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Liquid Smoke: The History Behind a Divisive Culinary Shortcut

Barbecue's love/hate relationship with the manufactured flavor

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Biting into the blackened crust of a slice of fatty brisket, one's taste buds are inundated with saltiness, a slight peppery spiciness, and, of course, smoke. At at any god-honest barbecue joint, pitmasters dedicate hours babysitting their smokers, routinely feeding the iron apparatus chips of hickory or applewood and eyeing the timer like a hawk. For these barbecue heads, obtaining such rich, smoky essence doesn't come easy. But not everyone's willing to do things the hard way.

The advent of liquid smoke — literally, smoke condensed into a liquid form — has allowed folks to cut down smoking time from hours to, well, mere seconds (mirroring if not the texture of slow-smoked meat, then at least its principal flavor). Its usage causes barbecue purists ( like the late Josh Ozersky ) to roll their eyes, and health groups have consistently voiced concern over possible health effects.

But the growing popularity of liquid smoke can be seen almost everywhere. A variety of liquid smoke-branded bottles stock the grocery shelves, and products like "smoked" bacon reveal their true nature on the packages' ingredient labels. In the gastronomy realm, where ingredients like " smoked-infused lettuce " aren't so outlandish, liquid smoke enjoys a recurring role as a flavor additive. So how did this divisive ingredient become so popular?

A New York smokehouse, 1923. Eugene L. Armbruster/The New York Historical Society/Getty Images

Leave it to science to butt heads with tradition. Ernest H. Wright, a Kansas City, Missouri pharmacist, created the ingredient in 1895. According to a 1923 edition of The Rotarian , Wright's inspiration for liquid smoke was the memory of "a drop of liquid trickling down the stove-pipe" in the print shop he worked at as a teenager. The pharmacist realized a decade later that smoke condenses when it comes into contact with the cold air. By running smoke from burning hickory wood through a condenser, Wright collected the droplets containing the chemicals from the hot vapors. The collected liquid could then be used as a delicious, cheap alternative to literally smoking meat .

Liquid smoke's early use was less as a flavoring agent and more as a preservative. At the time, farmers in the South — where Wright was selling his initial batch of product — smoked salt-cured ham and pork bellies largely for preservation reasons. Bugs, however, apparently love the taste of pork as much as humans, and flies oftentimes would lay their eggs in the hunks of flesh hanging in the smokehouse. As a result , the ham and pork bellies were frequently ruined, unable to be sold. While Wright's liquid smoke did capture that savory carnal essence, the new-age smokemaster made his fortune by marketing his product as a cheap preservative. (Contemporary studies have confirmed that Wright wasn't selling junk science: Liquid smoke does have some anti-microbacterial properties, and brining or topically applying liquid smoke to meat can extend its shelf life.)

Contemporary studies have confirmed that Wright wasn’t selling junk science.

Competition quickly cracked Wright's code, and other liquid smoke brands cropped up. Figaro (founded in 1904, now owned by the Louisiana-based Baumer Foods, which is also behind Crystal Hot Sauce) and Colgin (founded in Dallas in 1945) also began selling their products as preservatives.

By the 1950s and '60s, the advent of suburbia and those idyllic backyard cookouts prompted the growing consumer appetite for smokier, carnal flavors. This, coupled with the powdered-this-canned-that-no-fuss-tuna-casserole attitude of at-home cooking, provided the perfect storm for liquid smoke to enter the American kitchen . With the American Food and Drug Administration giving the product its safety blessing in 1960, according to the Handbook of Meat, Poultry and Seafood Quality , by the ‘70s, liquid smoke was in full swing as a flavoring agent for home use as well as commercial brands' ketchups, barbecue sauces, cheeses, oysters, and — yes — bacon. Nowadays, liquid smoke brands are unabashed in advertising their products' main use as quick, cheap flavoring agents.

Photo: Raymond Schobe/ Flickr

Is it safe?

On the whole, liquid smoke's ingredients list was intended by Wright to be equal to real smoke. To this day, many brands of liquid smoke follow a similar "recipe" in condensing the hot vapors, although it's not surprising to find additional flavor additives like molasses, salt, or vinegar mixed in at the end of the process.

"This isn’t something we’re pouring over our breakfast cereal."

In more recent years, however, several health experts, scientists, and dietitians all have voiced health concerns over the safety of liquid smoke used in meats, barbecue sauce, and a number of other food products. The European Food Safety Authority, the health arm of the European Union, has conducted a series of investigations to determine the safety of liquid smoke flavorings derived from different types of hardwood.

A large driver in these investigations lies in the fact that liquid smoke contains polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), a family of chemical compounds. A handful of its members been linked to carcinogenic effects and DNA damage. For example, Primary Product AM 01 , a flavoring derived from burning beechwood, is considered a safety concern due to findings that it might cause DNA mutations when consumed. The type and amount of PAHs present in a particular type of liquid smoke, however, depends on the type of hardwood used and the temperature at which it's burned. But many nutritionists, including Monica Reinagel, a licensed nutritionist and author of the blog Nutrition Over Easy , believe the concentrations of these molecules in liquid smoke are far too low for any genuine health concern.

Reinagel describes the health concern over the presence of the PAHs in liquid smoke as a " tempest in a teapot ." "This isn't something we're pouring over our breakfast cereal," Reinagel says, adding that PAHs found in liquid smoke are no different than those you'd find in traditionally smoked meats or fish. As a result, she believes that wolfing down on meat brined with a few drops of liquid smoke can't be any worse than pigging out on smoked sausage links.

Photo: Denis Vrublevski/ Shutterstock

A Controversial Condiment

In the culinary world's mass-market sector, liquid smoke provides a convenient shortcut to achieving the familiar "barbecue" flavor. Ingredients labels typically refer to liquid smoke as "natural smoke flavoring" or "natural smoke source." One can find these often listed on the ingredients label for McDonald's cultishly beloved McRib sauce , as well as typical barbecue-flavored snacks like Lay's potato chips. In a report published this past April by Future Market Insights, a market intelligence and consulting firm, the global liquid smoke market was valued at $65 million in 2015. FMI predicts that liquid smoke's market value will increase at a compound annual growth rate of 8.1 percent over the next decade, citing drivers like "rising disposable income, growing pet ownership, increasing consumption of meat products and lowered total production cost."

Liquid smoke's sales may have increased, but that hasn't necessarily translated into a warm embrace by the cooking world. Several barbecue purists like Daniel Vaughn, barbecue editor of Texas Monthly , are up front in their antagonism towards incorporating the condiment in any barbecue-related recipes. " I cringe every time I taste it ," Vaughn says, comparing the taste of meat coated with liquid smoke to that of instant coffee. Furthermore, he believes slathering smoked meat with barbecue sauces that incorporate liquid smoke ruins the meat's flavor.

Of course, not everyone — even in the barbecue world — holds such fundamentalist stances towards usage of this ingredient. Steven Raichlen, author of several barbecue books like The Barbecue Bible and Planet Barbecue! , explains that while directly applying liquid smoke to his meat is verboten, he's content with incorporating it in his barbecue sauces. And when diving into the realms of popular food science and gastronomy food channels, the witch hunt dwindles. ChefSteps, a cooking channel started by alumni of the creative team that produced Modernist Cuisine , includes several recipes utilizing liquid smoke, including the aptly titled " Apartment Ribs ."

"Flavor-wise, there’s no reason you can’t make good smoky food using liquid smoke."

Similarly, Serious Eats's Kenji López-Alt is unapologetic in featuring liquid smoke in several of his sous vide barbecue recipes for his Food Lab column. "The stuff that goes into the bottle, minus a couple of chemical components that are not water soluble, is almost identical to meat when it's smoking," says López-Alt, who explained that a lot of the problems with liquid smoke comes from beginners not understanding the less-is-more philosophy. "Flavor-wise, there's no reason you can't make good smoky food using liquid smoke."

Although liquid smoke offers such perks as quick cooking time and a sense of measured control in preparing barbecue-style meats, culinary experimenters like López-Alt aren't oblivious to the fact that liquid smoke leaves out a lot of the elements integral to barbecue . He claims that a large part of experiencing barbecue includes factors like the pit master's time and effort required for preparing and smoking the meat. As a result, he understands why using liquid smoke might be considered akin to "bringing a laser-guided basketball player to a basketball game." For the toughest of barbecue heads like Vaughn, this concession regarding liquid smoke's limitations might be the closest thing to agreement.

"I never would use liquid smoke, but I'm not gonna tell people not to use it," says Vaughn. "Just don't use it on meat and then call it 'barbecue.'"

