Airgas, Inc. has apparently run out of gas -- specifically nitrous oxide. Given that Airgas is the foremost manufacturer of nitrous oxide in the U.S., there is now a nationwide shortage.
Although the problems supposedly date back to an August plant explosion in Florida (which apparently was only reported locally), no one really noticed a problem until coffee shops started running out of whipped cream lately.
Now the news media is being whipped up into a frenzy over the possibility of a holiday desserts without whipped cream.
Time reports on this "dire" issue:
Stock up on canned whipped cream during your next jaunt to the grocery store, because we—as a nation—might be running out soon. That's right: the most important topping (or stand-alone ingredient, for some) in the dessert world is in dire short supply this holiday season. According to the Chicago Tribune, this terrifying fact is all due to a national shortage in nitrous oxide, the gas used to make aerosol cans of whipped cream function the way they're supposed to (among other things).
While this gas shortage reporting about missing coffee toppings may seem silly, it really is no laughing matter. Other Airgas plants beyond Florida are apparently also having problems, so some reports suggest remaining nitrous oxide stocks are now being restricted to medical use until replacement supplies can be imported from Europe. A bulletin sent out to store managers at regional grocery chain Market Basket notes:
Airgas, Inc. had an explosion in their Florida plant and a total loss. Their Maitland, Ontario plant was shut down for safety reasons, and their Yazoo City, Mississippi facility continues to have issues with two lines. Airgas will begin importing nitrous oxide from Europe in December. However, for now, all nitrous oxide available is being used for medical purposes.
More details at the Chicago Tribune .
[Continues...]
What I personally find hilarious about all of this holiday dessert hysteria is that whipped cream is one of the simplest things to make in your kitchen. Do you have any device capable of agitating enough to whip air into a liquid (e.g., hand mixer, stand mixer, immersion blender, food processor, even a bowl and a whisk)? You can make whipped cream in anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes. (1) Pour some heavy cream (or "whipping cream"). (2) Whip until desired texture is achieved. (3) Toward the end, add any sugar or other flavorings (many people will put at least a tiny bit of vanilla extract). The end. (Minor caution: do pay attention and don't whip beyond where the cream starts to get quite stiff, or you will turn it into homemade butter.)
There's a lot of kitchen lore about having to put bowls and beaters into the freezer, etc., but that's really only necessary if you're whipping by hand with a whisk. And if you've never made homemade whipped cream, be prepared for something significantly better than the can. In addition, you get to choose exactly the texture you like -- do you want it nearly stiff and very light? Or dense, very rich, and a little runny? Feel free to add a little flavor -- a dash of cinnamon, some cocoa powder, a tablespoon or two of your favorite liqueur, a little orange zest, or even something more exotic.
Seriously, I can't even figure out why anyone would buy the canned stuff, nitrous oxide shortage or not. Every time I serve the "real thing" for guests, they act like it's the best thing they've ever eaten. Far from a holiday disaster, maybe we should look at this as an opportunity to make America whip cream again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @10:09AM
Isn't this the stuff that comes out of diesel engines?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @10:42AM
No, the pollutants are oxides of nitrogen plural, NOx -- a mix of several gasses.
Nitrous oxide is one specific molecule, N2O.
Some drag racers and drifters are going to be missing their "spray" (short term power boost) until the suppliers are back online.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous_oxide_engine [wikipedia.org]
When a mole of nitrous oxide decomposes, it releases half a mole of O2 molecules (oxygen gas), and one mole of N2 molecules (nitrogen gas). This decomposition allows an oxygen concentration of 33% to be reached. Nitrogen gas is non-combustible and does not support combustion. Air—which contains only 21% oxygen, the rest being nitrogen and other equally non-combustible and non-combustion-supporting gasses—permits a 12-percent-lower maximum-oxygen level than that of nitrous oxide.
(Score: 4, Informative) by pTamok on Friday December 16 2016, @11:48AM
While not documented in the 'Allowed HTML' subscripts and superscripts work.
This means we can write the molecular formulas correctly.
