Nothing like a little chromium to flavor your water.

I use these cubes for my whisky and I can confirm, they're noticeably less effective than ice. Still, beats watering down a good drink sometimes!

Notably, the dilution itself *also* cools the drink. When the ice melts, it takes energy from the surrounding drink and cools it. But it also becomes meltwater, which is now near freezing, and thus colder (presumably) than the drink. As that mixes with the drink, it not only dilutes the drink, but also lowers the average temperature of the the whole drink + meltwater mixture. In a shaken cocktail, a lot of the volume of the drink is just-melted ice, which keeps it very cold. That works, because you can start with something fairly concentrated that will hold up to a lot of dilution.

To avoid watering down the drink, just have a glass with two sections (similar to a Sheridan bottle) one section for the ice, one for your drink.

For those wondering about why there was so little water inside the cubes, remember that water grows when it turns into ice. With that in mind and considering the thickness of the material that was probably the most water they could safely put in there

I would also like to point out that ice floats so when there is a significant temperature difference between the ice and the water the colder water falls as the warmer water rises due to density difference as such there is small convection currents so without any agitation a drink with ice will cool down faster than a metal alternative.

Let’s also remember ice floats in most drinks and so this greatly helps cooling. We could see this when the liquid nitrogen ball just froze the bottom and then left the water at the top fairly warm

I feel like you could have done a much simpler and more accurate test by just actually using the steel cubes and putting them in a freezer and testing using the same methods as how they'll actually be used.. Dude busted out the liquid nitrogen and definitely did not have to lol.. awesome 😎

Something I think you overlooked here: iron, being denser, takes up a lot less volume for the same amount of mass. Therefore, you can add quite a bit more mass in the form of metal in the same volume. In the case of a drink, I think volume is more important than Mass; you're probably not worried about making your drink heavier, whereas you're limited by the amount of volume you can add to cool it. I think it would have been more useful to compare metal cubes to the same volume of ice cubes

I've seen plastic not actually cubes filled with water. They were almost completely full with thin walls, so I guess better than those steel cubes. As far as I remember they worked well.

I like the ones that contain a phase change alloy inside a stainless steel shell. Still not ideal, but they do a good job of maintaining the temperature over a longer time.

that descript program is actually really awsome

As a bartender, dilution is very much desired effect, most cocktails rely on it to be balanced. If for any reason you decide to not use ice to cool your drink down, you usually need to add water to account for dilution otherwise your drink would taste different.

Can we just appreciate for a minute how well done that sponsored segment was. Kept my attention the entire time and I kind of want to try it now; and I don’t even edit videos!

One other advantage to water ice cubes is they float! As you see in your video, the drink is still warm on top with the iron ball at first and so it took a lot longer for the temperature to even out. Heat wants to rise. So having my ice on the top of my drink is definitely an advantage

That editing tool is actually pretty neat

ngl this sponsorship is pretty cool

One very imp aspect got left out. The convection heating and cooling. Ice is lower density so floats. A glass of water is warmest at the surface, where the ice is already floating. And as soon as water cools it falls down to bottom of the glass. And new warm water is replaced . This all causes the entire glass to get cold even though ice was always floating all along. This can never be achieved by steel cubes.

Great production, thanks.

That was really fascinating.

This is the first sponsor segment I didn't skip

Really cool video. I learned something new today. I always thought the metal cubes were a great idea, but didn't realize water had such an insane heat capacity. Really cool!

wtf this is the first ad ive thought was legitimately cool. descript looks amazing

I love that this channel exists

1:12 is when the sponsor ad ends, and there's nothing to see before it.

Also: as a surface layer of the ice cube melts away, the layer right below it is then exposed to the surrounding water to better take more heat. There is good thermal conductivity all the way down. The cold parts inside the steel cube don't get the same chance to take an efficient heat transfer.

wow descript was really cool I actually watched the whole ad.

learned something, very cool!

You sponsor's product is pretty cool. First time I had heard about it - thanks!

Yeah really need metal cubes hitting my teeth while I drink 👍

Great experiment. The only change I think you should have made is the ice should have been one large cube instead of separate smaller cubes. One large cube would have made the surface areas between the iron ball and the ice cube more similar. Phase change for ice is far faster and greater when there is a lot more surface area. Also, the iron ball should have been suspended near the top of the water level to create convection the same way water ice floats, which causes fast convection and thermal transfer.

The freezeable reusable ice cubes work great!

I could tell @1:04 the way it said "AI to tell everyone how awesome you are" as the speech was off, everything else seems pretty good.

Excellent video. I always thought that the non-melt cubes I’d been given as presents weren’t as good as ice cubes - now I know why.

Great video. It would be neat to watch a same type of comparative video but this time comparing vehicle engine coolant compared to simply water. Observing which is better at more quickly dissipating heat. Thanks again, great video

Descript sounds like a godsend for people like us who are self conscious about the way our voice sounds. Thank you, looks worth trying.

