Greetings from our home in Johnson Canyon, Utah. Last night, the temperature dropped to 3°F, cold enough for me to try freezing some bubbles. I have seen several videos online showing the process, and thought I would give it a try.
I tested three different solutions. The first was 1/2 cup of water with 3 drops of Dawn dishwashing soap. The bubbles were very thin, and popped before they froze.
I tried thickening the solution with 1/2 teaspoon of sugar. Sugar lowers the freezing point, and I hoped that it would cause solitary crystals of ice to form. It worked somewhat, but not quite what I wanted.
For the third try, i added 1/2 teaspoon of glycerine. It still did not produce the nice crystals that I have seen online, but it did give some interesting results. If you watch closely, you can see the ice forming. Notice that once the outer bubbles freeze, the inner bubbles pop. I suspect that was due to the air inside cooling and lowering the pressure. I repeated the process four times, and every time the inner bubbles popped.
On our next cold night, I plan to try using a higher concentration of glycerine, to see if that will improve things.