Slashdot Mirror
Making Ice Cream With Liquid Nitrogen
JasonMaggini writes "Popular Science has an article on how to whip up a batch of ice cream in 30 seconds or so by using liquid nitrogen. Just the thing for those hot summer days. The article is by Theodore Gray, creator of the ultra-spiffy Periodic Table Table."
and to think i just spent 30 minutes going to the store to get rock salt...
frozen boots, tennis balls, cough medicine...
all in 30 seconds!
----
http://www.hellection.com
Am I the only one who is worried about shrinkage?
Liquid Nitrogen should be used for cooling heavily overclocked CPU's, and that is it!
None of this ICE CREAM MAKING... makes it look like its for wussies.
SuPz.orG
That's how the ice cream at the dippin dots stands is made. They just put drops of the unfrozen mixture into liquid nitrogen.
what's the daily recommended intake for liquid nitrogen?
i like setting off thermite reactions.
playing with liquid nitrogen kind of evens things out.
----
http://www.hellection.com
The secret is in the rapid freezing. When cream is frozen by liquid nitrogen at â"196ÂC, the ice crystals that give bad ice cream its grainy texture have no chance to form.
Nice... No ice crystals... This would be so nice to test.
Too bad I don't have any liquid nitrogen >_
If you substitute liquid oxygen for the liquid nitrogen you could be having baked alaska in 30 seconds.
Peter
Downsize DC Today!
My older folks used to tell me about how poor people in Eastern Europe were after the WWII under Soviet occupation. Since some of them could not afford glasses or mugs, they would often put a teabag in their mouth and they would drink water warmed up in the sun.
So now, I guess they can also enjoy ice cream by putting all the ingredients in their mouths and then pouring the liquid...... uhmm.... never mind...
This guy has got to be the coolest person on the planet. Liquid nitrogen notwithstanding.
Creator of a great piece of software, Artist in a practical and informative media (The Periodic Table table) and brilliant writer. Study how he writes, very very closely. Would that everyone could write that well.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Time for some Terminator Ice Cream!
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
This is the exact process that Dippin' Dotsuses to make ice cream in little tiny spheres (about 2-5 mm across).
The process was determined around 1988 by Curt Jones (a biologist interested in cryogenics...the science of freezing...not cryonics, the science of "Disney on Ice"). He started his company and now you can get Dippin' Dots everywhere from malls to theme parks.
You might even be able to catch a rerun of the FoodTV show, Unwrapped, where they discuss the manufacturing process. It's show #CWSP11 and it'll air again at these times.
PS - Yes, I know Walt Disney isn't actually frozen....but Teddy Ballgame is.
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
i wonder if i could borrow some of the liquid oxygen from the back of the hospital for this?
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
When I was about 10, we went on vacation with a group of people that happened to have a lot of doctors. These doctors happened to have easy access to liquid nitrogen for medical reasons. They brought a couple huge containers of liquid nitrogen, and we took sodas and dipped them in with a string for a couple seconds. Nice and slushy :-)
1001 things to do with liquid nitrogen.
Now I'm amazingly happy that I both work at a research lab with massive tanks of liquid nitrogen in our lab, and that I have a birthday on Thursday. I know what we'll be making for the the cake!
I've done this with some friends just last week. It looks quite scary, espesially when the physics buffs start putting the liquid nitrogen in their mouth.
To do this right you need to use more than 30 sec if you do it by hand like we did.
Use 2 eggs, and 0.6L of cream and mix in a bowl.
Chop one 100g dark chocolate bar and mix with the rest.
Add 0.1 L Irish Cream.
Whip it all together while someone pours a small stream of liquid nitrogen into the bowl.
Don't do it to fast (30 sec will give you large frozen lumps...).
When the ice starts to get thick enough, stop pouring nitrogen and put the lid back on the nitrogen container. You can play some more with it *after* you have eaten your ice-cream.
This would be a great idea for a bussines, set up a stall near a beach and sell on-the-fly real ice-cream to tourists. $5 a cup, the show is for free!
- Ost
---- Sig. gone.
I like how the kids are mostly unimpressed with the whole process -- I guess having uranium in your coffee table does that to you.
I give up, some one get me when Elvis returns...
if i recall correctly it was some swedish cooking program(either swedish or made in finland in swedish language).
looked rather spiffy... or iffy, or piffy. the guy explained that it was actually better and much more easier to get it 'perfect' this way as the cooling was much more rapid.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
email received by webmaster@popsci.com /. ed!
Were sorry, your server has been
I'm much more impressed with his experiments with sodium
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
Tips (haven't read the article yet, so some of these might be redundant) -
- make sure you have good ventilation.
Nitrogen can fill the room and will push out the good air.
- don't use a regular blender.
Unless you have a heavy duty egg beater the nitrogen will be freezing the ice cream mix so fast that you'll bust the motor. Use a heavy duty one and then switch over to a large metal spoon.
- good ingredents count.
Use good cream. Add powdered milk for the extra protein. (I like adding a little bit of high quality protein that I use while working out) We used fresh dates, strawberries or whatever. If you use vanilla don't use that crappy stuff. Good vanilla is well worth the price - sort of like good basalmic vinegar. Once you've had the real deal the stuff supermarkets sell tastes like crap.
- Invite a bunch of friends.
It's a great party. Do the typical physics/chemistry tricks with the remaining liquid nitrogen. The shattering tomatoe or fake hand in the nitrogen tricks are always classics.
Do not try this at home. You might get fat.
Damn good, I must add. It's Kroger's Carmel Praline. Try it, you'll like it.
I remember it well because I was somewhere around 5 years old, and it was the first time I had seen or even heard of liquid nitrogen. I thought that stuff was really interesting, the vapor and all.
The ice cream, I seem to recall, didn't taste so great. Still a cool thing to take part in as a child.
I can't wait till they publish the instructions on roasting a turkey using a fusion reactor.