N2O ; O2 ; and N2
Or N2O → N2 + ½ O2
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday December 16 2016, @11:31PM
Why would they want to do all that extra typing when it's pretty clear what is meant by context? It would be different if they were typing organic molecule formulas or chemical equations, but neither applies here.
Wake me up when Slashdot supports unicode so that I can finally type subscripts and exponents using the same simple compose-key combos I use in my text editor and everywhere else (Just to confirm they still haven't: water is H₂O, and the Pythagorean theorem is a² + b² = c²)
(Score: 3, Touché) by Immerman on Friday December 16 2016, @11:41PM
Wow. What do you know. I stand corrected.
For those interested, a compose key is a *very* old method of entering extended characters without having to memorize arbitrary character codes. For example to type ² you type the sequence [compose] [^] [2], while ₅ = [compose][_][5], and most other common characters you might want to type have similarly logical sequences, e.g. [compose][O][c] = ©
It's usually easy to turn on a compose key in Linux, if it's not already on by default (It frequently defaults to remapping the rarely used context-menu key to the right of the spacebar, or the capslock key, and can generally be easily remapped to whatever unused key you wish) On Windows you'll need a third-party program such as WinCompose or many others.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 17 2016, @03:11AM
SoylentNews is not Slashdot
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @12:41PM
Nitrous oxide is one specific molecule, N2O
Wouldn't that be di-nitrogen-monoxinde, rather than nitrous oxide? I don't see anything in "nitrous oxide" specifying two nitrogen atoms.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @01:33PM
Do you even chemistry, bro?
(Score: 4, Informative) by pTamok on Friday December 16 2016, @01:55PM
Formally, excluding spelling mistakes, you are correct. The IUPAC name for N2O is dinitrogen monoxide. However, just like we do not use Latin classifications all the time for common animals - we say cow, rather than Bos taurus taurus - certain chemicals have a commonly used name in addition to their IUPAC name. - in this case, Nitrous oxide.
Nitrogen forms many compounds with oxygen - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_oxide [wikipedia.org] - nitrous oxide and nitric oxide are common names, and the formation of those names corresponds with one of the compounds having nitrogen in a lower oxidation state than the other - compare with ferrous and ferric, or mercurous and mercuric.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by damnbunni on Friday December 16 2016, @10:29AM
I only do it for Irish coffee because for that I like it very barely whipped.
For anything else? I prefer the stuff in the can.
I think the vast majority of storebought whipped cream that gets used isn't used by someone who is Preparing Dessert For Themselves And Guests After A Meal.
It's used by people who want something convenient to put on their ice cream or cocoa or whatever. The convenience is why people use the can.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Friday December 16 2016, @11:12PM
And you get to huff the nitrous once empty. It's the gift that keeps on giving...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by canopic jug on Friday December 16 2016, @10:37AM
I agree with the comment at the end of the summary. I know the importance of nitrous oxide for dental work and for recreational activities, but how does this affect whipped cream? Don't people have access to whisks, egg beaters, or electric mixers? Whipped cream really does take just a minute or two to whip up even by hand, assuming that the cream is already well-chilled. Warm won't work.
The caution about avoiding making butter is important, though. However, it's easy enough to simply stop whipping when it is done.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 4, Funny) by wonkey_monkey on Friday December 16 2016, @01:39PM
Whipped cream really does take just a minute or two
You want me to wait a whole extra minute for my tall slim skinny fat decaf half-white extra choco-mocca flat short latte? I've got a screenplay to publicly write, y'know!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Friday December 16 2016, @06:47PM
You forgot cruelty free organic
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @08:41PM
And Gluten-Free. It will be the tits.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @01:59PM
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Friday December 16 2016, @02:22PM
Apparently a bowl and a whisk is a pile... Not to mention that it's just cream and it rinses right off. With a blender it only takes seconds.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday December 16 2016, @07:23PM
IF I have cream in the fridge, THEN the amount will be wrong. Either too little of it to make enough whipped cream, or too much, but no so much that I'd leave it unwhipped, might as well finish it, oh well crap, now I have too much whipped cream and it's too late to let the consumers get truly wired, so I need to store it or finish it, and how long will it last or didn't I already eat too much?
