Eli5 why does an open, un-agitated beer froth outrageously when ash from a smoke is accidently tapped in there.

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So I opened a beer and sat it down on the table after taking a couple swigs. On the table allready is a beer bottle I presumed empty.
I roll a phatty and am chillin back watching some bollocks on tv. I tap the bulb of ash from the spliff into the presumed empty bottle. Immediatiately I hear the pssssst of hot ash rapidly cooling. To my surprise the bottle on the table had recently been opened and although I drunk the neck out of it it was pretty much full.
I sit there beer in one hand spliff in the other astounded as the ashed in bottle slowly begins bubbling and rising. It gently began frothing out the top streaming down the bottle and onto the table.
It’s been 10 minutes now and although the reaction has slowed dramatically out the top of this bottle still the beer comes.
There is now only a third of the bottle remaining as liquid beer the rest has become froth.
I do plan on cleaning this mess but first I’d like to know what’s happening

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4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Fairly certain this is similar to the Coke + Mentos trick in that it just provides a lot of nucleation sites for bubbles to form. In the same way the porous candy provides lots of crevices for carbon dioxide to collect and form bubbles, ash is a mixture of janky half-burnt carbon pieces that probably have lots of crevices and holes for carbon dioxide to collect in and form bubbles

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