I can't imagine the brain freeze I'd get from this! :)
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
This page clearly shows they're already doing this in an industrial setting. Also, there's something called "sonication" that uses sound to make small particles of ice cream intermediate & pre-products of a powder-like consistency. And those ice-cream "dots" that are sold at malls are just ice cream mixture drops frozen in LN2.
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
At least in the Eastern US, anyway. All part of GWB's evil plan. You see, He agreed to import weather from London in order to secure Tony Blair's cooperation in the Iraqi war. Now, the tricky part is when Dr. Evil and his cat involved...
Which reminds me of an old joke. How do you make a cat sound like a dog, and a dog sound like a cat?
The real question? Which is older, that joke or this story?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
at Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream.
wouldn't the nitrogen get stuck in the holes and then condense? wouldn't that be bad for you?
there are two problems with making icecream with liquid nitrogen: first, you cannot buy nitrogen at 7-11, you need to either work in a lab or have a friend who does (the latter being my case). second, good icecream is generated by continous stirring of the stuff while it slowly freezes. in this fashion the batch freezes in a polycristalline state and not in one giant single-crystal slab. this is very important as good icecram is supposed to smooth in texture and not "icy". it is almos impossible to do this with the liquid nitrogen version because things freeze too fast. from my experience i have learned that the best ice cream maker is made by KRUPS: stick the bowl into the freezer overnight (or into liquid nitrogen if you want to speed things up!) and enjoy a full batch the next day of the flavors you like. of course you could run into the store and buy some icecream, but do you know what is in that stuff?
...but where can I get some liquid nitrogen?
Jason
ProfQuotes
Technology to do this was invented by Iowa State University a few years back, as referenced here: http://www.nitroicecream.com/company%20history.htm .. nothing new.... i must say, damn good ice cream
My dad works as a scientist in a lab, and has easy access to liquid nitrogen. :)
Some time ago we had a family of mice decide to take up residence behind our bookcases. My dad decided to take the easy way out (vs. moving the bookcase) and bring some nitrogen to flush them out.
After pouring 1/2 a thermos behind the bookcase, there was lots of smoke and commotion from behind the bookcase, but the next day the mice returned!
I guess they didn't mind it too much -- it must have dissolved too quickly to do them any real damage
You can ice anything with liquid nitrogen :)
I've done this - it's fun and impresses the girls, but harder in an office/lab than in a well stocked kitchen.
Once my girlfriend was visiting me at work and I was stuck late while I was finishing some experiments. The kitchenette was stocked with only the usual bad coffee gear--ultra-pasteurized cream cups and sugar packets and bad coffee--and she was restless and hungry. I asked if she wanted some ice cream and she thought I was teasing.
So I took one of the vacuum insulated coffee carafes and filled it dramatically with LN2 from roll-around dewar in the lab (any time you crack the liquid feed on one of those things its pretty dramatic with the hissing and the steam and the gurgling and the spattering, dancing beads of LN2). As an aside, vacuum insulated coffee carafes filled with LN2 will hold it for more than a day.
I carried it boiling and fogging back to the kitchenette as she followed at a more than safe distance. I found a plastic bowl in the sink and filled it with the contents of about 100 of those little ultra-pasteurized coffee creamers and about 100 packets of sugar, brewed up a fresh pot of coffee and skimmed the first few seconds worth off - when it actually has some flavor and added it to the bowl. She looked mighty dubious, but the glass liner had cooled enough that the carafe didn't seem dangerous any more so she moved in to watch.
Then while I stirred the mixture with a plastic spoon (and, don't forget - while wearing the bright blue cryogenic safety gloves and full face shields) she poured in the LN2 which filled the bowl with dense fog that poured out, over the counter, and down around our ankles, spreading out across the floor, looking for all the world like a bad sci-fi movie.
In about 30 seconds we had a bowl of half decent coffee ice cream to share.
And, for just a little while, she thought being a geek was really cool...
Get this guy, and that college professor that can cook a ham in 1.15 seconds and we are down!
No, but when the story on liquid nitrogen cooling for overclocking a P4 up to some crazy speed like 4ghz, quite a few people mentioned making ice cream in this manner. I think there were also a few posts about some guy who drank the stuff and ended up getting a Darwin award. Not the good ones where you have to be killed, but some honorary award that didn't require death. Good stuff.
Anti-social? My code is just platform-specific.
I remember reading that you can also make "impossible" stuff such as whiskey sorbet with liquid N2 (would require around -30ÂC to freeze strong alcohol).
Be careful to use a wooden spoon though or else your tongue will stick very hard to the cold steel!!!
The obvious question that I have, immediately after reading this story, is how exactly an average Joe-sixpack goes about obtaining a sufficient quantity of liquid nitrogen?
This whole thing sounds very interesting, but I don't think I can go into your average supermarket store and ask for some liquid nitrogen:
"Hello, I'd like a loaf of bread, Cheerios, and a gallon of your best liquid nitrogen. And, uh, a few grams of plutonium. I need it for my flux capacitor."
not worse than the 80% nitrogen in the air around you.
IHBT. IHL. HAND.
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
...they can make ice cream so fast but not help me lose my desk-bound shape? It's not fair. Sigh...
I dunno, for some reason people seem to take offense to being called fat fucking pigs. Fucking poofters.
In 110 degree heat in the middle of the desert, some ice cream really hits the spot.
ah yes, why would it condense? it'd stay there in the same concentration it was always in.... (99%)... probably tastes weird though...
I made LN2 ice cream for my 7th grade science fair project. It was a huge hit.
i hear ya, that's not flamebait, wtf???!
But I'm a fat fucking pasty white skinned pig MYSELF, so how in the FUCK can I be flamebaitin' MYSELF? Jesus fucking CHRIST on a pogostick!
N2O (nitrous oxide) is used to make instant whipped cream - in a pressurised state it dissolves in fat, so when the pressure is released, it expands in the cream, causing it to go light and fluffy. I'm wondering if N2 might have a similar effect, making the icecream lighter and fluffier than it might normally be? Solubility of N2 in fat? It's non-polar so it should dissolve, no?
