Ice cream in the desert

Nice looking hole you're fishing in Craig.....get any?

No fish,
There were seals everwhere. Looked to good not to have a crack.The spot is 2km West of the Baxter cliffs.

Brilliant spot.

Craig

Matey,

Dry Ice has traditionally been produced from CO2 and as John has said, can be very dangerous to handle. Its temperature is -78C and can result in burns when handling. Together with all the other hassles it is a romantic but risky notion. It may be better to take a second small fridge run as a freezer which would be cheaper anyway.

Some TV shows like to be very 'clever' but you don't get to see all the hassles off-camera to create the dramatic presentation.

Having said that, if you see me going past when you have just made some ice-cream, wave me over to provide an expert opinion of the product. LOL

For a safer solution you could carry the nitrogen in your tyres :)

Cheers
Greg

I second that Allan, I'll be in the official tasting team;). Struth Matey what a dream. In the desert eatin icecream. Keep dreaming!

mmmm... the science or the dream.

I thank you for the info and the concern, but The Explorer's reply got me thinking. Fill one of my spares with nitrogen???!!!

It's outside the vehicle and with tyre being a 265/75R16 I should have heaps.

Call me crazy but you're probably right.
mmmm......ice cream in the desert......

Sorry eighty matey, I doubt that you are serious but anyway, sublimating from the maximum safe pressure of your tyre will not be sufficient to produce the temperature you seek. You need to start from a very much higher pressure.

Hi Allan,

it's been something I thought about, and spoken about, when camping for a while.

When I saw the TV cook, Heston someone, do a frozen desert in a back yard, using a small gas cylinder, a stainless steel bowl and a big pair of gloves, it was like my dream was possible.

I've had a few crazy ideas abouit how I could do it (which I may patent in case they work) but this TV show "looked"easyish.

I'll Google the show.

Like Craig F said, "Dream big and live large". That sounds good.



Thanks for your input,

Steve

Yep, don't stop dreaming.........that's where the greatest ideas have come from.

Come on, where's the fun in that??

Sure, it's luxurious and slightly decadent but using inappropriate ingredients to create a frozen desert from liquids in the Great Sandy Desert on a Tuesday night... I reckon that'd be something different.

My son is about 3 weeks away from being a fully qualified Fridge/Freezer/Air con mechanic. I should get him to test his knowledge and help me create my desert. He made a stubby cooler that actually cools your stubby! but that was using 240 volts It should just be one step more.

Have fun,

Steve

That's the spirit Alastair.

I've got 96 days until we leave, so I'll try some stuff. It would be the best surprise to knock it up when we're camping.

I'll let you klow how I go,

Steve

and dry ice is used to ship
....... wait for it .......
ice creams,
yes we use it, we buy our ice creams by the box, about 20 30 boxes each time and it is packed in a "shipper" (small boxes in a bigger box) and they pack dry ice in small plastic bags around the small boxes ...... the bags are about 6" x 4"
We buy it in Alice Springs so there is someone in Alice that makes and sells the dry ice in packets specifically for transport usage .......
One thing is that it is gone after 3 days, thats how long it takes for our freight to get here .... so i cant tell yo how long it lasts but if you somehow find out who sells it in Alice they will be able to tell you how long it lasts
You idea now is starting to look posibble ....

Yes indeed and exactly right, before the advent of cheap and universally accessable refrigeration lots of things where shipped in dry ice.

And yes icecream particularly, used to be regularly shipped to regional towns by normal rail and road freight packed in dry ice.

even today, if you have been to a school fete, the icecreams served from the company provided icecream van would have been shipped, stored in and served out of dry ice........

back in the days before just about everybody could afford a portable fridge, if you wanted to go camping or traveling for more than a day or two dry ice was a necessity.

How long it lasts well that is dependent on how well the package is insulated, the ambient temperature, and how much dry ice is packed compared to the material being stored and how well it is managed.

I have personally seen dry ice still remaining after 5 days.

If you realy want long times out of dry ice you need to be talking block, because it is so much more dense than pellets.

The icecream shippers generally used are not fabulously insulated ( its just not cost effective) yet they can still get 2 or 3 days out of it.

As I say those medical shippers are worth a look, if you can lay hands on any, some of them the walls are 2 or 3 inches thick high density styro.

If you get everything right, 5 days is certainly not out of the question.

cheers

Anybody see that whack job of a science teacher a few months back, who was running a tally in his classroom of year seven kids, on who could hold a piece of dry ice in their bare hands the longest?
Several got burnt and needed surgery

Thanks for the tip Joe n Mel n kids,

I could find a spot in the fridge for dry ice and that'd help it keep.

mmmm, I'm pretty sure I'm going to have ice cream, one way or another, at Jupiter Well on, or about, the evening of August 6, 2012.

I'll do some experimenting this weekend. It should be fun.

Steve

I saw that and wondered what it would be like.

Really keen to be a bit more innovative, if you know what I mean.

Steve

That'd be fun, and slightly off centre, to set up the ice cream maker on the tailgate after dinner. Churn up a bit of ice cream for everyone.

The bowl has to be pre-frozen so I give that squirt if nitrogen!!

I can almost taste it.

hooroo,
Steve

I really liked the video.

That's the sort of thing I was thinking of, but I won't have ice.

I'm going to play around with some stuff and see what happens,

Steve

Mind you, I thought the original recipe said... "beat until stiff". Which these days would not take long at all! LOL

My Nan used to make ice cream using that recipe. It was my favourite and still might be my favourite.

I really like the 21st century idea of having an icecream maker running off an inverter, totally surrounded by desert.

I'm really going to try and do this. 96 days until I leave.

Hooroo,
Steve

I also love the luxury of pulling a cold drink, or fresh sandwiches, our of the fridge on a hot day, in the middle of nowhere.

We have a second, smaller Engel that we were thinking about taking for a freezer but decided against it. Space and weight are our two main considerations.

I like the challenge of "creating the frozen dessert in the desert".

The ice cream maker run off an inverter sounds different to me.
If I can get it organised and working, I'm not going to tell the others travelling with us and just whip some ice cream up after dinner one night.

That'd be fun,

hooroo,
Steve

Troll

"I personally just take ice-cream with me but I can see the fun in the experiment"

Same here.

Then again taking your own leaves more time to enjoy the bush. Maybe even catch that big one. I think I would rather fish, or watch a sunset, than cook etc.

Can't stand gelatto though. Prefer the smooth milk/cream based stuff.

Phil

I'm sure I can have a beer, or two, while I make up a batch of ice cream.

Ahh the serenity. There's nothing like the hum of an ice cream maker as you take in the wonders of the Australian landscape :)

hooroo

And the hum of the generator to run the machine??? I wonder but then you may use an inverter.

We were sitting on the top of Big Red and not another car around (11/Sep/11). It was late in the day and not another car or person in sight apart from my wife and I. An amazing sunset. I know what you mean.

Still prefer a chocolate covered Streets one from the shops (2nd fridge).

Catchya

Phil

Hi Greybeard,

in Ron N's reply (10 of 15 above) there is a link to a video that show's it being done. Copy and paste this link to have a look, if you want -

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/821699/make_instant_ice_cream/

I'm going to try it this weekend.

Steve