Saturday, September 15, 2007

Stick it to the soda bastards


As is common knowledge (or at least to us super intelligent third year college students), 2-liter bottles of soda offer the best ratio of ounces to dollars. The problem with buying the 2-liter is that once it is opened, you've got about a day, maybe two if you're lucky, to drink it before it hits flatsville. After a little research on the ol' interweb, I found some background as to why this happens and some helpful hints to keep the soda carbonated.

First, soda will go "flat" because the carbon dioxide molecules leave the soda and mix with the air above it. The reason this doesnt happen while still in the can or bottle is because the pressure inside is holding the molecules from escaping the liquid. As soon the pressure is relieved, the molecules begin to escape. You can prove this by opening and then recapping a bottle of soda. After a while, the molecules will fill the available space a return pressure to equilibrium.

To make your soda last without any real effort, just open to bottle as few time as possible and store in a cold place. Also, DO NOT squeeze the bottle and then cap it. This will actually make it go flat faster.

Now, if you're like me, thats just not enough. At the moment I am conducting an experiment to make a 2-liter bottle have the lasting capacity of a six pack of cans.

More details soon...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

this post looked lonely, so i decided to comment.