Unfortunately N2 don't have the same effect as N2O when inhaled |-)
"I think it would be a good idea" Gandhi, on Western Civilisation
Gimme a break. Science camps all over the continent have been doing this for years. It's easy:
1. Get cream
2. Add liquid nitrogen, which freezes the cream then evaporates
3. You've got ice cream.
... Ice Cream, MIT Style
If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
We used to do this 30 years ago-I was finishing my physics PhD at the time. I am sure people with access to liquid nitrogen had done it long before us.
This is old news!
This is so old news!
One of the lecturers in theoretical physics at my uni' used to go around to schools showing this when I was in high school (and, mind you, that was some time ago ,-) )
Makes great ice cream, though...
Ethics is what you say you do. Morals is what you actually do.
used liquid nitrogen to keep the server from melting when this got posted...
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
There's a much easier way to make ice cream in five minutes. My dad invented the method.
Buy some frozen fruits. Here, we find big bags of frozen blueberries and raspberries at the supermarket. Any kind of small fruit will work. For thing like pineapples, see if you can buy small frozen bits. You will also need liquid cream - fresh cream won't do, you'd end up with butter, brown cane sugar and honey.
Put the frozen fruits in a food processer, mix until you get some kind of thick sauce, add just enough cream to keep the ice cream solid enough, add a big spoon or two of honey and enough sugar to remove the bitterness. The temperature of the frozen fruits is usually enough to cool the rest of the ice cream. You can mix some ice cubes if it isn't cold enough. Add a couple of fruits just at the end if you like chunks. Serve in glasses with one frozen fruit on top of each ice cream.
Trollem mirabilem hanc subnotationis exigiutas non caperet
Many posts asking where to get LN2 when you don't work in a lab. Look no more: call air liquide at 1-800-820-2522 and get a bottle from your local dealer... that's for the US, though. other countries ==> check www.airliquide.com.
"God, root, what is difference?" - Pitr, userfriendly
Where do I get it?
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Add that to the Liquid Oxygen Grill and you've got yourself one cool party. Main course, desert, and pyrotechnic entertainment all in one.
This
For my last birthday, we did this. I bought the liquid N from a welding supply store. It wasnt too expensive. They also wanted a deposit for the dewar, gloves, and face protector.
Also, be sure to crack a window on the ride home, so the N doesnt displace all your O.
oh, and when smashing fruit w/ a hammer in the garage, sweep up the pieces while they're frozen, its a pain to clean up soggy muck the next day.
take a ballon, put a chunk of dry ice inside, and let it fill tbe ballon. now you can use the N to freeze i back to solid powder again.
chick dig flash frozen smoking flowers.
a frozen basketball is not brittle, rather it is hard as steel, and a danger when thrown at the floor.
blow bubbles into a cooler of N. if you do it right, they will float in place until frozen.
the ice cream really is better.
also good for wart removal, the welders told me.
Freeze the dog in liquid nitrogen. Run it through a bandsaw. [Meeeoooowww!]
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
I'm nots ure, but a professor I knew at Northwestern sometimes gargled with liquid nitrogen to impress people during "chemistry day" type demos. Supposedly if you keep exhaling and moving the stuff around in your mouth, the air is enough of an insulator to keep from freezing your tongue off.
I had lots of fun working as a programmer in an organic chem lab there. When we needed a break from coding, we'd go invent weird chemistry demos or throw defective glassware against the wall. I don't think I'll ever try the liquid nitrogen gargling, though.
-- Laura
1) Take cooler of LNO2
2) Suspend an ice cube tray full of vodka in it.
3) Add resulting alcohol cubes to a glass of OJ
4) Profit!! (or something...)
The alcohol won't freeze at temperatures designed to make normal ice, but the liquid nitrogen is cold enough to make the liquor freeze. No more worrying about the ice dilluting your drink, as it melts the drink becomes stronger.
This
Show me the guy making liquid nitrogen from ice cream, and then we'll talk.
Another fun thing to do with lOX. Just remember, fire first and then oxygen.
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
>vacuum insulated coffee carafes filled with LN2 will hold it for more than a day.
That's a delightful story, and thank you for posting it.
It makes me hate to be a killjoy and point out that unless you've got some kind of venting system, storing liquid nitrogen in a thermos-like container for any length of time is hazardous. Eventually it picks up some heat and starts to boil, and that vapor pressure will go somewhere.
Oh, you have earned the title of True Nerdhood. I'm adding you to my friends list.
we see "When icecream making goes wrong" on teevee?
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.
Liquid nitrogen to make the ice cream, and liquid oxygen to start the barbeque :-)
When I was still an elementary student, my father worked in a lab that had liquid nitrogen. He brought home some liquid nitrogen and a recipe for vanilla icecream. It turned out pretty well, to my memory. :> We didn't use alot of liquid nitrogen so it didn't freeze instantly or anything like that, but it was still alot faster than the rock salt method.
What happens there is the Leidenfrost effect in action- the temperature inside your mouth is well above the boiling point of liquid nitrogen (77K, -196 degC, -321 degF, 138.6 degR), so that when the liquid contacts your mouth, a very small amount of it quickly boils off, and creates a layer of vapor between the remaining liquid and the flesh of your mouth. This vapor layer acts as an insulation blanket, allowing you to consume small quantities of liquid nitrogen without flash-freezing your palate.
The Leidenfrost effect is also sometimes demonstrated by wetting your hand with water, and then briefly plunging your hand into a container of molten lead. The same principle applies, as the lead is above the Leidenfrost point of water, so the water will form a vapor layer around your hand that insulates it from the molten lead. As much as I would like to believe that since the same principle applies, this is just as safe as brief exposure to LN2, I'm rather reluctant to try this.
