Good point, I was thinking the OP wanted to stir the dry ice into the chilli. But he is just wanting a dramatic unveiling, what might work better would be to float a mixing bowl full of warm water on the chilli, and put the dry ice in that.
That would also ensure there would be no altering of the taste, and eliminate the possiblility of accidental ingestion.
My idea would be to use a tall pot and keep the level of the chilli no hight than two thirds up the pot, this would keep the mixing bowl from being seen, and allow the fog to billow over the side. Also, the mixing bowl would probably fog up more thatn the chilli ever would.
You might solve the problem with a little minor engineering. If you have a large enough crock pot you could sink a small, clean and sturdy plastic cup in the middle of the chilli, fill it with water or whatever, place a couple lumps of dry ice in there and from a distance it would look like the chilli was producing the smoke, not the cup. You’d have to make sure it’s sturdy enough plastic to take the hot chilli without melting and contain the cold dry ice without cooling your food unduly.
This is what I was getting at with the test tube suggestion. What about one of those foam things designed to hold beer cans? You could put a piece of duct tape over the drainage hole in the bottom.
C’mon - duct tape and a beer insulator in chili? You’d get extra macho points for that for doupleplus sure!
I’m well aware of what soda is. I’m also well aware of what my Inorganic Chem prof told us in lecture about acid anhydrides. While I may have missed the boat slightly regarding the organ that’ll be affected (lungs more’n stomach, especially if you have someone standing around breathing in carbonic acid for a while), my understanding was that there’ll be a nontrivial effect. Not enough to send someone to the ER, of course, and not the effect you’d get if you put SO[sub]3[/sub] or PO[sub]3[/sub] in the chili (sulfuric acid and phosphoric acid are ever so slightly stronger’n carbonic;)), but I wouldn’t stand over it and breathe deeply all night long:)
Wow! I never thought a mundane question would garner this much interest. . .
However, I’ve gleaned a few things that I hadn’t remembered/thought of before:
[ul]
[li]As Ferret Herder says, dry ice floats. Now typically my chili is thick enough that I wouldn’t worry, but this does raise a good point. I would also have to be careful not to move it around too much while stirring and serving.[/li][li]Accidental ingestion: Another good safety point. I’m trying to have people feel the heat, not the cold.[/li][li]As some of you have already mentioned, I might consider the “test tube” route or something. It makes sense, but what about double “potting”. Put the chili pot into a larger pot, with warm water surrounding it and have the dry ice ‘smoke’ out of that. While not nearly as cool, it’s a possibility.[/li][/ul]
I will enlist the help of a few other individuals, and we will conduct a scientific experiment the weekend of New Years Eve, with results posted shortly thereafter. I plan on making a batch of Festivus Chili, saving one part as a ‘control group’, and a few others as ‘experiment groups’. This way, I can attempt to measure any changes in taste. I’ll try a few different methods, but I’ll document everything accordingly. . .
Actually, this gives me an idea: Anyone relatively close to Great Falls, MT? Let’s do a Nu Yeers Chili-DopeFest at my place! I’ll have the food. You bring the beer.
[QUOTE=Tripler]
However, I’ve gleaned a few things that I hadn’t remembered/thought of before:
[list]
[li]As Ferret Herder says, dry ice floats. Now typically my chili is thick enough that I wouldn’t worry, but this does raise a good point. I would also have to be careful not to move it around too much while stirring and serving.[/li][/quote]
While it may well float in as viscous a heterogenous liquid as chili, dry ice sinks to the bottom of your average container of water. Cites:
Water’s typical density (assuming we are not looking at the density at the bottom of a mile-deep tub) is 1g/cm^3, but the thing is that, barring a scientific determination of the density of your chili (and it’ll be lower at the top than at the bottom) it’d be hard to say what’d happen. My guess is that it would not sink all the way to the bottom.
Apologies if this has allready been mentioned as an idea.
You could wrap the dry ice in muslin cloth and tie it up like a bouquet garnie (sp?) that way it would not distribute itself arround the food, and would be obvious (hopefully) for anyone to avoid trying to eat it. If you have a pan with a heater underneath (like a fondue pan) then it shouldn’t cool the food down too much even in large quantities.
