusters aldo did this experiment, and said it was a myth! much rather take their word on it

Yep, it works

A normal tea spoon does the trick, doesn't have to be silver ...

Peer review?

I'm qualified and volunteer. Will try to replicate your findings in my lab. Still skeptical.

Nice experiment!

Hi there,

You guys did a great experiment - well done. I did same experiment a about 2 years ago for fun, albeit mine wasn't as high tech and rather relied on the size of the bubble head made when pouring it into a champagne glass and measuring that distribution, also putting a small reasonably dense object on the surface of the liquid that wasn't able to quite float on it's own so it needed help from the bubbles below, not enough bubbles it sank and or oscillated (going down and up) at different lengths etc. I can't remember what I used but I remember it took quite a bit of time finding the thing that would work.

So your experiment is much more scientifically founded.
The only difference was that I came to a different conclusion. Given I didn't have any measuring instruments so I couldn't measure temperature, my conclusion was namely: The movement of air across to the top of a bottle, the resulting pressure differential effect known as the Venturi effect occurs. Consider the inside of the bottle to be high pressure and the air moving over the top of the bottle to be low pressure, this causes a drop in pressure to occur in the neck of the bottle (because of the differential) and a resulting eddy to occur within the bottle thereby ventilating the inside of the bottle. Ventilating the inside of the bottle would also mean a drop in pressure inside the bottle, less pressure above the surface of the liquid would mean more bubbles form and rise to the surface of the liquid thereby "de-bubblefying" the champagne. Put a spoon inside the neck and top of the bottle, you destroy the Veturi effect inside the bottle by moving the pressure differential to just above the spoon. This results in a pressure differential to occur on either side of the spoon and not within the bottle, thereby preserving the pressure within the bottle - and thus allowing more gas to stay put within the liquid.

Regards
T

To Spoon, or not to spoon? Spoon!!!!

I could have saved you all that trouble! Of course it works! I do it all the time. A bottle lasts me 3 days having a drink every evening when I get home. Oops, now the cat's out of the bag - I drink on my own!

bubbles

Any excuse is a good excuse, a scientific excuse is even better