Also, molten lead is a lot harder to come by, for me anyway, than liquid nitrogen- I work at UIUC's helium liquefier, so there's up to 5000 gallons of LN2 right outside the window (used both for providing to research groups and for the helium liquefier itself), and LN2 hoses on the wall. I'm generally pretty cautious with the stuff though- it does sting when it contacts bare skin, and as labels on the dewars often remind me, pure nitrogen DOES NOT SUPPORT LIFE, so you want to make sure that if you use large quantities (and the 220L dewars some groups have qualify) in a ventilated area. I've personally not found working with liquid nitrogen to be very dangerous- it's certainly less dangerous than some of the stuff used in an organic chemistry lab.
I remember the lab manual intro for a chemiluminescence/phosphoresence experiment that used things like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and the solvent DMSO (which isn't terribly toxic by itself, but can be absorbed through the skin, and has a nasty tendency to take other compounds with it), that had a warning that went something like: "Most of the reagents and solvents used in this lab are toxic, flammable, carcinogenic, mutagenic, teratogenic, or some combination thereof." LN2 and LHe are just really, really cold.
Anyway, I've had liquid nitrogen ice cream a number of times before- it tends to be a perennial favorite of many of the science-oriented clubs on campus, as well as a popular demonstration at the annual Engineering Open House- some ChemE's mixed some up this year- using LN2 I poured for them the day before, which was sweet. The ice cream is usually pretty good, IMO. The consistency can be rather variable, and it isn't as good as cranked homemade stuff, but hey- I'm not going to pass up free ice cream.
"FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
I have to agree on the use of would at the start of a sentence. It is obviously at quite a high register, so I'm not surprised that not everyone recognises the form. But that doesn't mean it is not correct.
Remember, "God save the King/Queen" is also a subjunctive.
I live in France, so learning French led me to discover the subjunctive. Then I went back to learn the subjunctive in English for my own personal benefit (yes, my education was crappy).
Homer: 30 Seconds? But I want it now!
I can see how this would work ..... I have an electric ice-cream maker that works by freezing a container {thin conductive aluminium pan inside plastic bowl containing brine, giving a nice high thermal mass} in the deep freezer overnight, then an electric motor stirs the mixture continuously to prevent lump formation {which would ruin the texture}.
..... Also, since nitrogen boils at a lower temperature than oxygen, you can use it to distill oxygen from the air. Liquid nitrogen is cool, but liquid oxygen is hot stuff!
The place I used to work at actually had a liquid-nitrogen-cooled test chamber. Unfortunately, the plumbing did not seem to include a drain valve, otherwise I might have been tempted to help myself to some {if you are going to do this, BTW, drill a small hole in the stopper and cup of your flask so that there is no chance for pressure to build up}. Best demo I've seen was to pour some liquid mercury into a hammer head mould, dip in a stick to act as handle, freeze, and knock in several big nails. Bet they wouldn't be allowed to do that nowadays
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
In Soviet Russia, cream ices YOU.
That Dippin' Dots site wanted to set a cookie.
This is getting me hungry.
Fuck mate, I'm a albino porksock like the rest of us, and i didn't shit a brick when you spoke up. I just laughed at how these fucking insecure little mommasboys cried tears of mountain dew syrup. Fat fucking sows, THE LOT OF US!! DEAL WITH IT!
and i thought i was cool when i dropped a V8 engine into my Snoopy Sno Cone Maker! back to the drawing board ...
The article is by Theodore Gray, creator of the ultra-spiffy Periodic Table Table.
And I thought nothing involving Palladium could be popular on Slashdot.
Ever thought about cooling your drinks with CO2 cubes? It even gives it the fog-pouring-out-the-brim effect.
BUT, from my personal experience, what will happen is that the cooling material (dry-ice / alcohol cubes - which, at -114C, is about 40 below dry-ice) would cause the water in the drink to solidify around the much colder core - and totally fuck up your drink by screwing up the alcohol content and likely the chemical property of most of the stuff that's involved in the taste of a drink.
i mean, of course, unless you are drinking everclear...
causing frostbites on your lips / tongue / stomache may be another problem you'd have to contend with; though this is not something with which I have personal experience.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
I'd love to go to the swimmingpool in my local park very early one summer morning, and freeze the pool. Imagine the look on the people's faces when they show up in their swimsuits and find me ice skating on the pool :-D
This message has been ROT-13 encrypted twice for higher security.
at /etc (fun with liquid hydrogen) in Realplayer format. The same guys that host the Geeks In Space shows.
If you outlaw the law, only criminals will have laws
Dippin' Dots are then flash-frozen using a special patented process.
::cough:: LN2 ::cough::
Didn't know you could patent the process of dropping things in LN2...
-------
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
I think there are texts about how to make ice cream this way which have been around for say ... hmmm ...at least a few years now, so this is nothing new!
... an take a bit of it to your home (but be aware, if you use public transport and you cannot isolate everything well ...)
When I finished high school (a few years ago), on the last day, we tried this with our chemistry professor. It was quite funny and we managed to produce so much ice cream that we decided to give it away to all the other students. It's a nice experience, like everything wich involves playing with liquid nitrogen. Especially when you are free at the end to throw it away at will
They served ice cream made with liquid nitrogen at a science fair I was at. It tasted terrible, though - like ice cream you freeze after it's melted.
When I was in sixth form we had to go to these lectures from people like animal rights, pro-life, politicians. Those sort of people.
When we got to the end of the year one of our Chemistry teachers' husband made Ice cream for all 150 of us, right in front of us! He's a proffesor at some university. I think it Oxford or Cambridge. He explained the chemical reactions behind it all and everything, thus justifying taking up lesson time.
It does taste better than the crap you get in the supermarket.
We take a simple approach at the University of Texas, where we make liquid nitrogen ice cream several times a year for various events for the kiddies. We take two boxes of vanilla powder, 1/3-1/2 gallon of milk, food coloring for fun (orange on halloween), and sometimes chocolate/strawberry syrup either before or after freezing. And most of us are just general science majors, so I don't know what the guy's talking about trained chemists for :P
It generally attracts a pretty good crowd. It's also amusing listening to people's misconceptions. "So is that like liquid dry ice?" or "Is that much nitrogen safe to eat?". The only scary part is driving around downtown Austin with ten liters of the stuff in your back seat.
