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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."
That's how the ice cream at the dippin dots stands is made. They just put drops of the unfrozen mixture into liquid nitrogen.
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
1001 things to do with liquid nitrogen.
People made tea from tea essense.
What people did do is to put a lump of sugar into their mouth as they were drinking the tea -- instead of putting it into the tea.
This was more of a matter of personal preference than desire to save sugar (although there was a little bit of both -- sugar was often given out via ration cards)
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 Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream.
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
The specific trick to which you allude involves dipping your hand in water and then quickly in benzene. The two liquids are pretty much insoluble in one another, so a (somewhat spotty) layer of water remains between your hand and the benzene layer. If you ignite the benzene, most of it doesn't burn in contact with the skin, and the water with its high specific heat soaks up most of the heat of combustion, so it doesn't hurt--in principle.
Feynman discovered that as an adult, the hairs on his hands would wick the benzene down into direct contact with his skin...and hurt like hell.
The high specific and latent heats of water permit a number of amusing tricks. For example, you can boil water over an open flame in a paper cup. The boiling water absorbs heat from the paper cup, keeping it at a warm (but nowhere near combusting) 100 C.
You can also mix roughly equal parts water and isopropyl alcohol to obtain a solution that will burn, but doesn't damage most inanimate materials. Again, the big latent heat of vaporization of water soaks up almost all of the heat generated by the combustion of the alcohol. You can soak a large-denomination bill in this stuff and 'burn' it. Hint: test the solution on something disposable, first. ;)
~Idarubicin
The more correct short answer is that you easily can.
LN2 is not a controlled substance. In most any area, it's simply a matter of opening up the phone book and finding a gas supplier. Many welding gas and medical gas companies provide it, and most sell to the public, and those that don't usually don't because they are set up to deal with businesses through purchase orders.
I only know the suppliers for the places I've lived---Praxair in St Paul, MN, and Merriam Graves in western NH, but both will happily sell you bulk dry ice, LN2, various gases in bottles, etc. I've done it at both places. Just be prepared to leave a *large* deposit on the LN2 dewar. If they ask too many questions tell 'em you're an artist (artists, especially those that weld, buy the freakiest damn things at times). And the LN2 ain't cheap, either. Depending on the supplier be prepared for between $80 and $200/dewar. (Although I guess if you compare it it's probably cheaper per volume than beer...)
Then again, due to the massive number of LN2 dewars I use at work, I'm on a first name basis with Merriam Graves' delivery guy...
But to go back to the comments of the guy I'm responding to...don't mess around with this stuff without thinking about it. It's real easy to burn yourself (wear eye shields), it easily splatters since it boils upon contacting most anything, etc.