OT: How do you make a cocktail with liquid nitrogen?

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Couldn't afford prosthetics, huh?

[Martin Brown]

This part is without a shadow of doubt correct.

MSDS doesn't even consider the possibility that people will drink LN2.

I hope this part is being mis-reported. It is the part of the girl in direct contact with the LN2 that will freeze and become brittle. The LN2 just absorbs heat from its surroundings and evaporates.

The over pressure caused by flash boiling of LN2 inside the stomach appears to have done the real damage if the reports are to be believed. A gram of LN2 becomes almost a litre of gas at STP.

Depending on what figure you use for the capacity of the stomach you end up concluding that she must have consumed about 5g or more LN2. (so he is about right with a teaspoonful)

It appears that in a conical cocktail glass a spirit and LN2 can coexist for long enough to drink it. Very nasty.

[Onetap]

I find it hard to believe that anyone uses that stuff for anything non-essential. Stupidity recognises no limits.

It makes the famous McDonalds hot coffee incident look like, er, a storm in a teacup.

[The Other Mike]

Maybe not specifically, but "Protect eyes, face and skin from contact with product." is quite clear IMHO and there are enough other warnings in the rest of the MSDS for someone with half a clue to realise that pissing about with it is a really bad idea.

a few snippets:

Uses advised against Consumer use.

may cause cryogenic burns or injury.

Contact with product may cause cold burns or frostbite . In high concentrations may cause asphyxiation.

Wear cold insulating gloves/face shield/eye protection.

Remove victim to uncontaminated area wearing self contained breathing apparatus.

First Aid Skin / Eye: In case of frostbite spray with water for at least 15 minutes. Apply a sterile dressing. Obtain medical assistance. Immediately flush eyes thoroughly with water for at least 15 minutes.

Personal protective equipment Eye and face protection Safety eyewear, goggles or face shield to EN166 should be used to avoid exposure to liquid splashes. Skin protection Hand protection Advice: EN 511 Protective gloves against cold. Body protection Protect eyes, face and skin from contact with product. Other protection Wear cold insulating gloves.

Thermal hazards If there is a risk of contact with the liquid, all protective equipment should be suitable for extremely low temperatures.

[Martin Brown]

>> Just a few snippets:

So may your deep freezer.

So may your deep freezer.

I don't want to underplay the risks of handling LN2, but the official safety measures of wearing clumsy insulating gloves when handling the stuff have probably caused more injuries than they have prevented.

LN2 bounces off skin pretty harmlessly provided that it doesn't get trapped in contact. Wearing gloves actually provides a way to trap the stuff against your skin if a careless splash occurs which is really bad. The main reason for using gloves is to avoid touching metal at seriously low temperatures. Liquid LN2 itself is pretty benign.

That is incredibly important if there is a major spill. You go down unconscious after just a few breaths of pure nitrogen or argon. The brain doesn't recognise shortage of oxygen at all only too much CO2.

There have been far too many multiple fatalities using nitrogen as an inert atmosphere. It is non-toxic but it asphyxiates *very* quickly.

Yes. And the trouble with modern MSDS is if you look at the one for pure distilled water the boiler plate warnings are all way OTT.

Lets be clear here. I think it is absolutely certifiable to be handing out drinks containing LN2 to members of the public in a bar. I hope that the craze is quickly stamped out. I think liability insurance claims against the bar over this incident will be very interesting.

I would love to see the COSSH risk assessment for this crazy drink!

But equally LN2 is really quite benign if you follow basic cryogenic precautions and don't do stupid things with it.

[djc]

I am sure that the insurance companies reaction to this will have the effect of stamping it out almost immediately. Add in a prosecution under H&S legislation and that's the end of it.

[Alan Braggins]

Du Pont advertizing brochure:

a bit older than your dad, but the same principle :-) )

[whisky-dave]

I'm not sure it's meant to drink it's usually used to create a mist. There's a bar about 500 yeards from here advertising liquid nitrogen cocktails. How many people have died from such and thing ?, and now many have died from standard alcohol poisining and then there's those cancer sticks anyone can buy if you're over 18. A tragic accident perhaps waiting to happen we'll jhave to see what actually happened in that one instance.

I've used liquid nitrogen but not in my cocktails.