Here's a quick rundown of liquid nitrogen safety points. Get some liquid nitrogen, have fun; we've been making ice cream and much more for years. Just read this first and be safe.
http://www.isber.org/pdfs/karpinski.pdf
One of my personal favorites is Liquid Nitrogen Marshmellows. Take standard large-size marshmellows (the same size you'd use to roast over a campfire), dump them one at a time in a big vat of liquid nitrogen, take them out with tongs (NOT you hand :), and put them on a plate. Once they're on the plate, you can pick them up with your bare hand and pop them in your mouth.
When you bite them, they shatter. It's a truely unique sensation.
(And no, I'm not kidding. The marshmellows have too low a specific heat to do your hand or mouth any damage).
LOX is a good substitute, and you can do a lot more cool things with it.
Contrary to popular belief, although you should treat it with respect, LOX does not instantly cause everything to become explosive. Someone at one of our LOX ice cream events once held a blowtorch on some ice cream; it just singed the outside a bit.
As any diver will tell you, both nitrogen and oxygen are toxic. On compressed air, divers can become literally intoxicated below around 40-50 metres. This is known as 'rapture of the deep'. Conveniently this tipsy feeling will go as the partial pressure of N2 decreases (however, being drunk at 6 bar is not a good idea). Nitrox has a higher percentage of oxygen (say 40% O2 to 60% N2) and is used to decrease the amount of nitrogen dissolving in the blood, thus lessening the risk of the bends (nitrogen bubbles forming in the joints). However nitrox divers cannot go quite as deep, because they will in turn get oxygen toxicity symptoms - not a good idea at 30 fathoms below the sea, but sometimes an unpleasant side-effect of treatment in a hyperbaric chamber. Deeper divers (and pros) may use trimix, which adds Helium to the mix. I'm writing this from ancient memory, but I believe that He too is toxic at higher partial pressures (it can cause the bends, but the far smaller Helium atom is both absorbed and released much faster than the N2 molecule).
I suspect the resulting ice cream wouldn't taste so well with these brown things. It isn't that cold, either.
People have already mentioned Dippin' Dots, but a couple of ISU students (now alumni) figured out how to do it in bulk. (Dippin' Dots aren't bad, but they start out crunchy and end up liquid in very short order--after all, a bunch of little dots maximizes surface area/volume ratio...) They call their product Nitro Ice Cream.
...but this is really cool!!
This space for rent, inquire within.
http://www.nitroicecream.com/
They exhibited at the IAAPA Convention last November. The stuff was excellent - very smooth.
The machine used a large tank of liquid nitrogen, and basically worked by spurting ice cream mixture into a bucket, then spraying it with the nitro. Repeat the process 100 times or so, and you've got 5 gallons of the stuff.
a few years ago ISU (or maybe just two grad students at ISU) patented a machine to do this. they ran the ice cream mix through a aluminum tube surounded by liquid nitrogen. I think they were going to start selling them so vendors could have easily transportable ice cream....at Baseball games or the beach. It was pretty...cool...eh bad pun.
Photo of dutch physics students doing exactly this: clicky here
Reminds me of the perfect martini I got used to in Grad School.
2 oz Bombay Safire (or Beefeater)
mist of Vermouth
2 oz LN2
Pour in coctail shaker. Shake using skiing glove. Pour into glass with 3 olives (no need to chill glass...honest). Drink once LN2 stops dancing on the surface.
Never tried it to make margaritas...
Today is a gift. Save the receipt.
A bunch of people have been commenting on the professor who used to gargle LN2. The man's name was Jearl Walker, author of The Flying Circus of Physics, who published an excellent essay describing exactly how to do it. He also talks about dipping your hand in molten lead, as well as walking on fire. He is the one who mentioned that when you let the LN2 touch your teeth, they crack.
Or maybe we'll go with the Simpsons "chocolate Cod..." (a chocolate covered cod on a stick...) But does anybody remember sesame street from about 24 years ago, they had descriptions of the character's favourite flavours and oscar the grouch chose "Anchovy and pickle"? My mum never made ice cream again after we watched that. Not only did we request all of theirs, including the birdseed one (not to parents out there, if your kids ask for this use vanilla with shelled sunflower seeds) but we started telling her the flavours WE wanted... (Peanut butter and jam, blueberry/cinnamon, pancake and butter and syrup and sausage, and our best never-made flavour, the "banana split" one that we wanted to use: orange 'jello' powder, red food colouring, nuts, bananas, and mum's homemade beef stew.) Hey, I was three, my sister was four, we figured it would work. Mum flat-out refused, and started making layered juice popsicles instead.
"I'd say 'Have a good time,' but arson is still illegal.
They made custard. They stole the recipe from Martha Stuart, she makes custard and calls it ice cream. Ice Cream has no eggs.
Just dont eat it in 30 seconds too, thatd be bad news.
I was on the fog crew for a show once, and we had a huge freezer full of dry ice to play with... Muwhahahahaha. Many of the things you can do with LN2 can also be done with dry ice, though dry ice is pretty hot compared to liquid nitrogen, plus of course, the obvious difference that it's solid instead of liquid. My favorite trick was at one point in the show someone came to collect some pellets to put in a pot that was supposed to look like it was burning incense... I just reached into the pellet bag and grabbed the pellets and gave them to her. If you kinda juggle them in your hands you can actually keep yourself from getting burnt. We also put pellets in soda, and after we drank the slushies, filled the soda bottles with water, inhaled the vapors (note: Carbon Dioxide is a waste gas of the body, and breathing it in will keep oxygen from entering your body! We had a guy get pretty light-headed after a session of this), and watched as a 7 cm^3 pellet could freeze 100 mL of room temperature water, that's how cold they are. If you have a drink that's lost its fizz, you can actually carbonate it by putting in dry ice, because carbonation is actually carbon dioxide (which dry ice is the frozen form of) dissolved in the liquid. If you want it to stay liquid, though, you should only put in small flakes at a time, as large pellets will cause the drink to freeze around the pellet, or turn into a slushie.