Matthew Sedacca is a freelance writer based in New York. Editor: Erin DeJesus

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Do-It-Yourself Liquid Smoke, and Other Kitchen Hacks

16:48 minutes

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The “maker movement” doesn’t end with arduino—that same DIY philosophy can also be applied in the kitchen. Jeff Potter, author of Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Cooks, and Good Food – Second Edition , talks about how to make sour cream, chocolate bars, rolled oats—and even liquid smoke—from scratch. And, if you happen to have a mass spectrometer handy, there’s a bonus: how to tell the origin of your tomatoes. Read an excerpt .

Segment Guests

Jeff Potter is the author of Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Cooks, and Good Food — Second Edition (O’Reilly, 2015) and a software engineer in New York, New York.

Segment Transcript

IRA FLATOW: This is “Science Friday. I am Ira Flatow. You know, there are a lot of kitchen experiments you, as an amateur scientist, can do at home. For example, ever shaken a jar of heavy whipping cream until it separates into butter? It’s pretty easy. They even do it in kindergarten. Right?

But it’s also kind of mind-blowing, the realization that, hey, you can actually make this stuff, real butter, it’s not just something that comes prewrapped in the refrigerator aisle. And it tastes a lot better too. So you walk around the supermarket these days, and you’ll see, there’s a lot of stuff, there’s a lot of stuff. They’re products people use to make themselves, but they don’t do that anymore. Here’s looking at you, sour cream.

My next guest is a ninja of those lost culinary arts. And he’s here with a few tricks to get more out of your cooking by doing it yourself. Jeff Potter, author of Cooking For Geeks, Real Science, Great Cooks, and Good Food. He’s out with a new edition with new experiments you’re going to want to try. And you can find a few at sciencefriday.com/cookingforgeeks. Jeff, good to have you back.

JEFF POTTER: Thanks for having me.

IRA FLATOW: All right. If you’ve got any kitchen hacks of your own, or maybe a little science to improve your made-from-scratch recipes, you can give us a call. 844-724-8255. You can also tweet us @scifri.

Jeff, there’s a lot of stuff in your kitchen these days. There’s one or two steps removed from their natural state. It’s almost there. Right? Minimally processed. I’m thinking like vanilla extract. But we’ve sort of forgotten how to make all this stuff. When did we lose that ability to make all this stuff?

JEFF POTTER: I think a lot of that happened post World War II when we kind of got to two people in the family, both in the workplace and convenience of buying things from home. And there was that space age excitement of the modern go to the store and buy something. And you know, it’s actually amazing how much science contributed to the ability for us to make food.

But here we are, 50 years after that point, and we’ve forgotten some things. So one of the great things I’ve had fun this last year doing is digging into, well, what happens? How can we do these things ourselves?

IRA FLATOW: And well, vanilla is–

JEFF POTTER: Well, vanilla is easy.

IRA FLATOW: –an easy one. How do you make the extract.

JEFF POTTER: You can just literally take vanilla bean, slice it open, and drop it into a small jar with a little bit of vodka. Vodka, being ethanol, is a great solvent. And this is how you make vanilla extract.

IRA FLATOW: People would love to try that one.

JEFF POTTER: It’s easy, I tell you. Especially if you’re cooking with the vanilla bean. Don’t throw it away. Drop it in a little small container with some vodka, and put it in the fridge or keep it for a week or two. And then you’ll have vanilla extract.

IRA FLATOW: That’s great. There’s one condiment that people don’t use too often, but a really fun project to make. And that is liquid smoke.

JEFF POTTER: Liquid smoke is fascinating. This is one of those ones that demonstrates some really great chemistry. It’s made fundamentally by taking whatever your smoke source is,– hickory chips, say– putting them inside a container that you then heat. And you take the smoke from that container, a closed container. We’re not talking about combustion. There’s no oxygen here. You heat it up.

And that smoke you then direct through water. And that water will actually dissolve some of the smoke compounds into it. And that water ends up being what we call liquid smoke. And it’s got all the flavor compounds. And that begins to give you a little insight that sometimes these things that come in a bottle are actually very simple. Sometimes they’re not though.

IRA FLATOW: Is it safer than actually grilling?

JEFF POTTER: There is some thinking that, in fact, the liquid smoke should be safer, because a lot of the carcinogenic compounds end up either precipitating out or floating out and not being in suspension inside that liquid.

IRA FLATOW: All right. I can’t hold back myself anymore, because I’m looking at some wonderful pieces of chocolate and other things that you’ve brought in.

JEFF POTTER: Chocolate was another one of those fun ones to look into. And who could resist chocolate?

IRA FLATOW: Not me, that’s for sure.

JEFF POTTER: In this case, chocolate, as we think about it, that nice bar of chocolate that you see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory opening up, goes through a process called conching. And that process was invented in the 1870s by a guy whose last name was Lindt. Quite familiar to those of us who like chocolate these days. And that process really takes the cocoa fat, the cocoa butter, and sugar, and really grinds them together and away.

But before Lindt came up with that process, chocolate was unconched. It had this texture that wasn’t smooth. It wasn’t really for eating.

So you can kind of approximate this at home if you grab some cocoa fat, which is the same thing as cocoa butter, about 30%, 35% by weight, some cocoa powder, also 30% to 35% by weight, and the rest sugar. Melt the cocoa butter. Throw in the cocoa solids– the cocoa powder, that is– and the sugar and mix it up. And you’ll get something that looks a bit like that piece that you are looking at.

IRA FLATOW: This round one?

JEFF POTTER: That round one. So take a bite now. Keep in mind that before we had conching, chocolate was not really a great thing for eating. It was gritty. It didn’t have that fine texture. I mean, the flavor is interesting. And it’s a fun thing to try.

IRA FLATOW: It’s good, because it’s not too sweet.

JEFF POTTER: Well, in this case, that’s because there’s not too much sugar in there.

IRA FLATOW: Not too much sugar. And it’s delicious.

JEFF POTTER: I always know that bringing food into the studio is a great thing.

IRA FLATOW: Now, when you see the cocoa content– you go out and you want to get these bars. They say 75%, 80%. What are they talking about there?

JEFF POTTER: They’re talking about the percent of cacao product in there, which is a combination of the cocoa fat and the cocoa powder. They’re not telling you the ratio of those two different ingredients.

So the other thing I brought in for you, you can see some little white pellets there. Those white pellets are just cocoa fat. I’m going to warn you, they’re not particularly delicious. They’re not white chocolate. It’s just the fat. How would you describe that?

IRA FLATOW: No flavor.

JEFF POTTER: No flavor.

IRA FLATOW: But I can feel the texture of chocolate.

JEFF POTTER: Yeah, it’s got the texture.

IRA FLATOW: It’s got that mouth feel.

JEFF POTTER: And the fats in chocolate are actually really fascinating. There’s a whole thing about polymorphism, the way they crystallize, the ratios of triglycerides in there. And it’s actually somewhat similar to butter, but not quite. So at 70% or 75%, when you see it on the bar, if you’ve got two different bars that both say 70% from different manufacturers, one might be higher cocoa powder, cocoa solid content. The other one might have less.

IRA FLATOW: Is there any way to know that when you’re looking?

JEFF POTTER: You might be able to be clever by backing out the fat concentration. I haven’t actually checked that one. I don’t think you can really do it realistically though at home. Maybe if you had some lab equipment.

IRA FLATOW: And what happens when the chocolate hangs around a long time and it gets a little like a white film on it?

JEFF POTTER: White film. So that’s called blooming. And there’s actually two different kinds of blooming that can happen with chocolate. There’s either fat blooming or sugar blooming. Most of the time, when you see white stuff, it’s fat blooming. That’s the migration of those cocoa butter, cocoa fat through the actual solid matter.

If you look at a bar of chocolate, it’s actually a really complicated physical structure. You’ve got cocoa solids, which are particulate, suspended inside fat, which– most of us think about bars being solid. But the fats in there are a mixture of different triglycerides. And some of those fats are actually liquid at room temperature, not so much that you notice it. But they do migrate.

IRA FLATOW: So it’s not unsafe to eat that.

JEFF POTTER: It’s not unsafe to eat. It’s just going to have a texture that won’t be as enjoyable, because it impacts the texture. Melt it down, or use it in something to cook with.

IRA FLATOW: As you know, we love to talk about microbes and fermentation on this show. So let’s talk about sour cream. Is that fermented?

JEFF POTTER: Yeah.

IRA FLATOW: Sour cream is fermented.

JEFF POTTER: Sour cream, that’s what makes it sour. It’s bacteria. If you know how to make yogurt, you know how to make sour cream. Just use cream instead of milk.

Mind-blowing. It’s one of those things, where–

IRA FLATOW: My mind is just– it’s a mushroom cloud here. So can you turn regular cream into sour cream?

JEFF POTTER: Yes. You take a regular container of sour cream. The easiest place to get the starter bacteria is from yogurt. So just get some live active cultured yogurt. Throw a teaspoon into the container, stir it up. And basically, let it, quote, unquote, go bad. You can let it sit on the counter overnight. If you happen to have a yogurt maker or a slow cooker that’s got a yogurt mode, that’s better.

