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Making Ice Cream with Liquid Nitrogen

 

Liquid Nitrogen is an amazing material. Even though it comprises about 78% of our atmosphere (by volume), it has a boiling temperature around 175.8 degrees below zero on the Celsius scale. By comparison, our skin temperature is scalding hot to it, and will cause it to rapidly boil away.

Liquid Nitrogen can be used for a lot of interesting and educational activities. Among these are fun experiments with freezing bananas (you've probably seen the videos) and making superconductors mysteriously float. But we want to do something more, well, practical with liquid nitrogen today. We'll look at using it to make something delicious. What is this something delicious, you ask? Since it obviously involves something freezing, it can mean only one thing in my mind – Ice Cream!

First, gather up the ingredients and gear. For the ingredients, we need the following for roughly two pints of ice cream:

  • 1 1/2 cup Milk
  • 2 1/2 cups Heavy cream or half and half
  • Vanilla flavoring
  • 1 cup Sugar
  • 10 pints Liquid Nitrogen


Okay, going over the ingredients, you may be okay with everything but the last one – the liquid nitrogen. No problem, there are many quality cryogenic equipment dealers to be found on the web. In fact, a few even specialize in liquid nitrogen storage dewars – how convenient.

Once you have your mixture of ingredients together in a suitable container (stainless steel mixing bowl would be a great choice), slowly introduce the Liquid Nitrogen to the mix. Get prepared, because you now need to put that wooden spoon to work. (Did we not mention the wooden spoon? Then we probably failed to mention the gloves that you should DEFINITELY BE WEARING at this point! Nothing gives a good skin necrosis like Liquid Nitrogen.)

When you start to add the Liquid Nitrogen to the mix, it will begin to boil away quickly, creating a small cloud around the cooking area. This adds a great mad scientist effect to the cooking process, so it makes for a great show. Continue to SLOWLY add the Liquid Nitrogen and stir until it freezes nicely, which should take about 10 minutes or so. At that point, you should have a tasty frozen treat. But be sure that the mixture is uniform, all of the Liquid Nitrogen has safely boiled away, and please remember: AVOID TOUCHING LIQUID NITROGEN WITH BARE SKIN.

Once you whip up your first batch of scientific ice cream without any life threatening injuries, it might be time to expand upon the recipe. You can add in any of your favorite flavors. But be warned – artificial flavors may not freeze as well as the real stuff. Consider yourself warned.

 

THE PREVIOUS WAS INTENDED FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY. THE INCORRECT USE OF LIQUID NITROGEN CAN CAUSE BODILY HARM AND POTENTIALLY LIFE THREATENING INJURY. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN EDUCATED RISK.

 

Liquid Nitrogen

Liquid nitrogen is nitrogen in a liquid state at a very low temperature. It is produced industrially by fractional distillation of liquid air. Liquid nitrogen is a colourless clear liquid with density of 0.807 g/mL at its boiling point and a dielectric constant of 1.4. Liquid nitrogen is often referred to by the abbreviation, LN2 or "LIN" or "LN" and has the UN number 1977

source:wikipedia 

 

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