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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."
and to think i just spent 30 minutes going to the store to get rock salt...
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
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...
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
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.
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'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.
I doubt it. A buddy told me about the stuff they used to do at CalTech...
DISCLAIMER: My buddy may have been shitting me...
He said they used to freeze frogs in liquid N2 and throw them against the wall to shatter. Then they'd put it in the wastebasket, and get a kick out of the reaction the stink got from the next sucker to enter the room.
One day, he said, a guy didn't have any N2, so he used LOX instead. It reacted with the volatiles in the frog and blew out the wall when they threw it.
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
I can't wait till they publish the instructions on roasting a turkey using a fusion reactor.
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.
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?
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
Yeah, reminds me of a story which happened in our cryoelectronics lab, back in Moscow State University (Russia). OK, some guys bought frozen dumplings ("pelmeni", for those who know... ;-) ), and were not sure if they will not thaw by the time they get home, so they just poured a liter or two of LN over. Well, the next thing we've heard about those was half a week (!) later when the dumplings finally thawed enought to be separated and cooked... (pre-microwave oven days ;-) )
Paul B.
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!
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."
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.
The goal of ice cream is to make the ice crystals really small. Big ice crystals feel grainy in your mouth. Ice cream should be smooth.
Ordinarily, you achieve that by stirring the ice cream constantly. With liquid NO2, you achieve the same effect by freezing everything before the crystals have a chance to grow.
So yeah, you do get better ice cream this way.
There's also a lot less air whipped into it. For my taste, there's too little; a spoonful has too much "cold" in it to really taste it. Since it has more ice cream and less air, you get more mass in a spoonful, and thus more cold. But that's all a matter of taste; that's exactly what Ben and Jerry make all their money at. A little goes a long way.
Which is grammatically correct. You do read English I assume?
Phrased another way: "It would be just so cool if everyone could write like that Theodore dude."
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
used liquid nitrogen to keep the server from melting when this got posted...
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
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
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.
Liquid nitrogen to make the ice cream, and liquid oxygen to start the barbeque :-)
Frozen stakes and hamburgers in a cantene are an even better idea. We used to do it at the Uni. All you need is an unsuspecting victim that has forgotten to pick up a fork, a knife or a napkin. As a result you have your 30 secs and when the poor sod comes back his meal is frozen solid and steaming water vapour.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
It's called the subjunctive. See also, "be that as it may ..."
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."
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!
That Dippin' Dots site wanted to set a cookie.
This is getting me hungry.
and i thought i was cool when i dropped a V8 engine into my Snoopy Sno Cone Maker! back to the drawing board ...
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
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
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.
I don't know about you, but I like lOX best on bAGELS...
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.
Photo of dutch physics students doing exactly this: clicky here
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.
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
Get in a car wreck, heh... "Hey officer, I saw the whole thing, the car crashed, that stuff in the back spilled on him, and now he's over there...And there...And there..."
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
> Frog bomb!
Frogdor the Burninator!
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!!
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,
My dorm made N2 ice cream all the time during rvsh.
One time the kid who was handling the N2 dumped some on the floor to impress the frosh. I got a few droplets in my socks, where it proceeded to burn my skin.
I've never removed a pair of sock so fast.
The dots it left were kind of neat, though, and actually included the texture of the fabric.
Another cool thing we did was put marshmellows in N2. Since there is so much sugar in the marshmellows, they don't get that cold, and you can pop them right in your mouth. They have the texture of a Lucky Charms marshmellow, but are cold, and a lot more fun to eat.
This was a quote of Kurt Vonnegut that didn't fit.
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.
That sounds like the beginning of some sort of superhero origins story.
Didn't work for me though... Or if it did, I must have been pretty dumb and weak before !
Non-Linux Penguins ?