And the culture from the yogurt will chow down on the lactose and the other stuff that’s present in the cream. There shouldn’t be too much lactose in cream. But it’ll chow down on the stuff in the cream to actually make it into sour cream.

IRA FLATOW: Will it get that gloppy consistency?

JEFF POTTER: It won’t get quite as thick as maybe some of the sour cream you’re used to, because a lot of commercial stuff sometimes includes thickeners– corn starch or carrageen or guar gum. But you’ll look and go, oh, this is sour cream.

IRA FLATOW: Our number, 844-724-8255, if you have questions about food science, which we’re talking with Jeff Potter, author of Cooking For Geeks, Real Science, Great Cooks, Good Food, out with a new edition with no experiments. What new things did you put in the book? Were there things that people asked you for?

JEFF POTTER: Well, there’s a lot of different things. The second edition’s got over 150 pages of brand new material. So there’s a bunch of new interviews with folks, like Jacques Pepin, Deborah Madison, Bridget Lancaster, a number of chefs, who it was really a pleasure to speak with.

There’s a whole section actually– we were talking about fats here. There’s a whole section I added in about fats. What are trans fats? How is that compared to what’s called a cis fat? What’s the breakdown of different fat sources?

There’s new experiments. So if you’ve got a middle-aged kid, and you want to do a few things in the kitchen, you can do everything from calibrate your oven to calibrating your freezer, just using the physical properties of things like sugar or salt water. It was so much fun to go back and dig into it.

IRA FLATOW: I’ll bet. This really is. And this is a really interesting section in your book. It’s not a do-it-yourself opportunity unless you happen to have a mass spectrometer lying around. But you have a section in the book that talks about how Sherlock Holmes would determine where a tomato was grown.

JEFF POTTER: This one was really fun. We think of water as just being H2O. Maybe if you’ve got a glass of water, OK, there’s some air dissolved in there, and maybe some solids, some minerals. But even if you just look at the H2O, there are differences between different molecules. And these are called isotopomers.

So if you think about oxygen, it’s oxygen 16, as in eight neutrons and eight protons. But you can actually have additional neutrons in there. So you can have oxygen 17 and oxygen 18. And that’ll change. Those isotopes will change the actual molecule of water.

And those changes change the weight of the water. And that change in the weight changes the rate of evaporation. So the water that has the heavier isotopes will end up not evaporating as quickly.

So if you’re in a climate, in an environment, where you have a high amount of evaporation, your soil water will skew towards the heavier isotope. So you can take that tomato, and take a sample of the liquid from it and run it through a mass spectrometer, and go, OK, wait a second. This is coming from somewhere that’s got this ratio of these isotopomers. And if you factor in about a dozen different trace elements, you can pinpoint pretty accurately where something comes from.

IRA FLATOW: Wow. So you can rule out the tomato came from this part of the world versus if it was a warmer climate versus–

JEFF POTTER: Warmer climate. Then factoring in a few of the other things, like magnesium or various trace elements, you can begin to get country of origin. That’s a huge thing for actually food fraud and food traceability. If you’ve got honey that’s being imported, how do you know where it’s coming from?

IRA FLATOW: Well, let’s go to the phones to Savannah, Georgia, one of my favorite cities to Greg. Hi, welcome to “Science Friday.”

GREG: Hi. How are you doing?

IRA FLATOW: Hi there.

GREG: Well, I just wanted to tell you about some things that I’ve been doing. I’ve been on a fermentation craze. My wife likes to say I didn’t buy a sports car. I started fermenting things.

And one of the things I’ve been doing is– I used to brew beer years ago. And I’ve started doing it again. And I decided these spent grains ought to be useful for something.

So I ground them up, pulverized them, and decided I would substitute a cup of the spent grains in a sourdough bread instead of a cup of the flour. And it’s worked out really well.

IRA FLATOW: Wow. Let me get a comment. Let me remind everybody first that this is “Science Friday” from PRI, Public Radio International. In case you joined us, we’re talking with Jeff Potter, author of Cooking For Geeks, Real Science, Great Cooks, Good Food. So he’s now made double use of his.

JEFF POTTER: That’s fantastic and clever and actually sounds delicious. There’s a lot of things with our cooking, where we have something that’s left over, that we then kind of just throw away. We were talking just a few minutes ago about the vanilla extract idea. You’ve got a vanilla bean left over from making a vanilla custard for the holidays or something. The idea of reusing something is fantastic.

Apple peels. If you’re peeling apples, those peels can be used in a salad, for example. There’s lots of cases where you can be clever if you think about the ratio of, what is this thing? Is this carbohydrate? Is this protein? Is this sugar? What is the actual thing you’re working with?

In the case of the grains that are left over from making the beer, there will be a fair amount of starches and cellulose and stuff in there that you can use as part of your bread. It will be a toothier, denser bread. But it will still taste delicious.

IRA FLATOW: You answered, in your book, a question I’ve been wondering about for years. Being a watery person, loving the ocean, having gone around the world, seeing salt evaporation ponds, and I would say to myself, hey, I could do this at home. I could just get a cup of water from the ocean and make my own sea salt. But you go, uh oh. Watch out.

JEFF POTTER: You can definitely do it yourself with the sea salt. But you’re also going to do it yourself with the mercury potentially. Because unlike that liquid smoke example, where you’re actually separating out something, with the do-it-yourself sea salt, you’re concentrating everything. There’s not a separation process there. It’s just a concentrations. So anything else that happens to be in the water that doesn’t evaporate away is going to be there. So I don’t know if I’d want a do-it-yourself sea salt.

IRA FLATOW: No. You talked me out of that one. But you can roll your own oats, it says in the book.

JEFF POTTER: This one was fun too. We think about those Quaker oats you might see that are rolled out and flat. And you might also have a container of steel cut oats and not realize that these two things are very closely related. If you get that steel cut oat wet enough and then you flatten out, you can take the back of a spoon and just press one. And it’s going to look like that instant–

IRA FLATOW: Because my wife loves the steel cut oats. And I like the flat oats. So I can now make one out of the other.

JEFF POTTER: You can try to do it. It’s a little bit messy. The starches end up sticking that pressed oat to whatever you roll it on pretty good. The commercial manufacturing process is a little bit easier. I think probably in your case just buy two containers.

IRA FLATOW: A little time consuming.

JEFF POTTER: But still really cool to see where your food comes from, to understand that process, and kind of pull back the curtain one layer, and go, how is my food being made? How can I make it? How can I dig into the science behind this a bit more?

IRA FLATOW: Anything for the holiday season that you might suggest for us? Some cooking trick? I know you always say, and maybe we’ll bring this up again, you always say the best thing that you can buy, the number one thing that you can buy in the holidays, is what?

JEFF POTTER: Well, besides a copy of my book.

IRA FLATOW: Well, you’re talking about the thermometer.

JEFF POTTER: Thermometer. The probe thermometer–

IRA FLATOW: Get a thermometer.

JEFF POTTER: The number one thing I can tell anybody is get a probe thermometer because when it comes to something like a holiday roast or something cooking in the oven, it’s not about the time. It’s about the temperature.

So if you take a piece of fish– and when I cook salmon, I cook it to 103 degrees Fahrenheit. And I stick a probe thermometer with a long lead. And I set the little unit to go beep, beep, beep when it hits 130. So instead of a timer telling me time to check it, it just tells me it’s done.

IRA FLATOW: There you go. Thank you, Jeff. Good luck with the book. It’s great, as always. Cooking For Geeks, Real Science, Great Cooks, Good Food, now in its second edition with a lot of new tips and tricks. Give it a look. He’s also a software engineer in his spare time. I don’t know when you get that time. Thanks for joining us today.

JEFF POTTER: Thanks for having me. Happy Holidays.

IRA FLATOW: You too. And did you know that today is national cookie day? Just in time for the holidays. We had Jeff on the show last year to talk about his patent violating cookie recipe and for the perfect chocolate chip cookie, gooey in the center, crisp on the outside, how do you do it? Well, the secret is up there in our website, sciencefriday.com/chocolatechipcookie.

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Gilla:		Dela:

1 tall drinking glass
1 lighter or matchbox
1 newspaper page
Safety equipment: 1 fire extinguisher, 1 bowl of water, 1 pair of safety goggles
Something may catch fire.
Someone may burn themselves.
Inhalation of harmful smoke.
Do the demonstration in the company of an adult with experience of fire.
Wear safety goggles.
Have a fire extinguisher ready.
Have a bucket of water ready.
Do the demonstration in a well-ventilated place.
Never hold the paper tube with your fingers. Use a fork - and hold it as far out on the handle as possible.
Do not touch the paper tube or inner part of the fork after the fire is out.
Do not hold the flame too close to the cold glass. The glass may crack.
Practice what to do if something catches fire or if someone burn themselves.

