Nagging Question
Why Does Nose Grease Tame Beer Foam?
Frat boy lore demystified
Why does rubbing your finger on your nose, then putting it in your beer, tame a brew’s unwanted foam?
Dr. Barry Swanson, professor of food science and nutrition at Washington State University, says that, when you pour a beer, rapidly expanding carbonated bubbles rise to the top, grabbing proteins on the way. The proteins gather at the surface to form pockets of carbon dioxide, otherwise known as foam.
Beer foam sticks around (unlike, say, soda foam) due to the presence of carbohydrates, which stabilize it. Dark, thick beers have more carbohydrates. “That’s why a Guinness has a thick, creamy head, while a pint of Budweiser possesses a layer of thin, quickly dissipating foam.”
The introduction of oil reduces the surface tension of the bubbles, causing them to collapse and the foam to disappear. “You don’t need very much oil. You could spray the foam with nonstick Pam, or even add a drop of butter or olive oil—like you’d do to keep boiling pasta from sticking together—but that’s probably not a flavor you want,” Swanson says.
Stirring the foam with a nose-swiped index finger will get the job done, but it’s not the best idea. “You could be contaminating the beer with staph bacteria or who knows what else. The best removal method is to blow off the foam or run a knife across the top of the pint glass.”
CHOW’s Nagging Question column appears every Friday.
Frat boys, nose grease, and beer has to be the single most unappetizing line I've seen on this site.
As a brewer and craft beer enthusiast my first response would have to be Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!
My second is who was the first person to think this up?
Please don't contaminate your beer with bodily fluids in the presence of others, I think it might be grounds for justifiable homicide in some states.
Rogue Ales
<<The best removal method is to blow off the foam or run a knife across the top of the pint glass.>>
What a crock!
Don't remove the foam at all.The best thing is to just chill out and let the foam settle...it will, and it will become beer. Our society is already in too much of a hurry...just slow down and enjoy!
I dunno, photographers sometimes use nose grease to fill in tiny scratches in film. Maybe a photographer on a beet break, knowing the powers of nose grease and not wanting to wait for his beer to settle (he had a deadline) thought, "well, it fixes film, can it help with beer?"
And so he tried it.
Does the power of nose grease have no bounds? I bet it will be a cure for cancer!
Settle down, people. I'm sure college kids have done much worse to their beers and survived. We did the forehead swipe-beer foam thing all the time in college, and now I am a productive contributing member of society, with no need to continue the many barbaric practices I partook of in my younger years (including the boiling of beer after the discovery that you can chug warm flat beer faster than cold carbonated beer-- go Rice Beer Bike!!!).
This may be one of the funniest stories I have read. I have always wondered about the nose grease!
Grease from the OUTSIDE of the nose, not the inside. Cheese.
What about a buttery knife? Would that flavor the beer?