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
I've heard of at least one university in canada that stopped doing this for high-school kids, after a bubble of nitrogen encapsulated itself in the icecream. Something about the quick trip to the hospital and emergency surgery to deal with frozen intestinal tracts made them reconsider the practice. Enjoy your icecream :)
Every year, there is an invite only event in the Catskills where a bunch of Geeks go and make Ice Cream with liquid Nitrogen while camping and bathing in streams.
There's even a propane powered flash heater so we can have hot showers in the stream. (The stream is normally 49 degrees)
Last year was the first time I'd gone, but this year is the âoeSweet 16â of the event.
And since it's invite only, I'm not telling you where the official web site is.
Nya Nya
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
It's always bothered me that the periodic table of the elements puts the f orbital elements (you know, the actinide and lanthanide series) in a separate row.
New columns should be inserted for the f elements in the same way new columns are inserted for the p and the d orbital elements.
All I can think is that the correct aspect ratio of the table would be too extreme and it would be hard to print efficiently and legibly on conventionally-sized paper.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
these guys have been doing this for awhile now. it's pretty good ice cream.
www.nitroicecream.com
Hervé This (famous french chemist and cook) did the same experiment, too, with its "glazot" (glace+azote, that is, ice+nitrogen)
http://b-simon.ifrance.com/b-simon/glazot.htm
When I posted this, I saw no comments to which this was redundant. If something got modded up since, I'm still a bit frustrated that what I see as a valid, informative comment was modded down capriciously. Is there some reason that leaving this at the default score of 2 was unacceptable? Was my comment so tragically hurtful to the threat that it was worth the mod points? I hope these moderators get what they deserve in meta-moderation, I really do.
;-)
Back to the topic: Using liquid N in your ice cream is beneficial for a few other non-obvious reasons: small canisters of the stuff can be had almost as cheaply as rock-salt and cleanup is much easier. Because the temperature of the liquid is a result of the pressure that it is kept under, no refrigeration is required as it would be with the ice that you would normally use in conjunction with the rock salt. Also, of course the stuff is just plain fun!
Oddly enough I actually have more available access to a liter of liquid helium than LN2...think it would work as well, or would it just flash to vapor as soon as it hit the warm cream solution? i know LHe only lasts about a minute when you expose it to air in a styrofoam cup (~3 if you prechill the cup with nitrogen)...helium is some mighty freaky stuff when it's liquid...
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Get a bucket o' margarita mix, (one that takes a fifth of tequila). Put in the recommended tequila (or more), and half again as much triple sec. Throw in dry ice and stir until sherbet forms. Serve in 2 16oz plastic Dixie cups with a paper towel in between for insulation.
You can put 2 or 3 times as much alcohol in it and it will still taste good 'cause it's so cold. Keep a little lump of dry ice in the glass or the bucket to keep it frozen.
Once your friends become less "safety conscious", quit putting the dry ice in the cups.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
yes liquid nitrogen is great for freezing things, bananas, rose petals. warts, small furry animals(THIS IS A JOKE!) as an undergrad i was an assistant in the chemistry lab and was able to do a vast amount of "experimenting" with liquid nitrogen and sometimes with liquid He(you can freeze soap bulbes with it!) although it is somewhat expensive. of course sometimes the chemistry professor would ask about our monthly liquid nitrogen expenses and would explain at 77K it evaporates very quickly(;>>).
after spending about nine years in college(better than working for a living) i paid a visit to my old chem professor and he mentioned to his then lab assistant that i was one of his best students but not to let me anywhere near his liquid nitrogen. i guess i was not a very good liar or a thief.
flowerbear
flowerbear@phreaker.net
flowerbear adrift on a sea of confusion since 1958 flowerbear@phreaker.net FORTRAN programers don't eat quiche!!
This was part of a particular Caltech house initiation ritual almost 10 years ago, when I went thru it. It has probably been around much longer than that. A few years later, I set up a LN2 waterfall in the same house's courtyard with PVC piping, some foam insulation, and an awl. Nothing to see here, folxes, move along...
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
Wasn't that in an episode of MacGyver?
Visit me on the web at Permanent4.com.
For those of you in the Washington DC metropolitan area, you can get liquid nitrogen ice cream at the University of Maryland. Every year the university celebrates Maryland Day, which is basically an excuse for the university to show itself off to alumni and the general public. At any rate, out in front of the physics building they always have a bunch of cool geeky experiments (crushing a soda can with magnets, firing a pencil through a two by four , superconducting levitation etc) Including making ice cream out of liquid nitrogen. They basically give you a foam cup, pour some vanilla flavored cream in, give you a spoon, and tell you to stir real fast as they pour in the LN2. Tastes pretty good, but its really hard ice cream.
I've been making icecream in 30 seconds for years. Just go get a Vita-Mix mixer (look on ebay) It chops up fozen fruit or milk to ice cream in 30 seconds.....
heyday
************* www.phonecow.com www.handerazone.com
Someday there will be a flesh-freezing accident and some kid will end up with "hand-flavored" ice-cream. Worse than Kentucky-Fried Rats if you ask me.
Table-ized A.I.
Is this where I tell the "cooking hot dogs in the radar waveguide story?"
Some more tips for those who might wish to try the LN2 ice cream...
* We prefer to pour the LN2 into the ice cream ingredients - use a small stream and go slowly, it will really froth up of you don't. We typically use a plastic cooler and a _huge_ wooden spoon.
* Definately use good ingredients. The best we ever made was with fresh mango purrie - yum!
* If you do the "dippin dots" method, where you drop the liquid ingredients into the LN2, be sure to let them "warm up" before eating. You'll freeze yer waggle off if not...
* When we're done with the ice cream, the left over LN2 almost always goes into the pool. The kids love to swim in the fog that it creats. Just make sure that they are far enough away from the pour, as some splashes do occur.