Short explanation

Long explanation.

What happens if you leave the smoke in the glass and just wait?
What happens if you cover the glass with plastic wrap and just wait?
What happens if you use a larger glass?
What happens if you heat the glass instead (for example using boiling water)?
Can you pour the smoke from one glass to another?
Can you somehow get the smoke into water? What happens then?

Gilla:		Dela:

Soil layers

Spinning spiral snake

Carbon dioxide extuingisher

Screaming dry ice

Dry ice in a balloon

Special: Dry ice color change

Dry ice smoking soap bubble snake

Dry ice giant crystal ball bubble

Dry ice in water

Rainbow milk

Gummy bear osmosis

Floating ping pong ball

Rotating Earth

Special: Colored fire

Special: Fire bubbles

Water cycle in a jar

Egg drop challenge

Taking the pulse

Orange candle

Glass bottle xylophone

Warped spacetime

Homemade rainbow

Water implosion

Warm and cold plates

Plastic bag kite

Tamed lightning

Yeast and a balloon

Forever boiling bottle

Moon on a pen

Moon in a box

Inexhaustible bottle

Crystal egg geode

Magic ice cut

Leaf pigments chromatography

Heavy smoke

Popsicle stick bridge

Micrometeorites

Special: Fire tornado

Special: Whoosh bottle

Dancing water marbles

Brownian motion

Flying static ring

Water thermometer

String telephone

Special: Dust explosion

Disappearing styrofoam

Special: Burning money

Special: Burning towel

Salt water purifier

Fish dissection

Hovering soap bubble

Homemade sailboat

Water mass meeting

Plastic bag and pencils

Water sucking bottle

Water sucking glass

Mentos and coke

Aristotle's illusion

Imploding soda can

Plastic bag parachute

Dental impression

Impact craters

Rolling static soda can

Static paper ghost

Color changing flower

Upside down glass

Shrinking chip bag

Solar system model

Strawberry DNA

Electric motor

Flashy electric motor

Bouncing soap bubbles

Toilet paper roll maraca

Cloud in a bottle 1

Cloud in a bottle 2

Balloon rocket

Water whistle

Homemade yogurt

Special: Screaming gummy bear

Homemade compass

Trash airplane

Wind-up spinner toy

Tea bag rocket

Balancing soda can

Lung volume test

Fireproof balloon

Baking powder popper

Expanding space

Straw propeller

Wooden cutlery

Levitating match

Human reflexes

Electromagnet

Straw potato

Straw rocket launcher

Traveling flame

Water bowls

Straw duck call

Solar eclipse

Silo of salt

Balloon skewer

Newspaper tower

Microwave light bulb

Heavy paper

Rubber chicken bone

Homemade marble run

Drops on a coin

Cartesian diver

Content of website.

Chemistry experiments

8 amazing SMOKE Experiments & Tricks

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28 Comments

What would happen if we put the smoke from 1:30 into our mouths would it be harmful or harmless

jebem te u usta seljacka ne radi nista

3:56 The paper is peeing smoke

What s the name of the sound in background?

Uy so amazing guys and nice trick also music

2:18 now that's one way to smoke weed

fantastic but see my videos

What method do you use to get your smoke???

Nice video, can some1 tell me how to make the bottle at 5.36 like what did he put inside the bottle?

it is a good GooD

Kanka bak O yapıyom

one of the best videos i found in youtube

nice vid how do you know that stuff

2:37 to 2:40 is super cool!

Actually I came for the trick beginning at 5:26 .

Smart Good Of You..

Are you. Smoking

The smoke gun was osam

That..was..AWESOME

Hi the Brasil

4:00 is that smoke?

Quick question How do you get the smoke into the glass

U should mention which is safe which is not .even kids also watch this so give precautions

13 Awesome Chemical Reaction Experiments You Can Do At Home

Categories Activities & Ideas

Kids love to play mad scientist. And what better way to get kids excited about chemistry than with a few awesome chemical reaction experiments you can do at home?

Chemistry is an important branch of science that plays a big role in our everyday lives – so it’s definitely a subject children should learn about.

Luckily, chemistry is like performing magic – it’s fun to learn and do!

So, with that said, here are some awesome chemical experiments that can be done at home, all just as fun as they are educational.

Just remember: For health and safety, just make sure to supervise your child while doing the following experiments. If you’re a teacher, conduct these experiments in class or have the child’s parents supervise them at home.

1. Mentos & Diet Soda Chemical Volcano Eruption

Mixing mentos and diet soda is a classic experiment that produces a large chemical reaction that’s ideal for showing kids what chemistry is capable of. It’s safe and non-toxic, but the experiment can get messy, so it’s best to do it outdoors!

For this chemical reaction experiment, all you’ll need are a two-liter bottle of diet soda, a test tube or sheet of paper, an index card, and Mentos candies. You can use normal soda instead of diet soda, as well as M&Ms or Skittles instead of Mentos.

2. Baking Soda And Vinegar Balloon Experiment

If you have never seen a self-inflating balloon, this awesome chemical reaction experiment is sure to amaze the kids. The best thing is that baking soda and vinegar are common household items, so this experiment is easy enough to do at home.

All it involves is mixing baking soda and vinegar in a bottle and placing a balloon on the open end. The chemical reaction between baking soda and vinegar will release carbon dioxide gas that will inflate the balloon.

3. Green Flames

Copper sulfate is another item that can be easily found in most homes, but what’s special about it is that it can turn flames green. This chemical reaction experiment is best done in a fireplace or with a small controlled flame.

This is another awesome experiment that’s simple to do. Simply sprinkle copper sulfate onto a flame to see the color turn blue. You can also use alcohol or an alcohol-based fuel before lighting to achieve a brighter green color.

4. Fireproof Balloon

If you have more balloons left over from the baking soda and vinegar balloon experiment shown above, creating a fireproof balloon is another awesome chemical reaction experiment that’s easy to do and sure to impress.

For this experiment, all you need are two balloons, 50 milliliters of water, a syringe, and a candle or lighter. Simply blow two balloons up, one with 50ml of water added using the syringe. Hold each balloon over a candle to see which one bursts!

5. Foaming Volcano At Home Experiment

The foaming volcano experiment is similar to the baking soda and vinegar experiment except that it’s less explosive and involves different items. It uses baking soda, liquid soap, red food coloring, and acetic acid to create a foaming chemical reaction.

All it involves is using plasticine to create a volcano, then filling the inside with baking soda, a few drops of food coloring, and liquid soap. The last step is adding the acetic acid to watch the volcano erupt. Perform the experiment outside or in a tray to avoid mess!

6. Ice Cream In A Bag

Teach children that cooking also involves chemistry! This ice cream in a bag chemical reaction experiment is a great way to teach kids about freezing point depression, creating a tasty treat that they can also eat afterward.

The main items you’ll need for this experiment include zipper-top bags, ice, sodium chloride as table salt or rock salt, and ingredients for the ice cream, which are sugar, milk, whipping cream, and vanilla flavoring.

7. Elephant Toothpaste

This elephant toothpaste experiment is another simple chemical reaction that you can do at home using common household items. All you’ll need are an empty bottle (plastic or glass), 6% hydrogen peroxide, dry yeast, dish soap, food coloring, and warm water.

Similar to the foaming volcano, this elephant toothpaste experiment creates a chemical reaction that will see the bottle overflow with a foamy liquid. To make it extra fun, conduct the experiment with different food coloring!

8. Smoke Without Fire Experiment

“There’s no smoke without fire” unless you’re a chemist! This fun smoke-without-fire experiment demonstrates an awesome chemical reaction that creates smoke using a combination of concentrated hydrochloric acid and ammonia.

You will need some science equipment to perform this experiment, which includes three flasks connected by gas pipes. The chemical reaction produces a slow release of white smoke with, you guessed it, no fire or sparks.

9. Liquid Layer Density Tower

Density towers, or density columns, are a great way to show and explain the density levels of different liquids. You can use honey, corn syrup or pancake syrup, liquid dishwashing soap, water (with food coloring if desired), vegetable oil, rubbing alcohol, and lamp oil.

When you have a jar or container, the key is to put the heavier liquids in first, then pour the next liquids in using the side of the container. Even if you don’t get it right the first time, it’s a fun experiment that also creates a colorful display item!

If you and the kids don’t mind getting messy, this slime experiment is a fun chemical reaction that will create a thick, stretchy slime that becomes firmer and less sticky the more it’s played with. You can also add food coloring to create different colors of slime!

For this chemical reaction experiment, you’ll need borax powder, water, glue, and food coloring if you want to add color to the slime. You’ll also need a bowl, jar or measuring cup, and teaspoon for mixing.

