Thirsty tales

Tapping Your Soda Can to Stop It Fizzing: Fact or Fiction?

Bruisend blikje frisdrank

Lovely, a cold can of cola! Until you forget that the thing has been shaken around in your swaying grocery bag for half an hour. The result when you open the can: it almost explodes in your face. Everything is covered, and half the contents also seem to have vanished into thin air. There was a trick for that, right? You were supposed to tap the side of the can before opening it. Does it actually work or not?

Foto van culinair journalist Jeske van Steen

That fizz is caused by carbon dioxide, or CO2. When you shake the can, CO2 comes out of the soda. The CO2 forms tiny bubbles that stick to the inside of your can. When you open the can, the pressure immediately drops. As a result, all the bubbles shoot upward at once, along with the soda. And that causes the explosion.

Danish research: does tapping the can help?

There has been a trick going around for years that is supposed to help stop the fizz before you open your can. If you tap the side of your can a few times, the risk of an explosion is supposedly gone. Videos are circulating that would appear to prove it works. But is that really the case? Or is it just a lucky break?

Researchers from the University of Southern Denmark in Odense conducted a large-scale study to test the theory. They collected 1,000 330-milliliter cans of beer. They divided the cans into four groups:

  1. Shaken + tapped
  2. Not shaken + tapped
  3. Shaken + not tapped
  4. Not shaken and not tapped

To make the study as fair as possible, they assigned one person to tap each can three times. And that is exactly what this person did.

Please wait a little longer

What did they find? Tapping made no difference whatsoever. The soda can did not fizz any less after being tapped. There was only one noticeable difference, and that was in the contents. Shaken cans lost approximately 3.5 grams in mass, while unshaken cans lost only 0.5 grams. So that does make quite a difference.

So there is only one thing you can do when you get home from the supermarket with a can like that. Wait! Exactly how long is not entirely clear, but 10 to 15 minutes should probably do the trick.

Does this help?

It is also whispered that after tapping, you should gently rotate your can vertically. Supposedly, this combination of actions quickly loosens the bubbles in your can, meaning you can open it sooner. I tried it, and the fizz was manageable, but certainly not nonexistent. Maybe I did not shake my can enough. Another chance to test it next time, when I accidentally deliberately swing my grocery bag around as I walk.

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Source: CNN, Het Nieuwsblad

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