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , Tim Watts escribió:

A safer way of playing with LN2:

[GB]

A stupidly stupid question, but why does the whole bin take off like that? I expect that the explosion sends a shock wave out that hits and distorts the dustbin, but I can't see a massive distortion in the video.

[John Williamson]

It only takes a small deflection of the base to do it. It's hidden by camera angle, and it only needs a few millimetres.

[Martin Brown]

Food grade LN2 should be OK provided that you don't *DRINK* it!

The flat bottom of the bin deforms mostly downwards like a piston. The sides are actually very much stronger as a part of a cylinder. It has already recoiled again before you can see it lift up.

I have never seen anyone mad enough to use a screw capped bottle for this trick and I know some pretty crazy physicists/chemists. The ping pong balls on the top are a stroke of genius (and probably help prevent the plastic shrapnel from the bottle escaping upwards).

It used to be popular with postgrads to do this on a much smaller scale with LN2 into plastic film canisters. May well still be...

[hugh]

In message , Martin Brown writes

It's illegal/against regulations

1. to use coffee grounds against slugs as it is not an approved pesticide
2. to re-use glass jam-jars for food as it they are not certified as re-usable There were attempts to ban long standing harmless herbal remedies because they hadn't been subjected to clinical trials. HTF is it not illegal to add LN to something for human consumption?

[Nightjar]

On 10/10/2012 11:09, hugh wrote: ....

I'm not sure how well that would hold up to challenge, given that that 'do not reuse' instructions on medical devices intended for single use have been ruled as not enforceable.

Colin Bignell

[Nightjar]

Having now looked at Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004, ISTM that the NFWI is talking through its collective hat.

The Directive specifically states:

'The use of recycled materials and articles should be favoured in the Community for environmental reasons, provided that strict requirements are established to ensure food safety and consumer protection'

Jam makers sterilise their jars before use, which should easily satisfy the need to ensure food safety.

Colin Bignell

[Martin Brown]

But you can use it as a soil improver that might happen to have unfortunate side effects on the slug population.

It is clear that the intent of this EU regulation was to prevent someone storing foodstuffs in old weedkiller bottles etc. leading to cross contamination. They do seem to have outlawed selling produce reused jamjars if the interpretation I have seen is correct.

And there might actually be some merit in preventing people selling home made trendy herbs in oil bottles because if you get the pH just slightly wrong botulism poisoning is a real possibility.

But it is storing weedkiller in an old lemonade bottle that is far more likely to result in a serious and potentially lethal accident. Children can be tempted to drink from pop bottles!

However, do not underestimate the tendency of UK civil servants to gold plate EU legislation and produce something that does in effect outlaw reusing jamjars on pain of a £5000 fine. They have form for this.

If you look at how they "improved" the old alcohol licence application for village halls from one sheet of double sided A4 in 2002 to a statutory instrument booklet of a dozen pages you will get the idea.

The premises license was even better "one size fits all" application form included sections for "name and address of your second team of lawyers dealing with this application". Same form used for an Olympic stadium holding 100k people or a Scout Hut holding 30.

[polygonum]

Some of the discussion I heard mentioned things leaching out of glass into whatever is put into it. While no such containers will be made of lead crystal, maybe some are made for non-food purposes which could be a problem? Maybe OK with a preserve but not a pickle? Or vice versa?

That would obvioulsy not apply to, e.g., preserving jars, which are intended for re-use.

[Martin Brown]

I can't think of any soda glass formulation that would contain the sorts of things that could leach out into foodstuffs jam or pickle. There might be a trace of the previous contents of the bottle adsorbed onto the surface of the glass but that is all. The main impurity in glass is iron which makes it green - clear glass has to be fairly pure!

If you were selling concentrated caustic or stainless steel welding flux then you would need to think hard about the choice of container. These are not products the WI are likely to be bottling.

I expect that *plastic* bottles not intended for foodstuffs could well include plasticisers that are not food safe and also that some plastic food containers cannot be adequately cleaned at home to a state fit to reuse. Any plastic that has been in contact with lycopenes from tomato sauce for example will not come clean.

> That would obvioulsy not apply to, e.g., preserving jars, which are

Elderly ones always seem to have rust somewhere on the lid...

[Man at B&Q]

Only because they make claims they cannot substantiate. Same with all the other quackery such as chiro, homeopathy, ...

MBQ

[Adam Funk]

off with cold water before running the dishwasher with plastic containers.