The can does provide exactly the amount, then goes back to the fridge. That's the benefit.
It's also pretty darn sweet, to a level that gets you dark looks from the sugar-weary-one if you do it yourself.
(that said, we don't use cans because someone will let the rest of the can go bad in the fridge rather than provide sweet goodness. I need to be single again)
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday December 16 2016, @09:32PM
At my place of employment they use frozen whip cream. Not sure if they use air or NO.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday December 17 2016, @06:08AM
Bowl: minerals mined once, metal probably heated several times before shaping, lasts a hell of a long time.
Whisk: see bowl.
Metal can container with plastic attachments: see bowl, plus oil for the plastic, then tossed in the garbage. Lasts a hell of a long time.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday December 16 2016, @02:39PM
It's not just the minute or two that it takes to do the whipping. It's having the whip and the bowl in the first place, it's cleaning the preparation dishes after preparation is done. With N2O propellant in a can, you save all those steps, all that labor and support equipment, and you can just take the coffee from your K-cup (in special holiday flavors) dispense it into a festive holiday themed disposable cup, spray some cream on top, then dispose of the containers when done.
Jeez, people, next you'll be suggesting that we keep our own dairy animals.
Seriously, though, shaker can whipped cream is pretty much a poster child for the disposable society - a few ounces of cream contained in a refrigerated metal can, top a few coffees and desserts, then send the can to the landfill or maybe recyclers. I suppose it is kind of old-fashioned; frozen pies come pre-topped, and those K-cups are getting better at imitating cream toppings - why bother with a separate can and extra preparation step?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by sgleysti on Friday December 16 2016, @04:00PM
Congratulations JoeMerchant,
You gave me comment whiplash at this phrase
Seriously, though, shaker can whipped cream is pretty much a poster child for the disposable society
Well done.
I have made a pie entirely from scratch just once, a raisin pie. It was a lot of fun. The only time I'll ever use whipped cream of any time is with strawberries, and when I do, it's the real kind. I was so surprised that medical uses were not the major concern in the article, although it makes sense that they would use a lot less N2O than canned whipped cream.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday December 16 2016, @04:28PM
I think all these type of products boil down to "making people feel like they have servants when they really don't." You want whipped cream, here you can have it without all the work, sure it sucks compared to something that could be produced by hand labor, but, you can't afford other people's hand labor and you don't want to do it yourself, so...
I read something recently about British ex-pats in the third world being able to afford a servant or two, the quote was something like "a single servant is worth a whole house full of appliances." So very true. Now, pardon me while I go reset my robotic lawn mower...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by sgleysti on Friday December 16 2016, @05:01PM
That's interesting and makes a lot of sense. Personally, I find these kind of tasks enjoyable. I recently bought a hand cranked coffee grinder and find that it's quite fun to use. It has a gearbox, so it isn't tedious.
I love baking bread by hand, and if I had more extra money/space, I would probably buy a small hand cranked grain mill to grind the wheat myself. Perhaps it's a matter of perspective?
Even if I had servants -- which I never will -- they would probably use appliances. All the appliances I have are: vacuum cleaner (no alternative for carpet), electric kettle (could use the stove), microwave (could use the stove), toaster (could use the stove), rice cooker (could use the stove), pressure cooker (could do without, but beans would take a lot longer), refrigerator (no real alternative outside of winter), coffee grinder (I have used a large mortar and pestle but don't recommend it), dehumidifier / fans / aircon (could just put up with heat / humidity).
Perhaps the hypothetical servants would use the stove for more tasks than I do ;) And I will entirely admit that the rice cooker makes me feel like a machine is doing my work for me, and a better job of it. It might actually be my favorite appliance, and for the exact reason that you mentioned.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday December 16 2016, @07:33PM
My wife and I have opposite opinions of rice cookers: she loves them, I think they take almost as much work while making an often inferior finished product, though if you measure "artfully" you can get great rice out of a cooker, too. If you can measure the water, maintain enough attention to be there within a few minutes of when it starts to boil, measure the rice, set a timer, and be there to shut it off when the timer stops, rice in a pot comes out as well or better than rice in a cooker, for me. Now, if you aren't mentally and physically available to perform those 3 steps over a ~25 minute period, all kinds of things can go wrong in a pot on the stove, sometimes horribly wrong, whereas the worst that happens in a rice cooker is: cold rice for breakfast.
