Get Your Stout to Bubble

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

redcoat_or_rebel

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 11, 2011
Messages
173
Reaction score
6
Location
Austin
http://io9.com/#!5782411/get-your-stout-beer-perfect-by-putting-crap-in-it

For a long time, the continual fizziness of alcohol and soda was chalked up to the release of the pressure it was under in the container. Gas was forced to dissolve into the liquid, it was kept under pressurized conditions in the container, and once released it would just keep bubbling up and out of the liquid. That turned out not to be the case. Maybe the initial popping of the top would cause the liquid to fizz, but if it were poured into a perfectly clean container, it wouldn't bubble. The fizziness of drinks is a result of tiny pieces of grit in the container. In a bar, or in most homes, there might not be a lot of dirt in a container, but there is cellulose. Cellulose are little strings of plant material from the rag or paper towel that the glass was wiped with. These pieces of cellulose come with small amounts of air, and that air provides the seeds for bubbles.

Not all the gas is going to find its way to a piece of cellulose, meaning that there is still some gas left dissolved in most beers. Although stout may be low on gas, if it's high on microscopic pieces of cellulose, more gas will get together with fiber and more gas will bubble readily upwards. The researchers who figured this out calculated that as little as nine square centimeters of an ordinary coffee filter will allow stout to be as bubbly as ever.
 
Back
Top