The Science Behind DIY Ice Cream

Make your own ice cream!
What you need:
1/4 cup of half and half
1/4 cup of milk
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla
+
1 sandwich bag
1 gallon-sized bag
salt
gloves
How to:
Put all the ingredients in a sandwich bag
Close the sandwich bag
Put ice in your gallon-sized bag (probably like 3 cups worth)
Put salt in your gallon-sized bag (probably like 3 tablespoons or more)
Place sandwich bag in a Gallon-sized bag
Put on your gloves
Massage the bags for 5-7 minutes.

[@chanikool]

It's colder because salt suck up heat when dissolved, not because the ice melt.

[@Electronzap]

Very cool Emily! I want to learn how to make DIY freeze dried ice cream without buying an expensive machine. :)

[@jeffwillson5322]

Hi Emily,
My daughter was really excited by the video (and so was I) so we tried it today. A couple things we did differently:
-Made the ice in a muffin baking sheet so when we put the ice in the large bag we bashed it with a hammer to break down the large ice chunks
-Used sea salt where the grain size was smaller, since we didnt have rock salt
-We put two small bags in the larger bag of ice, chocolate chip vanilla and maple syrup vanilla flavors
Ours didnt work exactly as planned. My daughter and I discussed things we did differently that might have had some affect and here is what we came up with:
-The smaller grains of salt we used
-The large bag had a small hole in it (I'm sure from the hammer bashing it) where the salty water leaked out
-The fact we used two bags of ice cream instead of one
-The extra ingredients we added (chocolate chips and maple syrup)
Any thoughts to which of these variables had an affect on our failed experiment?
P.S. the mixtures are in the freezer right now so hopefully it wont be a complete fail.

[@SpaceGal]

hmm...I did use A LOT of salt. I think you need a really high concentration of salt to get your temperature down low enough. I imagine the extra ingredients would make it slightly harder to cool down the ice cream as well... Like any good scientist, you should test it out again and only change 1 variable at a time! (I think your daughter might ask that you test it out MANY more times ;) )

[@hamsandwich8611]

This video is really cool I was recommended from Mark Rober

[@denisekohlmann9234]

Does it matter what kind of salt you use?

[@SpaceGal]

No I don't think so! I imagine any type of table salt (regular ole NaCl) should do!

[@JacobTJ1]

Absorbs or releases heat?

[@andrewmole745]

Ice absorbs heat when it melts (latent heat). Normally it does so at 32degF (0degC), which would not cause the creamy mixture to freeze. However, the salty water ice mixture will stick at a lower temperature as the ice melts and will therefore freeze the creamy mixture (ie the ice is absorbing heat from the cream).
You have to keep massaging it to make sure that large ice crystals do not form.

[@JacobTJ1]

@@andrewmole745 thank you

[@SLIMEY942]

I should taste that its looks good

[@stratisclouds]

What about the ice cream?

[@SLIMEY942]

@@stratisclouds I literally just said, "I should taste that it looks good"... ...Whats your point?

[@stratisclouds]

@@SLIMEY942 I thought you meant the couch

[@clarine8890]

now it's 13

[@clarine8890]

now 12

[@hamsandwich8611]

Hi