I bought some pieces of clear quartz (for cabochon making) and I used some leftovers as ice cube substitutes. Turns out it didn't work at all, and was super dangerous since it looked just like ice but if you tried to chew it you'd destroy your teeth.

It's all fun and games until a heavy ass stainless steel ice cube knocked out your teeth when you're trying to drink your whiskey

I am particularly interested in this. I make huge ice hemispheres in spare water dishes for use on my cooler. Dilution is real and it sucks because the cooler loses flavor. I'd love to try a metal variant to cool it.

You give me answers of the question I never had I never thought of something like steel cube

0:12 memezee: I'm gonna take your entire stock

Descript also has an incredible and Dangerous AI that lets you great Text-to-Speech Bot using your Voice or your friends voice. Don’t worry Guidlines has been created to prevent misuse of the product. The editing out words to cut the video for me is really useful!

Thank you for sharing information

Okay this descript is actually interesting

That sponsor is actually really cool. But think of all the things people could do with that. They could change any information around and make it look real😮

One more benefit of ice that wasn't mentioned is its buoyancy. Ice floats in most liquids, so the cold ice is floating right next to the part of the drink that will be warmest. Also, as the ice melts into cold water, it will fall through the rest of the warmer liquid, creating a mild mixing current to chill the drink faster. That's the reason the iron ball had a covering of ice while the rest of the water wasn't that cold. Meanwhile, the ice water was a more uniform near freezing temperature already. The steel cubes filled with water he showed likely are too heavy to float even when the liquid inside is frozen, so they'll still have this problem. You could, however, use more steel cubes in your drink to compensate for this without having to worry about watering down your drink.

Great video. Many thanks for tips with you used. Subscribed myself and recommended for family. 👍🇮🇪💯

I 'like' your videos first and then start watching them..cuz I know they will be good

Damn that’s the first sponsor I’ve ever gotten excited by. I’m sceptical, but I’d definitely check it out if I was actually into video creation

Now I cant unsee your descript edits.

This is a very solid video

So cool!

I've never heard of these stainless steel ice cubes. Interesting! Even though the not watering down your drink is nice, I definitely agree with your analysis that they are not all that effective. And I bet they still stick together in your drink!

I actually wish you would’ve done the experiment with the stainless cubes…. Like why not? You have them. Put them in the freezer and get the equal amount of ice and put them in cups and find out which works best!

Interesting. Thank you.

The ice floating in a drink also helps to cool the warm liquid and let it fall to the bottom where something like steel sinks and will just sit there cooling the bottom. In my mind I can picture it would have to work harder to cool the liquid since it has to cool the bottom enough to cool the top. As well as the fact that drinking the cooler water right next to ice is going to be cooler since it's right next to the ice.

the editing tool sounds awesome and love the steel ice cubes but sticking with the ice ice baby :)

Damn, that sponsor is actually interesting.

In 5th grade, my teacher told me about how she had a pool party and bought all these little fake plastic cubes that she left in the freezer. She said she didn’t want to use real ice cubes because they would water down the drink. Apparently at the time she thought the plastic cubes would be an infinite cooling agent. Rest assured that on that blazing hot day, everyone of her guests were complaining the drinks were warm. She learned her lesson.

Cool video dude... thank you

Quite interesting ! Though a more useful comparison would be, how many more(by mass and/or vol) do you need Vs. regular ice at "normal" freezer temperatures.

I think that apart from the heat capacity, the density is important too. The cube made of steel is going to be heavier than the same volume of ice. But still the phase change gives the ice much bigger advantage

whoa descript!!!!

My father used these things a couple years ago when I visited him and we drank some cold beverage. That was the first time I had ever seen them, and I was like "hey, cool", because it felt nice to not have any ice melt in the drinks.

You neglected to mention the most interesting factoid! "334 joules" means very little to most people, but in more simplistic terms *the energy it takes to turn ice into water is the same as the energy it takes to heat water by 80°C.*

Here's a fun tip if you don't want your drink watered down. Freeze some of the drink that you're going to be using beforehand, so that when you put the frozen drink into the liquid drink it does not water down as the ice melts. Granted this really is only feasible with something you drink frequently, but it comes in handy when you can use it. EDIT: lol for those of you who are commenting "you can't freeze alcohol", the video said nothing about alcohol, and neither did my comment. I know you can't freeze alcohol in a normal freezer, my comment was more geared towards soft drinks, or juice, or even coffee. Some of you need to go to AA.

They have water-filled plastic ice cubes for sale here in Japan. Or you could freeze your drink into cubes, and use that. No "thinning" effect.

Descript is freaking insane.

That AI editor is scary as hell.