11. Ignite A Candle With A Battery

Show your class that it’s possible to light a candle without matches or lighters with this awesome battery experiment! All it requires is an AA battery, chewing gum wrapper, cotton wool, scissors, and a candle.

You might not know this, but the chewing gum wrapper is coated with a layer of aluminum. As a good electrical conductor, the wrapper will generate an electric current when connected to the battery. The aluminum will heat up and light the cotton, which will ignite the candle.

12. DIY Lava Lamp

Lava lamps are awesome, so why not make a DIY one at home using an awesome chemical reaction? Although this DIY lava lamp won’t shine as brightly as a regular lava lamp, it’s still a fun experiment that will teach the kids about density.

The end result is a colorful liquid (use any kind of food coloring you like) with floating bubbles that can make a great bedroom ornament. It’s quick and simple, too, requiring just 30 minutes to create overall.

13. Homemade Science Christmas Ornament

Perfect for the holidays, this homemade science Christmas ornament experiment will get the kids to create glowing crystal icicles that can be hung outside or on the Christmas tree. It’s simple as well, only requiring borax powder, pipe cleaners, and string or twine.

To perform this chemical reaction experiment, you’ll need to add boiling hot water to a glass jar with borax. Twist the pipe cleaner around a pencil or pen to create a winding shape, then lower the pipe cleaner into the mixture with string. Leave until crystals start to form!

So there you have it: a list of awesome chemical experiments you can do at home to teach kids about the fascinating world of chemistry. These experiments are fun, educational, and sure to amaze kids of all ages!

Don’t forget: For health and safety reasons, just make sure to supervise your child while doing the above experiments or, if you’re a teacher, conduct the experiments in class or have the child’s parents supervise them at home.

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What is Liquid Smoke and How Should You Use It?

SmokedBBQSource is supported by its readers. We may earn an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you i f you buy through a link on this page. Learn more .

When it comes to the BBQ community, liquid smoke is often shunned and derided as a cheap way to impart smoke flavor in a dish.

You could say that these criticisms are unjust, particularly when you consider that not everyone has the luxury of having access to a smoker.

The point of liquid smoke is to impart smoke flavor without actually smoking anything, so it’s a convenient way to get smoky flavor into a recipe if you don’t have the time or option to smoke something the traditional way.

Let’s take a look at how liquid smoke is made and how it can be used in everyday cooking.

What is liquid smoke?

Liquid smoke was invented by Ernest H. Wright of the brand Wright’s Liquid Smoke. As a teenager working at a print shop, Wright noticed a black liquid dripping from the stovepipe that heated the print shop he worked in.

He later became a chemist and realized that the black liquid he saw as a youth was the smoke coming in contact with cold air and condensing into liquid. Ernest conducted experiments to recreate the liquid via wood combustion and condensation of the fire’s exhaust, and thus liquid smoke was born.

Wright’s Liquid Smoke was first produced in 1895 and is still sold in stores today. The flavoring is used in all sorts of dishes adding smoky flavor without using a smoker or live fire.

Wright's Hickory Liquid Smoke (3.5 fl oz)

How is liquid smoke made?

Liquid smoke occurs naturally when the smoke from burning wood is condensed into liquid form.

Smoke and water vapor are byproducts of burning wood, and when the water vapor – in the form of steam – comes in contact with cold air, it is condensed into a black liquid.

Modern methods condense the steam through a cooling tube, filter out the soot and ash impurities and distill into a concentrated form. This yellow-brown liquid is the liquid smoke you’ll see on sale in the grocery store

Is liquid smoke safe?

Smoke itself is a byproduct of combustion, and whether that flavor comes from actual smoking or through a liquid version, it will always have a trace amount of the organic compound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons – or PAHs.

In large quantities, PAHs can be carcinogenic. Extended, regular exposure to PAHs can cause long-term health effects.

The truth is the amount of PAHs found in liquid smoke is minute, and though we don’t recommend drinking straight from the bottle over a long period of time, the small amounts you use to flavor your food are basically harmless in the grand scheme of things.

Uses for liquid smoke

Liquid smoke is used to impart smoky flavor without the actual fire, so it can be used on any dish that you want to taste like it came from a smoker.

Food manufacturers also use it as a flavor additive. By using it in their products, they’re allowed to market those products using the word “smoked” in their name. Some mass-produced cheeses marked as smoked – such as cheddar or gouda – utilize the liquid flavoring, as well as sausage products stuffed into liquid smoked-infused casings.

One of the main uses, however, is in the commercial production of sauces, marinades and most anything with the word “barbecue” in the name. Check the ingredients next time you’re out shopping.

How to cook with liquid smoke

Cooking with liquid smoke is easy. The flavor is very concentrated, so only a small bit is necessary. Just add a few drops either brushed on topically to the protein or mixed into the sauce or marinade.

If you’re finding that even a drop or two is still overpowering in taste, you can dilute the liquid smoke with a liquid of your choosing that fits the recipe.

Liquid smoke can be added to just about any recipe so long as it’s used in moderation. You can even use it in cocktails to amp up the breadth of flavor.

Recipes that use liquid smoke

As mentioned, liquid smoke can be added to a variety of recipes, not just traditionally smoked foods. Let’s explore some options.

Main dishes

If you don’t have a smoker, but want that quality BBQ taste of smoked meat, you’ve got to try this sous vide smokerless smoked brisket . It’s a bit labor-intensive, but the results mimic what you’d get if you smoked the brisket instead.

Don’t have a sous vide machine? Try this crock pot brisket recipe instead.

And while you can certainly add liquid smoke to your pulled pork, this smoky grilled pork chop recipe is the perfect way to create chops that taste wood-fired.

If you’re craving fish, try this salmon recipe that uses liquid smoke to enhance the flavor.

Side dishes

What’s BBQ without the greens? This southern greens recipe is sure to be a crowd-pleaser without touching a grill grate.

Let’s not forget about the side-dish staple mac and cheese. Turn it up a notch with this smoky version using hickory flavored liquid smoke.

Smoky baked beans round out the list of traditional BBQ side dishes. This version is simple, sweet and smoky without the fire.

Don’t neglect desserts ! These recipes have an unexpected depth of flavor with the smokiness, giving an unexpected bonus to the taste buds.

This s’mores ice cream gives the authentic taste of a campfire in every bite, while these chocolate chip cookies taste just like they were baked in a smoker! The smoky flavor compliments the sweet chocolate giving a subtle rich background to the traditional sweetness.

Liquid smoke really shines in sauces and marinades. It’s subtle enough to sit in the background, but still rich enough to make its presence known.

This Kansas City BBQ sauce has all the right notes of flavor to compliment the meat, while the secret weapon in this Carolina mustard sauce is twofold: liquid smoke and beer.

If you have a sweet tooth, you can add a drop or two of liquid smoke to simple syrups to give your cocktails a hint of woody flavor.

Where to buy liquid smoke

Liquid smoke can be found near the BBQ sauce in your local grocery or supermarket. The most notable brands are Colgin and Wrights, but younger sauce brands like Stubb’s are starting to get into the mix, as well as craft makers around the nation.

If you want more choices than what your supermarket has, check Amazon for a variety of options.

How to make your own liquid smoke

Making your own liquid smoke does have its advantages over opting for store-bought varieties. You have more control over the flavor intensity and ingredients if you’re making your own and can make sure there are no added chemicals.

To make your own liquid smoke, you’ll need a smoker or grill that you can funnel up through a chimney. Use your favorite smoking wood or a mixture of different woods to add nuance to the liquid smoke. You can soak your wood or wood chips beforehand to ensure adequate smoke.

Put a bundt pan at the chimney opening and cover it with an upside-down mixing bowl. Using a bundt pan is ideal as it allows heat to escape through the hole in the middle.
Now cover the bowl with ice to cool the mixing bowl and cause condensation. Ice packs or a bowl of ice on top should do the trick.
As the smoke rises, the condensed air will liquefy and run into the bundt pan creating your very own liquid smoke. Pour into a jar or bottle and keep at room temperature until you’re ready to use it.

Substitutes for liquid smoke

There are some practical substitutions to liquid smoke if you don’t want to use it or don’t have any on hand.

Smoked paprika : peppers are dried over burning oak then ground into a fine powder to create this spice. It comes in both a sweeter smokier flavor and a spicy hot flavor. Adding this to your dish will give it a peppery, smoky hint.
Chipotle powder: similar to paprika, chipotle powder is made from ground-up jalapenos dried up over a natural wood fire. The long drying process allows for the smoke to infuse into the powder. Be sure to take the spiciness into account when adding to your dish.
Smoke tea: Black tea gets its aroma and flavor from being dried over natural pines wood fires. You can steep the leaves and use the brewed tea as a direct liquid smoke alternative.

Liquid Luck

Though liquid smoke is shunned in many BBQ circles, you can see that it has its purpose and conveniences. Sometimes it’s just not practical to fire up a big smoker just to get that hint of smoky flavor.

