honestly, my friend clanked his beer against mine (fresh/cold).Mine turned to ice while his did not.Any clue?

Question

Seriously, we had a beer in the fridge and they were on the brink of being frozen. By looking through the beer in the light I could tell there was no ice present. He knocked his beer against mine (side to side) and for several seconds nothing happened. After about 5 seconds the beer began overflowing. The beer slowly spewed out of the top with a 90% ice 10% liquid mixture. How is this possible. If the atoms became "excited" then the liquid should have risen in temperature, instead of freeze and spewing.

Answer 1

this is an interesting phenomenon that deals with supercooled liquids... it is possible to cool liquids beyond their freezing point and have them remiain liquid... this is because, as a previous answerer mentioned, that ice crystal formation must begin at a seed point... taking an extremely smooth and clean glass, water can be lowered below 0c and remain a liquid, upon addition of a tiny little ice crystal, the entire volume of water will freeze (crystalize) before your eyes... with a bottle of beer, like in your situation, when something (apparently in your case clinking) causes the unstable supercooled liquid to crystalize, the carbonation is quickly forced out of solution, causing the slushy eruption... i have opened very cold beers before and taken a few sips before the beer turns to slush, and sometimes it does overflow a bit... i don't know why there is a delay, or how clinking can cause the crystalization, but it apparently does... all i can say is that a supercooled liquid is quite unstable and will freeze/crystalize at its first opportunity....

Answer 2

Your beer was super-cooled and for what ever reason his was not (meaning his was slightly warmer for whatever reason). Normally liquids will turn to a solid when the temperature of the liquid hits the freezing point. However under certain conditions liquids can cool past the freezing point without solidifying. When you clinked you can that was enough change in the energy state to trigger the conversion for liquid to solid. If you had measure the temperature of you beer prior to then after it solidified, you would have noted that the temperature of your beer would have actually gone up!

Answer 3

I don't know if you were drunk. But solutions can cristalize upon 'seeding' or some agitation some times. Look up cristalization on wikipedia or something. In chemistry you can 'seed' this process by droping tiny spec of solid into solution or slowly cooling heated solution that have some stuff dissolved in it. Water freezing is also cristalization process.

My guess is beer cooled below its freezing point, so supercooled some how, which could occur I'm sure. And your buddy initiated cristalization.

It's like freezing rain that falls as liquid, but soon it touch any surface the dropplets freeze instantly. So its 'freezing rain'.

Answer 4

The carbonation was keeping the beer from freezing, when you clanked beers, yours lost more of the bubbles allowing it to freeze. The remaining carbonation forced the ice out the top of the bottle.

Answer 5

honestly, this can not happen. It must of been your imagination.