I need custard.

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

**LINK*

https://youtu.be/Iz9KnPZWOgs

If you want to fill your swimming pool with custard you can walk on it.

Mike

Edited By Mike Poole on 14/08/2023 10:34:28

Edited By Mike Poole on 14/08/2023 10:35:27

[Ex contributorParticipant @mgnbuk]

I don't make custard very often – hate cleaning saucepan

Make it in a Pyrex jug in the microwave – no pan to clean.

Nigel B.

[GordonHParticipant @gordonh]

Posted by Sam Stones on 14/08/2023 04:58:54:

So where, in the kitchen, could you easily demonstrate Bernoulli?

Sam

Chilling out in Melbourne

Just let a container with a rounded lip and a gentle supply of water overflow. Looking from the side, a " Bernoulli Line " can be seen where the surface of the water dips as it accelerates over the curved lip and the acceleration causes a local pressure drop at the surface. Water flowing over a wier is a good example.

I'd rather be chilling out in Melbourne than here in Solihull!

 

Edited for spelling correction

Edited By GordonH on 14/08/2023 11:56:51

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

I can remeber at some time in the South of London an explosion in a custard factory where dust blown through ducting exploded. You can see the place as you leave London on the southern line.

[Nick Clarke 3Participant @nickclarke3]

Posted by Clive Hartland on 14/08/2023 13:34:42:

I can remeber at some time in the South of London an explosion in a custard factory where dust blown through ducting exploded. You can see the place as you leave London on the southern line.

Used to demonstrate that in school science lessons with a 2.5l paint tin (new and bought empty) and a bunsen burner. blowing into a bit of rubber tube caused custard powder in the tin to be sprayed about in the tin where the flame from the bunsen blew the lid off with a satisfying bang!

While the experiment was supposed to show that you need to expose a large surface area and not just a heap of custard powder to burn it was not a very successful experiment as pupils didn't really see the point – and after one colleague showed you could get the lid of the tin to blow off with no bunsen or custard, just a hard blow we stopped doing the experiment.

Edited By Nick Clarke 3 on 15/08/2023 08:41:26

[NealebParticipant @nealeb]

All of this talk of explosive custard is a wicked urban myth spread by militant "ice cream at all costs" North American dessert eaters. I can confidently say that in all my years of making custard, I have never had a pan of it do so much as burst into flames even when cooking on a gas ring.

Now, the old "treacle tin" experiment in the chemistry lab was quite a different story…

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

A few years ago several workers were killed when a factory producing wood flour exploded, and lots of coal mine explosions were made a lot worse by coal dust, the dust being made airborne by an initial fired damp explosion. I've seen reports of grain silos going off as well, down to dust created by conveyors

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 14/08/2023 10:27:14:

Thanks for brightening up my morning …

And mine, although this thread reads as if many of the posters have been imbibing fermented custard…

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Custard powder with very little water was also used at school to demonstrate a thixotropic paste.

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

Posted by duncan webster on 15/08/2023 09:47:46:

A few years ago several workers were killed when a factory producing wood flour exploded, and lots of coal mine explosions were made a lot worse by coal dust, the dust being made airborne by an initial fired damp explosion. I've seen reports of grain silos going off as well, down to dust created by conveyors

In the early '70s I was labouring in the cutting room at Players' factory, moving bins of shredded tobacco leaf to the driers. There was usually a haze of tobacco dust hanging in the air. Dry tobacco burning as readily as it does, how it never blew up I don't know. Nor how I escaped any of the various lung diseases.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Posted by Nealeb on 15/08/2023 09:27:40:

All of this talk of explosive custard is a wicked urban myth spread by militant "ice cream at all costs" North American dessert eaters. I can confidently say that in all my years of making custard, I have never had a pan of it do so much as burst into flames even when cooking on a gas ring.

Now, the old "treacle tin" experiment in the chemistry lab was quite a different story…

Hi, custard powder will explode, I saw a film where it happened in a custard factory, don't know if it was the one that Clive Hartland has mentioned though. You can't just light a fuse that is inserted into a pile of custard though. This type of explosion is known as a dust cloud explosion, where there is a large cloud of enough dust that is airborne inside a building for instance, and the smallest spark or flame can set it of. There are many products that are able to produce airborne dust, that this can happen too, that you wouldn't think would exploded in this way, which is one reason why good and efficient dust extraction should be used in these sort of areas. I knew one man that was a contractor in my old job at times, who was killed by a dust explosion at a different company he was doing work for, when a spark entered a silo that was being filled at the time, which produced dust to form in the top of it, can't remember the product, but not something that you would have thought would explode.

Regards Nick.

[lee websterParticipant @leewebster72680]

I am unfamiliar with the explosive capabilities of custard in any form. I am however reminded of the demise of the treacle mines in my old home town of Hemel (treacle bumstead) Hempstead. It was in the mid 1800s that the largest treacle mine in Hemel, if not in England, suffered a devastating explosion that caused many injuries. It couldn't be determined if the explosion was caused by the treacle fumes being ignited by a candle, or by a spark by a steel tipped treacle drill. The mining of treacle in England was determined to be too dangerous. Ever since then we have imported our treacle.

Only the rich could afford mined treacle, the working classes had to make do with artificial treacle.

[JourneymanParticipant @journeyman]

Reading too much Terry Pratchett perchance. See The Fifth Elephant to explain the formation of the treacle mine

John

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

treacle mines – Chobham Surrey (goes nicely with custard.

