Frostbite Theater

Announcer: Frostbite Theater presents... Cold Cuts! No baloney!

Joanna and Steve: Just science!

Joanna: Hi! I'm Joanna!

Steve: And I'm Steve!

Joanna: Today, we're going to be making liquid nitrogen ice cream!

Steve: Now, if you've seen our channel before, you might realize that we've done this before.

And, we have!

Liquid nitrogen ice cream was the very first video that was intentionally made to be put up on YouTube [by Jefferson Lab]. But that was sixteen year ago!

Joanna: Whaaa!

Steve: Hopefully, the thought is, we've gotten better at this.

Joanna: Maybe.

Steve: Maybe. We'll find out.

But ours is a very simple recipe.

Joanna: First, you take two quarts of half and half.

Steve: You have one cup of sugar.

Joanna: And four teaspoons of vanilla.

Steve: So what we basically have now is melted vanilla ice cream.

The key, though - Cooling this off, right? The secret ingredient to liquid nitrogen ice cream is the liquid nitrogen. And, happily, here at Jefferson Lab, liquid nitrogen is not a problem.

Again, if you've been on the channel before, you've seen us liberally spill this around.

Nitrogen, the main component of the air. And, in its liquid state, currently, right now, it's boiling. Three hundred twenty one degrees below zero. All this nice foggy stuff... is just fog.

Right? It's water vapor from the air that we're cooling down -

We cool the air below the dew point, the water condenses out, and you get clouds!

And once we have our ice cream nice and mixed we're going to start adding in the nitrogen to cool it off.

Now, this process does take a few minutes. It's going to be like three or four minutes of us... Mixing [stirring] and adding and stirring. Not the most exciting video. We're going to fast forward through this. If you really want to see the entire thing the full video will be linked in the description below. And you can watch four minutes of mixing and stirring the ice cream. So, if you're going to fast forward, we'll see you on the other side.

Otherwise...

Joanna: This is a slow process.

Steve: Yes, thank you for sticking around. If you're still here.

So, this is one of the problems with the ice cream. 'Cause you do get a lot of foaming.

Joanna: And it starts to really bubble up.

Steve: So one of the keys is to add the nitrogen slowly. Because you don't want half of your ice cream ending up on the floor.

Joanna: That would be sad.

Steve: That would be very, very sad.

So, Joanna, sixteen years.

Joanna: I can't believe it. Time goes quickly.

Steve: Do you have a favorite video that we've done?

Joanna: I do!

I actually... My favorite video was the cloud chamber.

Steve: Oh, really?

Joanna: Yeah!

Steve: Oh, that was a painful one.

Both: [Laughter]

Steve: We had to shoot it twice!

Joanna: I know!

Steve We had to do it twice because we mispronounced -

I'm not going to say it correctly now...

Polonium?

Joanna: Yes!

Steve: I think it's how it is?

Joanna: Yes.

Steve: Yes, so there were actually two versions of that video. We had so many comments of "You mispronounced that!" You're like "You know what, we're going to go back and reshoot it."

Joanna: So, if you haven't watched it, you should go watch it.

Steve: Yes, how to build a cloud chamber.

Joanna: Did you have a favorite one?

Steve: I think the most useful one...

Oh, and the reason why I'm blowing all the time... I'm trying to knock some of the bubbles down. I'm not just out of breath.

But I think the most useful - was actually the half-life video.

Joanna: Okay.

Steve: So that one took, again, forever to actually film.

Joanna: Umm humm.

Steve: That was, I think it was Shannon's first go at being camera operator.

Joanna: Right! We've gone through a few!

Steve: And we drove her entirely nuts.

Both: [Laughter]

Steve: That was like, four hours, or something?

That was forever to get that thing shot. But it was one of those things where, if you're going to be doing that sort of experiment, like here - It's not that much different than... watching on video. Right? You're just watching the numbers on the screen. And, since a lot of schools can't really get their hands on you know, the radioactive materials.

Joanna: Exactly.

Steve: Or the detectors that we use to measure it. And the, the scaler to do the counting. It was a fair amount of equipment that was needed for it - that boils down to you're just sort of watching numbers on the screen.

Joanna: Exactly.

Steve: And, of course, honors go out to first cameraman, Greg.

Joanna: Yes!

He sat through a lot of bloopers.

Steve: He really did!

Joanna: He got tired of us, too.

Steve: And he was also very insistant on doing things in one take.

Joanna: Yes!

Steve: Great guy, though. Miss him very much.

Joanna: It's starting to look like ice cream.

Steve: Yes, it's getting there. So, this is still much faster than just shoving it in the freezer.

Joanna: Yup.

Steve: You have that sort of oatmeal look to it.

Joanna: It'll taste good, though!

Steve: And Stephanie was only in that very first video.

Joanna: That's right!

Steve: It was never intended to be a series.

Joanna: No. But it ended up being pretty successful.

Steve: Yeah! So, it was a -

I was actually showing one of the teachers that was here the film canisters. And he was like "Oh! I can film that and put that on YouTube!" And I was like "Wait a minute. We can film that and put that on YouTube." Just what came from there.

And we apologize also for our irregular filming schedule.

Joanna: This is kind of our side project amongst our other...

Steve: Yeah, there's no official job here of YouTube video creator. For those of you how don't know, because I don't know how much exploring you all do when you go on these channels. This is a nuclear physics lab. This is a Department of Energy research facility. I'm in the Education group. Joanna's in Communications.

Joanna: That's right.

Steve: And, this is a thing - again, it's like a side project. That we do for fun!

Joanna: Yeah!

Steve: Because it is fun!

Joanna: And it was Steve's brainchild.

Steve: Sixteen years!

Joanna: I know!

Steve: My hair was much darker.

Joanna: Mine is longer. And darker.

Steve: And sometimes it's lighter!

Joanna: That's right!

Steve: And sometimes it's darker!

Joanna: That's right!

Steve: Mine has just gotten progressively lighter as things have gone on.

I think we're looking pretty good.

Joanna: I think so, too! It looks like ice cream.

Steve: Alrightie!

So, if you didn't stick around with us, we're back! Ice cream is now made. Add toppings as you like.

Joanna: Or mix ins.

Steve: And enjoy your nice, frosty treat!

Joanna: That's right! Thank you so much for watching!

Both: Bye!

Steve: That's a wrap!

Joanna: It is!

Steve: Did I get ice cream on my back?

Joanna: Probably! I held it away! You did not! Yay!

Both: And thus ends Frostbite Theater. Thanks for watching!