I suppose the rice cooker is a low-tech robot, of sorts, performing those steps for you. More or less as the N2O in the can is part of an automated whipping and delivery process. The robot that mows my grass hasn't saved me any labor overall (I used to let the grass grow quite a bit more between cuttings), but it has transformed the work from something I had to devote several consecutive hours to, getting sweaty and dirty, often out in the hot sun, to a matter of "unsticking" it from places it gets trapped once or twice a week, and resurfacing those areas to be more "robot compatible" when I get around to it. I spend the same hours on lawn maintenance, but the lawn looks better and the hours are much more at my discretion than they used to be with a push or riding mower.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by richtopia on Friday December 16 2016, @03:08PM
I would suspect the majority of whipped cream usage is in restaurants, where yes, whipping cream by hand is too much. When you order a milk shake at Mc Donnalds they spray whipped cream on top, and coffee shops also are major users.
(Score: 2) by tisI on Friday December 16 2016, @03:10PM
Perhaps the fact our govt assumes the people are mostly fat lazy and stupid, which would explain the urgency of "NO WHIPPED CREAM FOR THE HOLIDAYS" alert.
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself."
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday December 16 2016, @07:21PM
All the RediWhip canned stuff you get in the store plus the dispensers you see in coffee shops and restaurants all use NO for pressure. Since it doesn't affect the flavor it is ideal. The reason they can't switch over to CO2 or other inert gases is because most will affect the taste. Other tasteless inert gasses that could possibly be used cost far more per cubic liter.
While it is not a big deal if you can make your own but it is a sad fact that many people can't make whipped cream themselves, either lack of knowledge, lack of skill or lack of equipment.
Expect the US Congress to declare a crisis and push through some emergency measure or such when they can't get whipped cream on the hot cocos for their girlfriends/mistresses.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 17 2016, @01:37AM
It's not that simple. The propellant also must be soluble in cream -- the bubbles that make it whipped cream instead of spray-on liquid cream are formed by gas coming out of solution and expanding, analogous to the fizz in carbonated beverages. N2O does this nicely; many otherwise viable propellants don't.
(Score: 5, Funny) by BK on Friday December 16 2016, @11:12AM
Or is it?
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @12:08PM
He seens to have infinite supply of NOS.
Also the RICErs Fag and Furious community should be mourning by now
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday December 16 2016, @01:29PM
Very nice.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Saturday December 17 2016, @01:42AM
So glad you liked it!
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by captain_nifty on Friday December 16 2016, @03:20PM
What's the Opposite of Efficiency?
It's redundancy, and in our economies push for infinite growth and maximizing quarterly profits everything must get more and more efficient, losing any redundancy or backups for predictable or unexpected failures.
This isn't the first shortage we've seen, expect to see more in the future.
It's presented as a humorous subject, but represents a major problem in our society that is structurally not going to be fixed. If some company tried to have excess production capacity or storage, western capitalism would condemn that as inefficient and sell off the excess equipment or supplies for immediate profit. There is no mechanism to economically reward redundancy, in fact the opposite is true. Like hard drives after a flood, I imagine the price of Nitrous Oxide is going up and canned whip cream is flying off the shelves, allowing the producers to make a nice increased profit after they bring the supply chain back on line. Companies are rewarded on both ends of the crisis they themselves caused; increased profits before the shortage due to lack of redundant capacity, and increased profits after a shortage due to the increased demand.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday December 16 2016, @04:31PM
explosion at the Florida plant resulted in a total loss
if they, themselves, caused this, there's probably an insurance company with a lawsuit in progress.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @04:43PM
Right. But I think it's even more fundamental than maximizing short-term profit. If the goal of a company is to maximize profit, even long-term, then the goal is to extract as much value from the economy as possible with as few input resources as possible. It would be so much better if the goal was to provide useful, high quality products / services at reasonable prices and to provide fulfilling, fairly-compensated jobs.