* 10 Liters usually handls a party of 40 people or so...
Cheers,
Add some NaCl (salt) to the water/alcohol mixture and you get a orange flame (due to the sodium) more like the one you would expect from paper buning. I like to experiment with other metal salts to get lots of different colored flames.
It helps working in a lab for access to the metal salts!
I was wondering when someone would mention that event. Anyway, introduce yourself to me this year. --joooooooolia
Finally, a slashdot post I can use!
Thanks boys
Finally, a slashdot post I can really use! Thanks boys
--Slashdot: News for Turds. Stuff that Splatters.
Carlos often partook of this in his Physics classes, as the Department had enough Liquid N2 to go around.
They even sold it for a $1.00 a liter, and Carlos' Geek House would even make "Geek Ice Cream" for parties.
When Carlos worked at a sorority, the cook scoffed at the idea of making Ice Cream in a BOWL, and in less then 10 minutes. Then he saw Carlos do it, and his jaw dropped.
Carlos has hundreds of these kind of stories.
Best thing is, it tastes GREAT, and much better then the store bought brands.
*Carlos: Exit Stage Right*
"Geeks, Where would you be without them?"
"Got Linux?"
While testing equipment destined to go to Antarctica, a big tank (~100 liters) of liquid nitrogen blew up right above me (the necessary exhaust must have clogged). Everybody else in the room ran for their life but I was behind lots of wires and heavy equipment, trapped in a cloud of opaque white fumes. The liquid poured on my head, through my clothing... Weird sensation but not bad.
Then things got weird when small explosions, like firecrackers, started all over the ground: the tiles were breaking due to the cold. Fortunately I was wearing security shoes and could feel my feet okay, even though I couldn't see shit. After about a minute of standing still the cloud dissipated and the cow-workers looked cautiously through the door to see if I was still alive... Hey, thanks, guys !
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Ice cream is churned for a long time because it breaks down the membrane surrounding the fat globules. By making it in 30 seconds, it's not breaking down the membrane producing just frozen dairy slush.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
We did this a couple years ago in my kitchen (photo here). It works great, I highly recommend it. Just make a regular ice cream recipe and stir in an equal amount of nitrogen.
The leftover LN is fun to play with too... one of my favorites is dipping balloons in it so they shrink down to nothing. Then put them in a cup. After a minute, balloons start coming out of the cup, much to the amazement of anyone who didn't see you put them in.
I used to work for Wolfram Research, where Theo Gray works, several years ago. We actually made this ice cream for one of our Tech Support deparment Christmas parties. My boss's boss, Dave Withoff (a great guy!) set up the whole thing. His friend at the local university got the liquid nitrogen for us, and we made two batches - vanilla and strawberry. Very cool.
See you there. I hope my SO lets me make the Wasabi Ice Cream this year.
--Matthew
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
A real hazard in working with vacuum lines (yet another piece of glass lab equipment used to sysnthesize air sensitive chemicals) occurs when you get O2 in the trap with the oil from the vacuum pump. They have been known to explode due to this (when the trap is warmed up).
Developed this one myself - it's quicker and easier than ice cream and it's very good.
2 cups low-pulp orange juice
1 cup sugar
Mix sugar and orange juice. In a large wooden or plastic bowl (metal sticks too much), slowly stir in liquid nitrogen until the desired consistency is reached.
I'd also recomment using a wooden spoon. I used a hand mixer once, and due to the low viscosity of liquid nitrogen, it spewed droplets everywhere.
One of these days I want to try making deep-fried liquid nitrogen ice cream. My goal is to get an 800 degree F temperature span in the making of the stuff.
Remember, be careful with the LN2. It's easy to over-freeze stuff. I once got my tongue stuck to a frozen banana, and it was rather painful.
Wow, I can't believe Pop Sci actually published that. High School classes ended here on thursday and we did the exact same thing in Chem, except on a much smaller scale (250ml per person). Yes, it tastes amazingly good but that chemist could've found a recipe anywhere online :)
Theodore gray is down, ladies and gentlemen. It fought well. =^_^=
This sig no verb.
Obviously, this LN2 event you mention is a hoax...
"a bunch of Geeks
Geeks Bathing ? Ha ! a dead givaway to a hoax !
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
It gets better.
There are cute female geeks there too!
And they're naked!
Of course, the fact that most of them are Pollyamarous doesn't do me any good, as I'm in a monagmous relationship.
And the Ice Cream Flavors!
Thai Tea Ice Cream
Earl Gray Ice Cream (Someone had to do it)
Cricket Mint Chocolate Chip. (I swear I got a thorax stuck in my teeth on that one.)
The list goes on and on. I'd post a URL but I don't want to be responsible for an invite only event being flooded with uninvited, unwelcome, unbathed, unlaid slashdot geeks.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
hehehe, I thought that the LN2 Wasabi Ice Cream sounded like an interesting treat. Maybe a little ahi ice cream to go with it ?
Yeah, and don't post that URL next to "naked geek gurls" unless you want a nerd Woodstock on your hands ! hehehe...
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
Hey, I can't believe this went as a Slashdot story... I've seen it first-hand three times before, and actually participated twice!
You can do ice cream or sherbet that way. For ice cream, you can make crÃme anglaise; for sherbet, use some fruit juice and pureed fruit. Pour the liquid nitrogen on it. It makes lots of white "smoke", very much like a sorcerer's cauldron in the movies (actually, that's how they used to make such effects).
You have to mix very carefully so as not to leave very cold blocks inside.
The ice cream we did was real good (French vanilla crÃme anglaise, served with microwaved almonds). It was very creamy - I have the impression that the nitrogen makes very small ice crystals and that, furthermore, it leaves small bubbles of air inside the cream. By the way, commercial ice cream makers do incorporate gas into the cream (two reasons: it makes it "lighter" and more palatable, and it reduces the mass of costly material per liter!).
Hmmm, perhaps I should start my own event.
A weekend of sin and debauchery for Geeks only.
