Liquid nitrogen

[Gary]

Hi, I've been experimenting in the kitchen of late and got playing with a recipe for chocolate sorbet. Tried serving in with espresso and I liked. This got me to thinking about using the two as a sig. drink in this year ukbc. Would like to make it on stage though as its a little more invloving for the judges and the audience. I 've seen other people use liquid nitrogen in cooking before but where does one go about finding it? Its not exactly of the shelf!

Any help with this would be great.

Thanks

[matisse]

ohh, nasty stuff if you get it wrong!

you'll need some goggles, heavy gloves and a serious thermos, it'll have to be a proper one.

buying it retail? not sure if you can, but BOC Cryoserv are the guys who supply it to labs i think.

[kingseven]

It is almost impossible to get in small quantities because it is almost impossible to store in small quantities (as it will evaporate very quickly despite being in a top end thermos).

I would advise keeping it as far away from coffee as possible. A few years ago I pulled shots of espresso straight into it while messing about at the Fat Duck. The resulting iced coffee was by far the most bitter coffee experience of my life.

[Gary]

Thanks guys. Realising that its maybe a step too far this one. Thought it would be pretty cool to help prepare my sig. drink on stage. I will just have to prepare the sorbet in advance. Good new is that it looks promising. Played around today with my first batch and tried it a couple of different ways with the espresso and its good. Just need to adjust the amount of cocoa powder in the sorbet itself and play around with the ratios when serving it. But if it works, and this is something I've wanted to do with this drink, I can make up a large batch and serve it to my customers during competition week. Many of them are curious about the competitions and I'd like to be able to let them try the drink in the shop. I just need to stop thinking like a mad scientist and a little more like normal people, no industrial chemicals!lol

[crphillips]

I watched a cooking program with Heston Blumenthal who is well known for mixing science and cooking in some wierd experiments with facinating results. He uses lots of liquid nitrogen.........anyway......He made an apple sorbet but he added a special heat resisting chemical that stops it melting. He served it with a glass of whisky poured over the sorbet and it was set alight.........the sorbet did not melt. It looked pretty cool.

Maybe something spectacular involving sorbet, espresso and fire could be arranged.

[Tristan]

Problem is that espresso is a stubborn old beast and tends to taste horrible if it's anything other than freshly extracted and hot!

[bruceb]

I have spent most of my career in an electron microscopy laboratory so liquid nitrogen is always available. The cost of this convenience is enormous because a special cryo tank has to be rented or purchased and liquid nitrogen has to be delivered by cryo truck twice a month. There is no feasible way of obtaining small quantities of liquid nitrogen. The material itself is cheap as chips, but delivery and storage make it unobtainable for most dabblers, which is good because it is potentially quite dangerous.

Mention was made of a "Thermos," and it should be noted that glass-lined vacuum flasks or "Dewars" should never be used with liquid nitrogen. The thermal shock that occurs when these containers thaw out (200°C in milliseconds) can cause the glass liner to implode with a force not unlike a bomb. I have personally experienced this and can vouch for its destructiveness.

If you want to achieve lower than normal cold temperatures it is safest to use solid carbon dioxide (dry ice). It is inexpensive and readily available and with normal precautions quite safe.

[Tristan]

The thermal shock that occurs when these containers thaw out (200°C in milliseconds) can cause the glass liner to implode with a force not unlike a bomb. I have personally experienced this and can vouch for its destructiveness.

That's the coolest thing that i've read all day!

If you want to achieve lower than normal cold temperatures it is safest to use solid carbon dioxide (dry ice). It is inexpensive and readily available and with normal precautions quite safe.

Ben Townsend used dry ice last year, he used an anti-griddle too actually to make some sort of aeropress ice cream stick IIRC.

[bruceb]

That's the coolest thing that i've read all day!

-196 °C

[bruceb]

I just found a bizarre "instruction video" for making liquid nitrogen, which I believe is really liquid air. It requires dry ice and isopropyl alcohol..

I am NOT recommending this, but for the sake of being silly here it is.

Be Careful

[Gary]

My spidey sense is tingling!!! Im sensing an accident waiting to happen!lol

[Eschatologist]

Made me think of this for some reason

[darrensandford]

I wonder if espresso allowed to cool to room temperature more slowly (or allowed to stay hot for a little while before chilling) would be less sour/bitter than a shot pulled straight onto something cold.

[bruceb]

What could be easier to try than that?