I grew up in a fundamentalist charismatic church but I no longer believe in any religion and have an empiricist epistemology. Most of the church members were right wing, and talking to some of them, you would think that God invented capitalism. I read Marsden's biography of Jonathan Edwards and was so surprised to read this old-school conservative Calvinist theologian's critique of free market capitalism, which was a new idea at the time (he lived 1703-1758). He said something like, If everyone buys as cheaply as they can and charges as high of a price as they can, you will make life harder for everyone.
My employer makes a technology that was going to be integrated into a medical procedure. I asked if the goal was to improve patient outcomes; they replied that the main goal was to make the procedure seem more high tech, which was expected to increase market share for the medical procedure. Improvement in patient outcomes, if it occurred, was nice but incidental. I was disappointed but not surprised.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @09:41PM
well yeah
the first law of economics is the law of supply and demand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @10:59PM
What's the Opposite of Efficiency?
I think that would be Government.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Friday December 16 2016, @04:36PM
I can't believe that the stoners huffing it haven't noticed it being gone from their favorite head shop.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @05:18PM
That's because we buy in bulk. I still have several hundred N2O chargers on hand, so I'll weather this shortage nicely.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @05:48PM
Lightweights use whippets, when we had a party we had a ~5 foot (1.5m) tall cylinder. Crack the valve and fill garbage bags, everyone has their own personal source.
An enterprising friend made letterhead for [cityname] Laser Company which was good enough to purchase directly from a compressed gas supply company. Doesn't a nitrous oxide laser sound plausible?
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Friday December 16 2016, @09:03PM
The more of it I breathe, the more plausible it sound!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 17 2016, @03:16AM
same here, a mate (captain midnight you still out there?) setup a front company claiming to be doing catering then convinced the local gas suppliers he needed nitrous to squirt cream. didnt use a garbage bag tho, we had a proper hospital type face mask connected via hose to the cylinder which we passed around.
the goths uses to refer to the resulting party as a "black wind party", they also used to refer to doing nitrous as nanging.
strange thing about nangs, they're the only thing which has ever given me auditory hallucinations, music gets all chopped up etc
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 17 2016, @04:41AM
The effect I remember most might be called, "state dependent memory" -- on nitrous, I would often remember details of previous times I'd been on nitrous. Most were fun times but then there was the dentist who nearly pulled the wrong baby tooth...ugh (but my Mom was there and sorted it out).
Another nice thing about a nitrous party is that everyone comes down as they walk out the door (assuming a few minutes since their last breath), so no problems finding designated drivers or worrying that someone will be driving drunk/impaired.
In case anyone is watching...all these stories are from the early 1980s, ancient history now.
One more story that I'm sure no one will believe? When hitchhiking, I used to stop in rest areas and ask truck drivers for a lift. One time I was picked up by an older driver with a full tank load of liquid nitrous. He made a big deal about being specially qualified for this cargo, the tank didn't have any baffles welded in (which he said would weaken it) and was at 80 psi. A very smooth driver was required to keep the load from sloshing and he was really smooth. He didn't tell any laughing gas jokes, a very serious nice guy. Claimed he rarely picked up riders, but this time was a little tired and wanted someone to help keep him awake.
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Friday December 16 2016, @06:50PM
I wonder if this is why for the past couple of months I have been able to taste the propellant in the canned stuff available locally?
It's strong enough to taint the taste of pie or ice cream.
(Score: 1) by charon on Friday December 16 2016, @07:45PM
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 16 2016, @09:38PM
It's a Good Thing(R).
(Score: 1) by charon on Friday December 16 2016, @10:55PM
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday December 17 2016, @04:45PM
Nitrous oxide is a neurotransmitter that's essential to produce erections. Erection drugs that I'm not allowed to mention here without being accused of spam stimulate the production of nitrous oxide; thats why it works.
However, a world-wide nitrous oxide shortage is not likely to affect this, since as a neurotransmitter it is produced inside the body.
Now that I've provided the technical background, you soylentils can get on with the crude jokes that have been missing so far.