Culinary innovations such as liquid smoke help to evolve the industry no matter how controversial they may seem, so don’t be scared to experiment and play with flavors.

We hope this article helped to clear the air on liquid smoke. Is there a place for it in your pantry? Let us know in the comments below!

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Light a Candle With Smoke

Traveling Flame Science Trick

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You know you can light a candle with another candle, but if you blow one of them out, did you know you can relight it from a distance? In this trick, you'll blow out a candle and relight it by causing the flame to travel along a path of smoke.

How to Do the Traveling Flame Trick

Light a candle. Have a second source of flame ready, such as another candle, a lighter, or a match.
Blow out the candle and immediately place the other flame into the smoke.
The flame will travel down the smoke and relight your candle.

Tips for Success

If you have trouble lighting the smoke, try moving your flame closer to the wick because that's where the concentration of vaporized wax is highest. Another tip is to make sure the air is still around the candle. Again, this is so you maximize the amount of wax vapor around the wick and have a clear smoke trail to follow.

How the Traveling Flame Trick Works

This fire trick is based on how candles work. When you light a candle, the heat from the flame vaporizes the candle wax. When you blow the candle out, vaporized wax briefly remains in the air. If you apply a heat source quickly enough, you can ignite the wax and use that reaction to relight the wick of the candle. Although it looks like you're lighting the candle with smoke, it's really just the wax vapor that ignites. Soot and other debris from the flame aren't ignited.

You can watch a YouTube video of this project to see a candle relight itself, but it's even more fun to try it yourself.

Disclaimer: Please be advised that the content provided by our website is for EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. Fireworks and the chemicals contained within them are dangerous and should always be handled with care and used with common sense. By using this website you acknowledge that ThoughtCo., its parent About, Inc. (a/k/a Dotdash), and IAC/InterActive Corp. shall have no liability for any damages, injuries, or other legal matters caused by your use of fireworks or the knowledge or application of the information on this website. The providers of this content specifically do not condone using fireworks for disruptive, unsafe, illegal, or destructive purposes. You are responsible for following all applicable laws before using or applying the information provided on this website.

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How to Make a Smoke Bomb

Have you ever wondered how to make a smoke bomb? It is extremely easy! Here are instructions for making a classic homemade smoke bomb using sugar and potassium nitrate. The smoke bomb is non-toxic. It produces white smoke and purple sparks as it burns, but does not blow up. Also, find other simple recipes and safety tips.

This is the classic homemade smoke bomb recipe, which only requires two ingredients: sugar and potassium nitrate. Find ordinary granulated sugar (sucrose, C 12 H 22 O 11 ) in the kitchen. Potassium nitrate (saltpeter, KNO 3 ) is sold in some pharmacies and garden supply stores (as a fertilizer). I use Spectracide Stump Remover from a home supply store. Alternatively, you can make potassium nitrate yourself from a cold pack and salt substitute.

This recipe cooks the ingredients together, so you’ll need a skillet. The ingredients are non-toxic, so you can use kitchen utensils. However, the recipe is sticky, much like making candy. If you hate soaking pans, just craft a makeshift pan using foil and throw it away when you’re done.

Potassium nitrate
Skillet (or make one using aluminum foil)
Aluminum foil

Burning sugar makes the smoke while potassium nitrate supports combustion. A good starting point is a 3:2 potassium nitrate to sugar ratio (e.g., 1.5 cups KNO 3 and 1 cup sugar). If you have trouble lighting the smoke bomb, slightly increase the amount of potassium nitrate (5:3 ratio).

Pour about 3 parts potassium nitrate to 2 parts sugar into the skillet (5:3 ratio is also good). Measurements don’t need to be exact, but you want more KNO 3 than sugar. For example, you can use 1-1/2 cups KNO 3 and 1 cup sugar. As you approach the 5:3 KNO 3 :sugar ratio, you get a smoke bomb that burns more quickly. If you use equal amounts of KNO 3 and sugar, the smoke bomb becomes harder to light and burns slowly.
Apply low heat to the pan. If the heat is too high then you can burn the mixture, releasing a lot of smoke! Stir the mixture with a spoon using long strokes. If you see the grains of sugar starting to melt along the edges where you are stirring, remove the pan from the heat and reduce the temperature before continuing.
The smoke bomb is done when the solids melt. Once this happens, remove the pan from the heat. There is also a color change, but what matters is that the mixture becomes smooth rather than grainy. During cooking, notice the ingredients change to a golden brown color. Basically, you are caramelizing sugar.
Pour the liquid onto a piece of foil. There’s nothing important about the foil. It just provides a convenient surface. You can pour the smoke bomb into any shape, onto an object, or into a mold. The shape and size affects the burning pattern.
If you aren’t cleaning the skillet immediately, pour hot water into the pan to dissolve the sugar. Clean up any residue that spilled out of the pan, unless you want mini-smoke bombs on your stovetop.
Cool the smoke bomb and peel it off the foil. Now you’re ready to light it!

How a Homemade Smoke Bomb Works

The two ingredients in a smoke bomb are the oxidizer and the fuel. Potassium nitrate is the oxidizer . It supplies oxygen to the combustion reaction and help the fuel burn. Sugar is the fuel. The key to making a great smoke bomb is having a good balance between the oxidizer and the fuel. If there is too much oxidizer, you get a lot of fire (purple, because of the potassium), but little smoke. If there is too much fuel, you get a lot of smoke, but igniting the smoke bomb is challenging.

How to Light a Smoke Bomb

Just take the smoke bomb out to a safe location and light it with a long-handled lighter or match. While you don’t need a fuse, you can add one before the mixture hardens.

Difference Between Homemade and Commercial Smoke Bombs

The smoke bombs you buy at the store are different from homemade smoke bombs. First, a special container disperses the smoke composition. The container has tiny holes so the smoke billows out in a nice cloud. Get a comparable effect with a homemade smoke bomb by covering it with paper or foil and poking holes in the wrapping.

The composition of commercial smoke bombs differs from the homemade smoke bomb recipe. Products from the store typically contain potassium chlorate (KClO 3 ) instead of potassium nitrate, sugar (sucrose or dextrin – fuel), sodium bicarbonate (otherwise known as baking soda – to moderate the rate of the reaction and keep it from getting too hot), and a powdered organic dye (for colored smoke). When the smoke bomb burns, the heat vaporizes the dye. Pressure inside the device forces out the dye as a cloud.

More Smoke Bomb Recipes

No cooking smoke bomb.

3 parts potassium nitrate
2 parts sugar

Mix the potassium nitrate and sugar with just enough water so the ingredients stick together. Separate the mixture into separate small smoke bombs (so they dry). Insert a fuse, if desired. Dry the smoke bombs until they feel like clay. This usually takes a day or two.

Powdered Sugar Smoke Bomb Powder

2 parts confectioner or powdered sugar

Sift the ingredients together and ignite the powder.

Zinc and Sulfur Smoke Bomb

Zinc filings
Sulfur powder

Mix the zinc and sulfur. Insert a red-hot wire to ignite the mixture and produce smoke. This smoke bomb doubles as a stink bomb .

Black Powder Smoke Bomb

Mix black powder or pyrodex with other ingredients and ignite them.

Mixed with sugar and sulfur
Mixed with sawdust
With sugar, sulfur, and a bit of material from a road flare (red flame)

Colored Smoke Bombs

Colored smoke bomb use powdered dye. Here’s what you do…

Adult supervision is required both for making and lighting smoke bombs! While smoke bombs do not explode, they do burn.
If you are a messy cook, please make smoke bombs outdoors and not in your kitchen. If you spill the mixture on a burner, expect a lot of smoke.
Check local regulations before using a smoke bomb. Make sure smoke bombs are legal and that the area is not under a “burn ban”.
While the ingredients are not toxic, please do not eat the smoke bomb. Even if the sugar is food-grade, the potassium nitrate likely is not.
Moldoveanu, S.C. (November 1998). Analytical Pyrolysis of Natural Organic Polymers . Elsevier. ISBN 9780444822031.
Turnbull, Stephen (2004). Ninja AD 1460 – 1650 ([3rd ed.). Oxford: Osprey. ISBN 978-1-84176-525-9.
Visser, Wouter (November 2003). Practical Pyrotechnics .

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Education and Communications

How to Make Dry Ice Smoke

Last Updated: April 5, 2024 References

This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Hunter Rising . Hunter Rising is a wikiHow Staff Writer based in Los Angeles. He has more than three years of experience writing for and working with wikiHow. Hunter holds a BFA in Entertainment Design from the University of Wisconsin - Stout and a Minor in English Writing. There are 9 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 69,509 times. Learn more...

