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I'd love to try this myself, but where I currently live - despite being an ingredient in a few traditional cured meat dishes - nitrate salts require a virtually

I'd love to try this myself, but where I currently live - despite being an ingredient in a few traditional cured meat dishes - nitrate salts require a virtually unobtainable (to a private person) permit to obtain, because of terrorism concerns.

jsjohnst 4y ago
> where I currently live Not surprised by your story, but still curious where you live? In the US, you can buy it in bulk quantity on Amazon. Mixing it with sugar was a ton of fun when I was a kid, smoke bombs that could totally white out a large backyard.
- UpstandingUser 4y ago
  You can get it at the hardware store, it'll break down tree stumps pretty quickly (and very inexpensively).
  - jsjohnst 4y ago
    Yep, any place that has garden supplies generally has it. That’s where I got it when I was a kid anyway, as that was years before Amazon’s existence.
- nibbleshifter 4y ago
  A Western European country. I could easily order it from overseas online, but the consequences are pretty harsh (violates the explosives laws). Not worth it tbh. Somewhere else I lived in Eastern Europe, it was available in shops in 100g bags for curing meat, etc, or at the garden shop in 25kg sacks as a fertiliser.
PBnFlash 4y ago
Urea also is endothermic, and as it is used in diesel engines I am quite sure it's available globally.
- nibbleshifter 4y ago
  Aye, urea is what's in the "instant ice packs" now. It used to be ammonium nitrate, but most brands switched it to urea a few years ago - presumably for reasons of "people could use the extremely nice, uncoated, very pure ammonium nitrate for nefarious purposes" (useful for explosives and methamphetamine manufacturing!)
masklinn 4y ago
FWIW the dissolution of table salt in water is also endothermic, though to a much lower extent than saltpeter: the enthalpy of solution for saltpeter is +34.9kJ/mol, for table salt it's +3.87. An other option is ammonium nitrate at +25.69, though you might also have trouble with terrorism regulations as it's both a common fertiliser and a component for explosives.
- nibbleshifter 4y ago
  I often will use salt in ice baths specifically for that reason :) Ammonium nitrate used to be uses in the "instant ice/cold packs" for first aid, but has since been replaced with urea - I believe due to the terrorism regulations. Which means (as another poster suggested) I'll be trying urea as a way to chill drinks sometime soon I guess.
  - hoseja 4y ago
    I think the reason for saline cooling baths is that the liquid stays liquid at lower temperature, not any additional cooling from dissolving the salt.

jsjohnst 4y ago

> where I currently live Not surprised by your story, but still curious where you live? In the US, you can buy it in bulk quantity on Amazon. Mixing it with sugar was a ton of fun when I was a kid, smoke bombs that could totally white out a large backyard.

UpstandingUser 4y ago
You can get it at the hardware store, it'll break down tree stumps pretty quickly (and very inexpensively).
- jsjohnst 4y ago
  Yep, any place that has garden supplies generally has it. That’s where I got it when I was a kid anyway, as that was years before Amazon’s existence.
nibbleshifter 4y ago
A Western European country. I could easily order it from overseas online, but the consequences are pretty harsh (violates the explosives laws). Not worth it tbh. Somewhere else I lived in Eastern Europe, it was available in shops in 100g bags for curing meat, etc, or at the garden shop in 25kg sacks as a fertiliser.

PBnFlash 4y ago

Urea also is endothermic, and as it is used in diesel engines I am quite sure it's available globally.

nibbleshifter 4y ago
Aye, urea is what's in the "instant ice packs" now. It used to be ammonium nitrate, but most brands switched it to urea a few years ago - presumably for reasons of "people could use the extremely nice, uncoated, very pure ammonium nitrate for nefarious purposes" (useful for explosives and methamphetamine manufacturing!)

masklinn 4y ago

FWIW the dissolution of table salt in water is also endothermic, though to a much lower extent than saltpeter: the enthalpy of solution for saltpeter is +34.9kJ/mol, for table salt it's +3.87. An other option is ammonium nitrate at +25.69, though you might also have trouble with terrorism regulations as it's both a common fertiliser and a component for explosives.

nibbleshifter 4y ago
I often will use salt in ice baths specifically for that reason :) Ammonium nitrate used to be uses in the "instant ice/cold packs" for first aid, but has since been replaced with urea - I believe due to the terrorism regulations. Which means (as another poster suggested) I'll be trying urea as a way to chill drinks sometime soon I guess.
- hoseja 4y ago
  I think the reason for saline cooling baths is that the liquid stays liquid at lower temperature, not any additional cooling from dissolving the salt.