Why does stout need the widget and what’s it doing in there?
In: 3
Great explanation of the widget, not sure if you knew but the technical term actually is “widget”, that’s literally the things name.
I’ll only add that part of the reason why this works is because the beer is “nitrogenated” in lieu of carbonated, meaning they add nitrogen gas. The reason they do this is two fold, first nitrogen forms smaller bubbles in the liquid that carbon giving it a “creamy” feel in lieu of a “bubbly” feel.
Secondly, since the atmosphere contains so much nitrogen it’s really hard for the bubbles to escape the liquid (remember the atmosphere is like 60% Nitrogen vs. ~1% CO2). So the bubbles can’t escape and the beer stays bubbly, longer.
The Guinness cascade is this effect in practice. The bubbles rise up the middle of the beer but can’t escape. They get pushed out of the way but additional bubbles rising up behind them but still have no place to go. So they eventually make their way to the sides of the glass and then get forced back downwards causing the class “waterfall” of bubbles inside the beer glass.
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