Dry ice is frozen carbon dioxide and turns directly back into a gas as it heats up. When you submerge dry ice in water, it heats up quickly and produces a thick smoke you can use to create ambiance at parties or for special effects. Dry ice smoke is simple to make at home, but just be sure to wear protection when you handle the ice since it is extremely cold!

Getting Dry Ice to Smoke

Fill a large pot halfway full with hot water.
Drop large chunks of dry ice into the warm water while wearing gloves .
Add more dry ice chunks every 15-20 minutes to keep the smoke rolling.

Submerging Dry Ice in Warm Water

Step 1 Fill a large bucket with half full of warm water.

Don’t fill your bucket or container all the way since the dry ice will cause it to bubble and spill over once you add it.
You can reduce the amount of water you use to fit whatever container you need.
Avoid adding dry ice to boiling water since this will cause water to spout up violently.

Step 2 Wear thick gloves before handling dry ice.

Put on your gloves even if you plan on using tongs or a scoop to transfer your ice since they can also get cold the more you use them with the dry ice.

Step 3 Break off pieces of dry ice using a hammer.

You can buy dry ice from some grocery stores or ice suppliers, or you can make your own .
Get dry ice pellets if you don’t want to break it apart yourself.
Store your dry ice in an insulated container in a well-ventilated area before you plan on using it.

Step 4 Drop the dry ice chunks into the water.

Put a sign near the container with your dry ice to warn any guests not to touch it.

Warning: Open windows or use a fan to ventilate the room with your dry ice smoke since it could be harmful to breathe if the vapor builds up. [5] X Research source

Step 5 Add more dry ice after about 15 minutes.

If you put in more dry ice and it still isn’t creating vapor, the water may have gotten too cold. Try emptying the cold water from the container and refilling it with something warmer than 50 °F (10 °C). [7] X Research source

Having Fun with Dry Ice Smoke

Step 1 Put dry ice in a punch bowl to cool your drink down and make it smoke.

Warn any guests that there is dry ice in the punchbowl so they don’t accidentally put some in their cup and drink it.

Tip: If you don’t want your guests to risk touching dry ice, then put dry ice and warm water in a container larger than the punch bowl, and set the punch bowl on top of the ice.

Step 2 Keep dry ice in Halloween decorations to give them an eerie appearance.

Make sure to keep decorations with dry ice away from children so they don’t touch the dry ice or hurt themselves.
Halloween decorations that have dry ice work best indoors since the wind will cause the smoke to disappear more quickly.

Step 3 Create large bubbles filled with dry ice smoke for a fun experiment.

The smoke from the dry ice will inflate the bubble and it will eventually pop, causing the smoke to spill over the sides of the bowl.
If may take multiple times to start your bubble. If you have trouble getting it started, try dipping the towel in the soapy water before trying again.
Be careful that the light gels don’t touch the light bulbs since they could melt from the heat.

Replace the dry ice every 20-30 minutes if you want to keep creating more fog.
Set up the machine and pipe against a wall so people don’t trip over it by accident.

Step 5 Put dry ice in a heated pool or hot tub to make outdoor smoke.

If you have an unheated pool, the dry ice won’t make as much smoke, but it will bubble.
The dry ice can make your pool more alkaline, so you may need to adjust the chemicals after doing this.

Step 6 Use colored lights in your room to make the smoke appear a different color.

Use a spotlight or flashlight with a sheet of colored plastic over it if you only want to light your smoke in a specific place.

Expert Q&A

Dry ice is extremely cold and can cause frostbite if you touch it with bare skin. Wear gloves and keep the ice away from children. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
Be sure to keep the room where you make dry ice smoke properly ventilated since it could be harmful if you allow the vapor to build up. [14] X Research source Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

Things You’ll Need

Large bucket
Thick gloves
5–10 pounds (2.3–4.5 kg) of dry ice
Dish detergent
Fog machine
Light gels or colored lights
Heated pool

Find the Number of Protons, Neutrons, and Electrons

↑ https://dryiceinfo.com/fog.htm
↑ https://chem.rutgers.edu/cldf-demos/1029-cldf-demo-fog-formation
↑ https://youtu.be/h28ultF3y2k?t=51
↑ https://www.livescience.com/63241-dry-ice-death.html
↑ https://ourpastimes.com/how-to-create-smoke-with-dry-ice-12402395.html
↑ https://www.thekitchn.com/3-pro-tips-for-using-dry-ice-on-halloween-236787
↑ https://sciencebob.com/the-giant-dry-ice-bubble-sphere/
↑ https://youtu.be/h28ultF3y2k?t=262
↑ https://ourpastimes.com/how-to-make-a-colored-fog-solution-12169065.html

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"Smoke wihout fire" experiment

How to make two liquids smoke in another flask?

They say there’s no smoke without fire… but with chemists , anything can happen! Before your eyes we make smoke without matches, logs and fire, only using our wits and two liquids.

Step-by-step instructions

For the experiment, we’ll need 3 flasks, joined by gas pipes. Into flask №1 we pour 20 ml of a concentrated solution of hydrochloric acid (HCl) and firmly seal it with a stopper with a gas pipe. Into flask №3, we pour a 25% ammonia solution (NH₃), and firmly seal it with a stopper with a gas pipe. We also seal flask №2 with a stopper with a gas pipe, to which we have connected the pipes from the flask with the concentrated solution of hydrochloric acid and the flask with the ammonia solution. We observe the release of white smoke in the second flask. How is this possible, if flask №2 was empty!?

Processes description

Ammonia and concentrated hydrochloric acid are volatile liquids, at room temperature the solutions evaporate well and turn into HCl and NH₃ gases . The HCl and NH₃ enter flask №2 from flasks №1 and №3, and a chemical reaction takes place with the release of white smoke. It is tiny crystals of ammonium chloride:

NH₃+HCl=NH₄Cl

Safety precautions

The experiment must be carried out in a well-ventilated room or in a draught cupboard, as gaseous ammonia is a toxic compound, and gaseous HCl can cause burns to the respiratory tract. Observe the rules for working with concentrated hydrochloric acid.

Substances of this experiment are toxic and highly dangerous for your health. Do not try this at home. Only under professional supervision

Dozens of experiments you can do at home

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A novel approach to the quantitative analysis of the particulate matter in conventional cigarette smoke and heated tobacco product aerosols

Affiliation.

1 Grupo MCMA, Departamento de Química Inorgánica e Instituto Universitario de Materiales de Alicante (IUMA), Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Alicante, Alicante, E-03080, Spain.
PMID: 39170206
PMCID: PMC11336348
DOI: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e35028

The particulate and soluble matter present in aerosols from combustible cigarettes (CCs) and Heated Tobacco Products (HTPs) was collected in liquid water. These liquids, yellowish in the experiments with cigarettes and colourless after using HTPs, were analysed by Laser Diffraction (LD) and by Transmission Electron Microscopy coupled to Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (TEM-EDX) to study the amount, size, composition, and other features of the particulate matter (PM) present in the collected aerosols. The particulate matter concentration in HTPs samples is below the limit of quantification for LD, and only samples from cigarettes show a particulate matter concentration above such limit. TEM analysis has revealed that the liquid samples (from both, cigarettes and HTPs experiments) contain particulate matter, mainly composed of carbon (C) and oxygen (O), but also of traces of inorganic elements. The TEM electron beam results in the evaporation of the particulate matter derived from HTPs, but not of that derived from cigarettes, highlighting the different nature of the particulate matter in both systems, i.e. liquid particulate matter present in the HTPs aerosols and solid particulate matter in the cigarettes smoke. A protocol for the quantitative comparison of the particulate matter present in aerosols has been applied over sixteen TEM images for each sample, confirming important differences from the point of view of the amount of particulate matter and particle size ranges. Thus, the amount of particulate matter for HTPs aerosol samples is more than one order of magnitude lower than for cigarettes smoke.

Keywords: Collection; Combustible cigarettes; HCI; Heat-not-burn products; Heated tobacco products; IQOS; Particulate matter; Quantitative analysis.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: The present study has been funded by Philip Morris Products, S.A.

Location of the 16 areas…

Location of the 16 areas (and the nomenclature given) of each TEM grid…

(a) Example of the TEM…

(a) Example of the TEM image of a sample from cigarettes experiment and…

Detailed analysis scheme for the…

Detailed analysis scheme for the comparison and quantification of the collected particulate matter…

TEM images of water samples…

TEM images of water samples of blank experiments: (a) Blank A, for an…

Sizes of 10 particles in…

Sizes of 10 particles in water samples obtained in Blank A (carried out…

Mass fraction values of elements…

Mass fraction values of elements identified by EDX on blank experiments with TALOS…

Laser diffraction data of samples…

Laser diffraction data of samples of Blank B experiments carried out with unlit…

Photographs of collected liquid samples.

