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APPLIED FIZZICS · Field Notes · Edition No. 9
A whimsical look at the universe through a glass of Champagne...or your favorite cocktail.
September 1, 2026 · Seattle, Washington
Dear Reader,
We've spent a lot of time talking about how CO₂ gets into and out of solution.
This week, we decided to close the loop.
First, we measured the pressure inside a fresh bottle of Champagne. Then we opened it, drove out the CO₂, and asked a wonderfully simple question:
Can we put the bubbles back?
Our experiment had three chapters.
First, we went back to the beginning: secondary fermentation, where yeast converts sugar into alcohol and CO₂ inside the sealed bottle.
Second, we asked how much pressure all that CO₂ actually creates. We chilled a fresh bottle of Champagne, opened it, fitted our pressure gauge, and let the bottle tell us.
Finally, we deliberately flattened the Champagne, then tried to reverse the process—using the pressure we'd just measured as our target.
Here's what happened.
So, yes. You can put the bubbles back.
More importantly, the experiment illustrates something we've been circling around throughout these Field Notes: the movement of CO₂ into and out of solution is reversible.
There aren't any special French CO₂ molecules. There are just CO₂ molecules.
Now it's time for our weekly quiz.
THIS WEEK'S QUIZ
Given the fermentation equation shown above:
C₆H₁₂O₆ → 2 C₂H₅OH + 2 CO₂
If 10.0 grams of glucose are completely fermented, what is the combined mass of the ethanol and CO₂ produced?
- A. Less than 10.0 g
- B. Exactly 10.0 g
- C. More than 10.0 g
- D. It depends on the temperature
Hint: You don't have to have taken a chemistry class to answer this. Read Physics Corner above.
Make your prediction, then reveal the answer below.
Reveal the Answer
B. Exactly 10.0 grams.
Mass is conserved: the carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms in the glucose simply get rearranged into ethanol and CO₂.
There's a wrinkle, however. The sugar traditionally added to Champagne is sucrose, not glucose—and its fermentation also consumes a small amount of water. We'll come back to that in Research Note #3.
Cheers,
Evan Wallace
President, Applied Fizzics Inc.
Makers of The Perlage System®
Want more Champagne science, carbonation experiments, and assorted investigations? Visit the Applied Fizzics Field Notes archive. If you're looking for the answer to last week's quiz, go to Field Notes #8 Quiz .
