Thursday, July 28, 2005
Liquid Nitrogen (fo' real yo!)
Yes, that is correct. I actually used liquid nitrogen and made liquid nitrogen ice cream. I am not a pioneering blogger on this front but I was the first to do it in SC. Regan did it in her lab down at Emory a few months ago.
I was blown away. It was really, really good. Very creamy and delicious. And someone brought toppings and that only helped enhance the experience. I unfortunately don't have pictures, but will try and describe the steps to the best of my ability.
Feel free to tweek the recipe as you see fit:
1) We put 1 quart of half & half, 1.5 pints of regular whipping cream, 2 tbsp of vanilla extract and 1.5 cups of sugar in a bowl. Stir until you think the sugar is dissolved (or have an undergrad summer researcher whose idea is was to make it taste it and see if it's okay)
2) Slowly pour liquid nitrogen directly into the bowl while stirring. Preferably the stirrer should have on low temp gloves as they might get splashed some while pouring and stirring.
3) Check the consistency and keep adding liq. nitrogen until it is the consistency you want. Ours was a little harder than soft serve frozen yogurt. We were tired of stirring, but I hear that you can get it fairly hard and ice cream like. I think a hand mixer or Kitchen-Aid would be very helpful with the stirring.
4) Serve and enjoy. And add toppings if desired.
That's it, from liquid sweet milk products to yummy ice cream in 2 minutes. Damn. Especially good for any high school or intro college chemistry instructors. With that recipe we were able to serve around 11 people.
And a big thanks to Regan for being the guinea pig on this experiment.
I had a dream last week that I was bald. I got out of the shower, looked in the mirror, ran my hands over my head and then it was like my toupee came off. I was left with a smooth shiny top of my head with hair around the edges. Very very strange.
I'm not too concerned with losing my hair, but I don't want to. My dad has very thin hair and my mom's dad (whose genes I apparently received, hence the chemistry thing) is sort of bald. He has some hair on top but is mostly bald. He's also pushing 80, so he obviously doesn't care.
We had the group ice cream social in honor of our two summer undergrad researchers who both did amazing jobs and hopefully are now a little clearer on what goes on in graduate chemistry labs and what actually goes into research. And maybe they'll decide to go here and join our group. Maybe.
But I now have regained control of the "group" computer, but since every in the group has a laptop but me, I see it as mine. But I try and not spend too much time on it, I'm trying to freakin graduate here.
Oh, one of the first activities that I coordinated as president of the grad student org was a paintball trip. That was last Saturday. And it was awesome. Stupid hot but awesome. Luckily the field is very woodsy so we weren't playing in the sun but I lost about 7 pounds of water weight. I think I finally got my kidneys straightened out yesterday. I only got shot twice, once on my chest (a glancing blow) and once on my side above my belt (direct hit). They didn't really hurt but that's part of paintball. Temporary badges of honor. We are definitely going to do it again once it cools down some, late October to early Novemberish.
If any of you want to join in the festivities, you're more than welcome. And it's fairly inexpensive. We charged $15 which covered the field fee and goggle/gun rental and then we payed for the water (very necessary) and the paintballs (also necessary).
Good times.
I was blown away. It was really, really good. Very creamy and delicious. And someone brought toppings and that only helped enhance the experience. I unfortunately don't have pictures, but will try and describe the steps to the best of my ability.
Feel free to tweek the recipe as you see fit:
1) We put 1 quart of half & half, 1.5 pints of regular whipping cream, 2 tbsp of vanilla extract and 1.5 cups of sugar in a bowl. Stir until you think the sugar is dissolved (or have an undergrad summer researcher whose idea is was to make it taste it and see if it's okay)
2) Slowly pour liquid nitrogen directly into the bowl while stirring. Preferably the stirrer should have on low temp gloves as they might get splashed some while pouring and stirring.
3) Check the consistency and keep adding liq. nitrogen until it is the consistency you want. Ours was a little harder than soft serve frozen yogurt. We were tired of stirring, but I hear that you can get it fairly hard and ice cream like. I think a hand mixer or Kitchen-Aid would be very helpful with the stirring.
4) Serve and enjoy. And add toppings if desired.
That's it, from liquid sweet milk products to yummy ice cream in 2 minutes. Damn. Especially good for any high school or intro college chemistry instructors. With that recipe we were able to serve around 11 people.
And a big thanks to Regan for being the guinea pig on this experiment.
I had a dream last week that I was bald. I got out of the shower, looked in the mirror, ran my hands over my head and then it was like my toupee came off. I was left with a smooth shiny top of my head with hair around the edges. Very very strange.
I'm not too concerned with losing my hair, but I don't want to. My dad has very thin hair and my mom's dad (whose genes I apparently received, hence the chemistry thing) is sort of bald. He has some hair on top but is mostly bald. He's also pushing 80, so he obviously doesn't care.
We had the group ice cream social in honor of our two summer undergrad researchers who both did amazing jobs and hopefully are now a little clearer on what goes on in graduate chemistry labs and what actually goes into research. And maybe they'll decide to go here and join our group. Maybe.
But I now have regained control of the "group" computer, but since every in the group has a laptop but me, I see it as mine. But I try and not spend too much time on it, I'm trying to freakin graduate here.
Oh, one of the first activities that I coordinated as president of the grad student org was a paintball trip. That was last Saturday. And it was awesome. Stupid hot but awesome. Luckily the field is very woodsy so we weren't playing in the sun but I lost about 7 pounds of water weight. I think I finally got my kidneys straightened out yesterday. I only got shot twice, once on my chest (a glancing blow) and once on my side above my belt (direct hit). They didn't really hurt but that's part of paintball. Temporary badges of honor. We are definitely going to do it again once it cools down some, late October to early Novemberish.
If any of you want to join in the festivities, you're more than welcome. And it's fairly inexpensive. We charged $15 which covered the field fee and goggle/gun rental and then we payed for the water (very necessary) and the paintballs (also necessary).
Good times.
# posted by Seth @ 7:04 AM 
Who Links Here