TEM images of water samples from puffing experiments with: (a) lit cigarettes and…

Sizes of 10 particles detected…

Sizes of 10 particles detected in samples from lit/heated puffing experiments (analysed by…

Mass fraction values of elements identified by EDX from puffing experiments with: (a)…

Size distribution of particulate matter…

Size distribution of particulate matter (aggregates) in puffing experiments samples. (a) Particle size…

Mallock N., Böss L., Burk R., Danziger M., Welsch T., Hahn H., et al. Levels of selected analytes in the emissions of “heat not burn” tobacco products that are relevant to assess human health risks. Arch. Toxicol. 2018;92:2145–2149. doi: 10.1007/s00204-018-2215-y. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
Li Y., Cui H., Chen L., Fan M., Cai J., Guo J., et al. Modeled respiratory tract deposition of smoke aerosol from conventional cigarettes, electronic cigarettes and heat-not-burn products. Aerosol Air Qual. Res. 2021;21 doi: 10.4209/aaqr.200241. - DOI
Torikaiu K., Uwano Y., Nakamori T., Tarora W., Takahashi H. Study on tobacco components involved in the pyrolytic generation of selected smoke constituents. Food Chem. Toxicol. 2005;43:559–568. doi: 10.1016/j.fct.2004.12.011. - DOI - PubMed
Baker R.R. Smoke generation inside a burning cigarette: modifying combustion to develop cigarettes that may be less hazardous to health. Prog. Energy Combust. Sci. 2006;32:373–385. doi: 10.1016/j.pecs.2006.01.001. - DOI
Piadé J.J., Wajrock S., Jaccard G., Janeke G. Formation of mainstream cigarette smoke constituents prioritized by the World Health Organization - yield patterns observed in market surveys, clustering and inverse correlations. Food Chem. Toxicol. 2013;55:329–347. doi: 10.1016/j.fct.2013.01.016. - DOI - PubMed

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COMMENTS

How to Do the White Smoke Chemistry Demonstration
Pour a small volume of hydrochloric acid into one of the jars. Swirl it around to coat the jar, and pour the excess back into its container. Place a square of cardboard over the jar to cover it. Fill the second jar with ammonia. Cover it with the square of cardboard, which will now be separating the contents of the two containers.
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Cool Smoke tricks compilation - Awesome Science Experiments for kids to do at home.Smoke Waterfall, How To Make Smoke Rings, How to do Smoking Fingers Magic ...
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In this video, we're going to show you an amazing liquid smoke experiment. By making liquid smoke, we're going to create a smoke that looks like liquid!This ...
3 Ways to Make White Smoke
Set up a safe fire location. Fill your large bucket with water and place it outside. Make sure it is not located near wood, paper, dry grass, or other flammable material. For example, a driveway, parking lot, or gravel alley may be the most fire-safe place to complete this experiment. 3. Roll up the paper into a tube.
White Smoke Demonstration (Ammonium Chloride Synthesis)
The white smoke demonstration is a simple, visually appealing chemistry project. Pour a clear liquid into a seemingly empty and watch clouds of white vapor appear. It makes a nice science magic trick and is a great introduction to a discussion of acid-base and synthesis reactions. Materials. This is a simple reaction that only requires two ...
Liquid Smoke Magic Trick Science Experiment
Usually, smoke tend to go up. In this video you will see an opposite result, the smoke can stay still in one glass. For this experiment, you will need two co...
Liquid Smoke: The History Behind a Divisive Culinary Shortcut
Ernest H. Wright, a Kansas City, Missouri pharmacist, created the ingredient in 1895. According to a 1923 edition of The Rotarian, Wright's inspiration for liquid smoke was the memory of "a drop ...
"Smoke wihout fire" experiment
For the experiment, we'll need 3 flasks, joined by gas pipes. Into flask №1 we pour 20 ml of a concentrated solution of hydrochloric acid (HCl) and firmly seal it with a stopper with a gas pipe. Into flask №3, we pour a 25% ammonia solution (NH₃), and firmly seal it with a stopper with a gas pipe.
Do-It-Yourself Liquid Smoke, and Other Kitchen Hacks
And that is liquid smoke. JEFF POTTER: Liquid smoke is fascinating. This is one of those ones that demonstrates some really great chemistry. It's made fundamentally by taking whatever your smoke source is,- hickory chips, say- putting them inside a container that you then heat. And you take the smoke from that container, a closed container.
Heavy smoke
Most often, the body's own weight is greater than that of the displaced liquid or gas - that is, it has a higher density, and then it sinks. This is the case with the smoke in this demonstration. It has a higher density than the surrounding air and thus it sinks. This is a bit unusual, as we are used to smoke being hot and thus having a low ...
8 amazing SMOKE Experiments & Tricks
Cool Smoke tricks compilation - Awesome Science Experiments for kids to do at home. Smoke Waterfall, How To Make Smoke Rings, How to do Smoking Fingers Magic Trick, Potassium Permanganate + Hydrogen Peroxide, Liquid Smoke - pouring , Put out a candle with Smoke and more.
11 Best Liquid Smoke Brands
10. Figaro Hickory Liquid Smoke Sauce. Check Current Price On Amazon. The Figaro Hickory Liquid Smoke Sauce has a slow-roasted hickory flavor, which is perfectly suited for hamburgers, ribs, chicken, vegetables and more. You can use it straight on food, or use it to make a BBQ sauce or marinade of your own.
13 Awesome Chemical Reaction Experiments You Can Do At Home
This fun smoke-without-fire experiment demonstrates an awesome chemical reaction that creates smoke using a combination of concentrated hydrochloric acid and ammonia. ... Liquid Layer Density Tower. Density towers, or density columns, are a great way to show and explain the density levels of different liquids.
A liquid smoke experiment I did
You can conduct this experiment at home if you're careful. All you need is a piece of paper, a firelighter or match, a cup of water, and a fork! Please use c...
What is Liquid Smoke and How to Use It?
Ernest conducted experiments to recreate the liquid via wood combustion and condensation of the fire's exhaust, and thus liquid smoke was born. Wright's Liquid Smoke was first produced in 1895 and is still sold in stores today.
Light a Candle with Smoke (Flame Science Trick)
When you blow the candle out, vaporized wax briefly remains in the air. If you apply a heat source quickly enough, you can ignite the wax and use that reaction to relight the wick of the candle. Although it looks like you're lighting the candle with smoke, it's really just the wax vapor that ignites. Soot and other debris from the flame aren't ...
How to Make a Smoke Bomb
Pour about 3 parts potassium nitrate to 2 parts sugar into the skillet (5:3 ratio is also good). Measurements don't need to be exact, but you want more KNO 3 than sugar. For example, you can use 1-1/2 cups KNO 3 and 1 cup sugar. As you approach the 5:3 KNO 3:sugar ratio, you get a smoke bomb that burns more quickly.
How to Make Dry Ice Smoke: 11 Steps (with Pictures)
Create large bubbles filled with dry ice smoke for a fun experiment. Put 1-2 teaspoons (4.9-9.9 ml) of liquid dish soap in a bowl filled with 1 US quart (0.95 L) of water and mix it together to create suds. Put your dry ice in another bowl and submerge it in water so it starts creating smoke. Dip a towel in the soapy water and wring it out ...
"Smoke wihout fire" experiment
For the experiment, we'll need 3 flasks, joined by gas pipes. Into flask №1 we pour 20 ml of a concentrated solution of hydrochloric acid (HCl) and firmly seal it with a stopper with a gas pipe. Into flask №3, we pour a 25% ammonia solution (NH₃), and firmly seal it with a stopper with a gas pipe.
6 AMAZING SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS
6 AMAZING SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS | SMOKE EXPERIMENTS#Experiements #Science_Experiments0:00 Make a cloud in a bottleWhat you see is condensation. The air inside ...
Boo Bubbles Bouncing Smoke
Boo Bubbles Bouncing Smoke Bubbles Experiment. ... Once liquid CO 2 is formed, the CO 2 is sent through an expansion valve and enters a pressure chamber. This pressure change causes the liquid to flash into a solid and causes the temperature to drop quickly. About 46% of the gas will freeze into "dry ice snow."
A novel approach to the quantitative analysis of the particulate matter
The particulate and soluble matter present in aerosols from combustible cigarettes (CCs) and Heated Tobacco Products (HTPs) was collected in liquid water. These liquids, yellowish in the experiments with cigarettes and colourless after using HTPs, were analysed by Laser Diffraction (LD) and by Trans …
Liquid Smoke Experiment
Liquid Smoke Experiment - An Amazing Experiment. Simple experiment that can be tried with careful handling.Hope all enjoyed watching this .Try and share your...
Amazing Smoke Tricks
Amazing Smoke Tricks | Liquid Smoke | Easy Science Experiment Your Queries:-smoke tricks sciencesmoke tricks shortssmoke tricks in telugusmoke tricks in tami...