Treacle Mine

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

It is well known that there were treacle mines in Pudsey, between Leeds and Bradford. When the Cornish tin mines started to go out of business, the Pudsey treacle barons bought one and had it shipped up north so they could dog out the treacle ready tinned. As Pudsey lies in a dip between it's 2 larger neighbours it suffered from chronic smoke problems. The ducks evolved to fly backwards to keep the soot out of their eyes.

Other local industries included the manufacture of whim-whams, 'for t' ducks to peek on'. I've no idea what it means either!

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

In the middle ages, "treacle" had medicinal connections, so if something like say calamine was being mined, you had a treacle mine

[Chris Pearson 1Participant @chrispearson1]

Posted by Clive Hartland on 14/08/2023 13:34:42:

I can remeber at some time in the South of London an explosion in a custard factory where dust blown through ducting exploded. You can see the place as you leave London on the southern line.

I witnessed that in (IIRC) Richmond, Yorks 30-odd years ago. My first thought was that a gas cylinder had gone up in the hardware store, but it was the baker next door. The clue was the loaves strewn amongst the glass splinters in t'middle of the road.

Or was it Ripon: my brain is fading.

Edited By Chris Pearson 1 on 15/08/2023 22:10:21

Edited By Chris Pearson 1 on 15/08/2023 22:10:39

Edited By Chris Pearson 1 on 15/08/2023 22:11:53

[NealebParticipant @nealeb]

I seem to remember a children's programme on television years back where they demonstrated this powder-based explosion problem by blowing a puff of ordinary cooking flour into a transparent vessel continuing a lit candle. Very much a "don't try this at home" experiment – wonder if that sort of thing would be allowed on television these days?

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Nealeb on 16/08/2023 08:48:36:

I seem to remember a children's programme on television years back where they demonstrated this powder-based explosion problem by blowing a puff of ordinary cooking flour into a transparent vessel continuing a lit candle. Very much a "don't try this at home" experiment – wonder if that sort of thing would be allowed on television these days?

Certainly is. Stephen Fry did the powder explosion on QI. Moving up the scale, Tony Robinson did a series demonstrating the effects of replica WW2 German Bombs on typical British homes. From memory his smallest explosion was 50kg of an un-named High Explosive, distinctly more violent than custard powder! Mythbusters (made in the US where they have more empty space for big bangs), filmed many explosion based myths and realities. Gas igniting inside a Portaloo (don't smoke), up to a cement truck filled with quarry blasting explosive.

Modern TV is increasingly coy about the exact 'how to' details. No desire to make it easy for those who want to cause explosions in crowded public places. All countries have large 'Sh1t for Brains' communities!

Dave

Dave

[david homerParticipant @davidhomer12226]

I worked for 30 years at General Foods (Birds Custard and Maxwell House Coffee) in Banbury where we had a dust explosion in the Desserts area 1981 involving one of the Custard plants. I was just coming onto night shift at 9:45 pm and was just in the locker room getting changed when the explosion occurred, the fire alarm was sounding and as maintenance staff we were part of the Fire Team and started off towards the area being announced over the Tannoy system, walking through a fog of cornstarch dust..

For anyone interested the link below is for the Factory inspectors report.

https://archive.org/details/op1275789-1001

David

[david homerParticipant @davidhomer12226]

The Explosion Demonstration for new starters at General Foods consisting of a 10" od Steel tube, open top solid bottom, an airline connection towards the bottom, a spark plug at the bottom, connected to an HT transformer with a push button. 1teaspoon of custard powder was placed was in the bottom, a paper diaphragm held over the top with a Jubilee clip. The routine was a short shot of air to get custard powder airborne and then a push of the button for the ignition source and you end up with a small bang and a burst diaphragm.

David

[Ramon WilsonParticipant @ramonwilson3]

Posted by david homer on 16/08/2023 10:13:10:

I worked for 30 years at General Foods (Birds Custard and Maxwell House Coffee) in Banbury where we had a dust explosion in the Desserts area 1981 involving one of the Custard plants. I was just coming onto night shift at 9:45 pm and was just in the locker room getting changed when the explosion occurred, the fire alarm was sounding and as maintenance staff we were part of the Fire Team and started off towards the area being announced over the Tannoy system, walking through a fog of cornstarch dust..

For anyone interested the link below is for the Factory inspectors report.

https://archive.org/details/op1275789-1001

David

Well, there you have it Lee, (see the OP) official confirmation from an inside source All you have to do now is find a retail outlet for one.

FWIW I had a decent bowl of the Bird's instant stuff last night poured over some blackberries – lovely

Best – Tug

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

Custard powder, sawdust, and coal dust are all hydrocarbons, so if mixed with oxygen, in the air, or elsewhere, can be combustible. amd so explosive..

In America at least one railroad company experimented with coal dust as a suitable substitute for coal in a specially built steam loco.

There have also been esxperiemnts to inject coal dust as a fuel ,for compression ignition engines. (The problem was that the coal dust slurry, being abrasive, shortened the life of the pump and injector components. )

My future in laws lived in a flat, and the old ladies below would carry coal, up the stairs, dropping coal dust as they went.

Terrified me, fearing, at least, a fire, if not an explosion, as we all crunched our way upstairs!

Thankfully, F i L retired and they moved out!

Even wire wool will burn!

Howard

[James AlfordParticipant @jamesalford67616]

I recall a documentary about the fire of London and speculation that it exacerbated by an explosion of flour dust in the Pudding Lane bakery, not just a fire.

James

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

Try Wikipedia with 'thermobaric weapon'. It's clear that this subject has been well understood by weapons engineers for a long while. Some have suggested it was a coaldust explosion, subsequent to the torpedo, that sank the Lusitania so disastrously in 1915.

I don't think custard powder is a preferred fuel.

[Author]

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