I can see it now....
Gold Diggers would flock to it to land a sex starved, easily manipulated Geek Guy.
24 / 7 LAN Party for the hard core gamers.
Entire networks of tents with people swarming in and out for anonymous sex.
A "Guy or Girl, Spot the Tranny" contest, which is part of the wet t-shirt contest.
Sex, sex, sex as far as the eye can see.
The supplies would consist of KY, condoms, Cola and Ramen.
Yes.
Yes, I can see it now.
Starting next July in the Catskills, ORGYCON! All interested parties, please e-mail orgycon@onlineconfessional.com
All I need to do is figure out how to get a T1 run to a camp site in the mountains.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
That will look GREAT on my Jump to Conclusions Mat!
Scientific American published an article on this very topic ten, maybe twelve years ago. 'Twas in the Amateur Scientist column in an issue that focussed on food science. The authors describe a recipe for making ice cream for a crowd in minutes using liquid nitrogen. If I remember correctly, they recommended using equal parts ice cream base (custard) and LN2.
Also presented in the same article is a really nifty recipe for "Frozen Florida," which as the name suggests, is sort of the opposite of Baked Alaska.
Sorry, I can't put my finger on the exact issue, but I'm sure someone out there has a collection that goes back that far and can help us out.
How could I get LN2 working on a Snoopy Snow Cone Machine so I don't have to keep cranking forever to crush the damn ice and huring my hands. It was a bitch to turn that thing when the ice chunks got stuck while everyone was standing around waiting for that thimble of a snow cone to cool us off in 100 degree F weather. F*CK YOU SNOOPY!
BTW, the Snoopy Snow Cone Machine was being used to make weapons of mass destruction.
And as long as we're offtopic this far...
My 8th grade metal shop teacher had a comic strip taped to the oxy-acetylene rig to this effect. Two suits are looking out over the roof of a warehouse, and there's a body rocketing through the roof. The caption is "looks like someone's using grease on the O2 regulator fittings again."
--
This was beaten to death on the homebrew digest way back in the day.
N2 is barely soluable in beer. Draft guiness is only available via Guiness-supplied taps. The beer in the keg is carbonated with CO2 just like any other beer. When the barkeep pulls on the handle, it opens the beer line but also an N2 line which bubbles into the beer line just before the tap.
The N2 suds escape the beer plenty fast. Add malt for better head retention and the CO2 suds will last longer, but don't count on getting a draft Guiness head with a stock tap.
--
all this talk of LN2 makes me wana play with some... anyone know where I can get a container of it? .. er better yet!!!! how can I make my own!!!!
Why not just go out and buy a litre of icecream (or quart or whatever your country uses)? It's faster. If you really want a homemade taste, buy premium all natural organic (insert more marketing terms for expensive) icecream? Breyers all-natural is good.
Plus even with the premium price, it's cheaper than liquid N2 + cream, sugar, vanilla, and whatever else goes in to it
john
All I Want For Christmas Is My Constitutional Rights
All I Want For Christmas Is My Constitutional Rights
Homer: 30 Seconds? But I want it now!
Actually, it's 40 seconds... from SNPP.com:
Moe: Oh, boy! The deep fryer's here. Heh heh, I got it used from the navy. You can flash-fry a buffalo in forty seconds.
Homer: Forty seconds? But I want it now!
Mark
Oohh, I've wasted my life...
ACS student chapters have been doing this for about 10 or more years. It is lots of fun. Mainly because while your are freezing the ice cream, you can get another bowl and fill it with the N2(l) and dip in other fun things like worms, flowers, bananas, etc. Then you smash 'em.
We used to make much larger portions than this guy and it would take more like 10 minutes to freeze the 1 gallon batches we made.
robi
Oh yeah. You gets lots of "globs" of pure cream. Not the best ice cream. But it makes for an entertaining event in any case.
robi
I thought Mendeleev was the creator of the periodic table?
-- Stamp out entropy. ->dryguy@bellsloth.net
send mail to icecream@[private-event] and let us know you're planning this. We tried kiwi wasabi sorbet once. It was decent.
I mean, we've got a honking big tank of nitrogen in lab here. And a couple of dewars. And I think I can rummage up the rest of the ingredients at Wawa (regional convenience store chain), but what I really want to know is does this impress men too?
'Cause I refuse to do something that might just break a nail if it won't impress the boys.
I am curious where any average Joe can go to obtain liquid N2. I read this article in the Popular Science magazine the other day but still don't know if Home Depot stores pints of LN2.
I have looked all over the place and can't seem to find any place willing to give/sell me some liquid nitrogen. The local distributers all decline on liability reasons. The university physics department claims to be out.
Anyone have any good suggestions? I would need to rent/borrow the container as well as I don't have anything around that could hold it?
Your input would be appreciated greatly!!!
Oh, doh! not fast enough, I want my icecream now!
Hi.
I don't know what the ramifications are for fat, but try half and half instead of heavy cream.
Btw, I am meta moderating this currently, unfortuneately I have the "Interesting" point you got, not either of the flamebait's.
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
ice cream.. We do this every year at our physics dept barbeque... it gets a rise from the first years
Based on some of my past girlfriends, if you can make any food substance more complicated than toast, I'd be impressed. ;)
Some kid got some from a welding supply house for $10 per thermos bottle of it ( he had to bring his own thermos ). I would suggest saying it's 'for your kid's science fair project' people are more willing to sell you odd items in the name of a kid's education...
Eat at Joe's.
I think that anyone who does work in a biology lab who can't cook or at least follow a recipe is probably a bad biologist as well. I was raised to believe that you should make a cake from scratch and that any cookie that comes out of a plastic tube is just plain wrong. (unless you're stoned. which is different. and has very little to do with how I was raised. )
But any food that can be constructed using lab equipment gets super extra double bonus points for coolness. Sprinkling curry powder on those biodegradable foam packing peanuts doesn't count.
how can i buy a small ammount of liquid nitrogen?how much does it cost?