Break a Beer Bottle With Your Bare Hands

So picture this. You're in a bar fight, and you need a broken bottle to intimidate the bad guy. But the furniture is much to nice to smash a bottle on it, so what do you do? You break the bottle with your bare hands, of course! At the very least, Joe Bad Guy is going to be intimidated. Pull this off, and you might even get the girl! Or, just amaze your bar buddies that you can do this! Either way, it's a great party trick. It takes a bit of practice to get it right, but it really will amaze the others watching. Read on!

Steps

  1. Fill a beer bottle with cold water. The colder, the better. Bring the water level up to about two inches (5cm) from the top of the bottle. This also works with beer which makes it a little more dramatic.
  2. Hold on tight. Wrap the top two fingers of your non-dominant hand (for most of you, that will be your left hand) around the neck of the bottle. This will prevent shards of glass from stabbing you in the palm in case the entire bottle shatters.
  3. Ready, steady, whack! Hit the opening of the bottle hard with your dominant hand.
  4. Did it break? Check the bottom of the bottle, which should have broken right off.
  5. Learn how it works. The bottom of the bottle breaks off due to "cavitation."[1] The bottle briefly and suddenly moves downward when you strike the top. The water inside of it doesn't move as quickly, creating an extremely brief void (vacuum) at the bottom. The water does catch up with the glass, and comes crashing down into the bottom. If the force is great enough, the bottle can no longer support the water crashing down, and cracks or breaks at the bottom. Even if the crack is minor, the inertia and weight of the water will break the bottom out of the bottle.

Tips

  • Do not be scared while trying this trick. Know you will break the bottom clean off. If you go in soft with your hand it will not break and will sting a bit. Do or do not. There is no try.
  • You do not need to hit the bottle hard, but you will need to hit it swiftly. Speed is more important than force for this to work well.
  • Always leave some air at the top to allow "cavitation" to take place. Without this, you're relying upon brute strength to break a bottle, which simply doesn't work (unless you're whacking the furniture with the bottle).
  • Some beer bottles are harder to break than others. Easy bottles include Becks and Sam Adams. Harder, thicker bottles include Budweiser and Corona.
  • Use cold water only to avoid air bubbles. Beer or other beverages with tiny bubbles suspended within the liquid will not work. To create "cavitation", the liquid inside of the bottle should not contain bubbles, as it would fill the void of air too quickly with foam. If cold water is not available, use bottled water, or let tap water settle inside of the bottle for a few minutes.
  • No sink? No problem! This trick does not have to involve doing this in a sink; you can do this in a bucket with water in it instead.

Warnings

  • Running a disposal with glass in it may damage the blades or the mechanism. Cover the drain so shards can't go down.
  • Fill the sink with some water to catch the glass chips or shards. Water in the sink will keep glass from bouncing back in your face.
  • Do not attempt this trick while drunk. This could land you in the hospital for stitches.
  • Be very careful when cleaning the sink afterwards; even the smallest chip of glass can cut you quite deeply.
  • Do not wear any rings on the hand that you are using to hold the bottle!
  • Never leave the sink uncleaned, because whoever uses it after you could be cut unexpectedly by a chip.

Things You'll Need

  • An empty beer bottle
  • Water to fill the bottle

Related Articles

Sources and Citations

  1. ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavitation

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