Mentos : The Messmaker

Steve Spangler was at Apple last week and I had an opportunity to meet him and to hear how Mac’s have made their businesses successful. Steve is known for making a ‘fountain’ out of a 2-Liter soda bottle by dropping some Mentos into them. They gave away little kits for this that include the Mentos and a little tube for easily dropping them in. It takes 7 mentos, according to the kit’s instructions. I showed the kids this, and they loved doing it.



I typically think there’s WAY to much carbonation in soda’s, and I make a habit of shaking out a good deal of it. So I found that dropping a single Mento into the 1/2 full bottle I had in the fridge actually did the trick. Although it did foam a bit, it was not too much and didn’t raise the level too high.



So tonight I opened a new bottle, poured a glass, and dropped in a single Mento, hoping to reduce the carbonation again.



Listing, not necessarily in order, the reasons that was a stupid move:

• Warm soda reacts differently then cold.


• 12oz having been removed does not allow the same space that a 1/2 full bottle did.


• The amount of carbonation in the 1/2 bottle that had been opened and refrigerated was less then a freshly opened bottle. I’d already shaken it out and had forgotten.


• The prior attempt that succeed was done in the sink as a precaution. This time was not.


• It didn’t occur to me that a single Mento would have the same effect as 7. (Perhaps ‘7’ is defined by marketing to increase sales).


• It took a bit of time to clean the blinds above the sink. They took the worst of it because the spray was at it’s peak as I was struggling to point the bottle into the sink and coated the cupboards, walls, floors and blinds. Along with my shirt and hair.

Fun with science, indeed. :-)