I always find this stuff fascinating... They discussed this in a refrigeration class. Water is actually the best refrigerant, it's just you can't get subzero Temps out of it so it takes longer to freeze things.. but Ammonia, Freon and C02 can go below freezing which is why we use them

Good experiment

6th time ive seen this vid recommended lol ill watch it! I am subscribed to u anyway lol

I think I'll stick w/ ice cubes.... I can't imagine how much damage you'd receive from stainless steel ice cube sliding into your mouth when finishing a drink. 😂

Man that was awesome. I thought steel would be better. Totally forgot to consider the phase change. I remember learning about latent heat now.

I love these videos

little rock cubes are actually used quite often instead of ice to use “reusable ice” here in russia they mainly use this method mainly for *whisky*

Well... Ice has 1/2 heat capacity compared with water 2108J. 316 steel has 468J. Density of 316steel is *8. If we are considering cube size, not weight then 316 has 468*8 =3744J vs 2100J. For ice we have to add melting energy which is really big number 336000J if our drink is going to be diluted. And it will be 2100+336KJ. Another interesting thing would be to make calculations on those steel cubes with some water / ice in .

I use stainless steel ice cubes bc I need to carefully regular the amount of liquid in my diet. I am glad to find out they are at least a little effective when filled with water. They are still the best thing for my unique situation. I hope they make an even better alternative, somehow, in the future! ◕‿◕

bro that paid promotion is actually one of the most useful ad's I've ever seen.

Nice experiment, but I think you should also consider the density and make the exp. under same cooling conditions. Also heat trasfer rate is another thing to consider since when you finish your drink there is generally sone leftover ice. That means that heat trasfer duration is not enough to transfer all the heat that ice can take until equlibrium point. It could be possible that steel more efficient during drinking period.

You need to do a comparison of Water Ice VS Dry Ice (Carbon dioxide). Dry Ice is mostly used in punch bowls during halloween, but if you really hate watering down your drink its hard to beat!

Interesting video. They fill them half way so that when they freeze they don’t expand to much

I always skip sponsored segments but wow this one kept me interested!

The other Advantage is ice floats. So with how thermal dynamics works, cold sinks heat rises, basics. Anything that's on top gets chilled and sinks to the bottom allowing any warm stuff below to rise to the top and be chilled. Thus your drink is chilled faster. There are reusable water ice cubes you can get that have a thin coating of plastic so it doesn't dilute the drink. You just rinse and reuse them, they're washable by hand if needed, use room temperature water and be gentle.

I don’t usually put ice cubes in my drinks (especially when the drink was in the fridge or from a soda fountain machine) for a few reasons: 1. The drink is already cool enough 2. Ice cubes tend to make the drink too cold (ice water at restaurants) 3. Ice cubes melt and dilute the drink 4. Ice cubes take up volume in the cup that could be used for more drink

Awesome explanation. Iv been wondering about this matter and it turns out you made me love my ice cubes again. The trick lies in the phase change involved and of course, at the temperature that we are working things here. Bravo 👏 ashv

Honestly that ad was pretty cool. Clearly not 100% perfect, but still pretty good. I'm genuinely interested.

Makes sense. Bought some of these and it never cooled my drink but just a smidge

I'd have also liked to see a volumetric comparison. 2 cm^3 of ice verse the same of iron, or something like that.

1:49 "The thing with the highest heat capacity here is water." There are multiple entries on this table with higher values. Many people know that liquid ammonia has a higher specific heat (4700 J/kg C°), but we don't use it often because it's a modest improvement for a large increase in toxicity. Interestingly, there were a couple others on this table I had never heard of being better heat batteries than water: Hydrogen (14304 J/kg C°), Helium (5193 J/kg C°), and "Phenol-formaldehyde molding compounds" (2500-6000 J/kg C°), whatever those are. I will give you credit for recognizing the other inherent benefits to cooling your drink with non-ice cubes (stainless steel, stone, etc.) I love the fellas over at the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast-it's my favorite podcast-but they got into a very similar discussion to this one in their Pykrete episode, and they talked _so much shit_ about people who use whiskey stones to cool their drink instead of ice, as if a material's ability to absorb heat is the only relevant factor, completely missing the point. Not everyone wants their drink watered down, or especially cold. Let people drink how they want! Lol

Fins can be added to upgrade the steel cubes, like a disipator

The sponsor straight up blew my mind that’s SO cool

“Infinite heat capacity” is a very disingenuous term. When talking about “heat capacities,” there are two different types. The one that changes the temperature of a substance is called either the specific heat or sensible heat. “Sensible” simply means that it can be sensed, either with a thermometer or your hand. That’s expressed by the temperature. The heat required for a phase change is called latent heat, either of fusion or of vaporization. When a substance reaches either phase change temperature, it’s still taking on energy, but it’s temperature won’t go any higher. The latent heat is used to break the intermolecular bonds and melt or vaporize the substance. And obviously it’s the same process in reverse where it’ll release it’s latent heat, but the temperature still won’t change. The substance will release its latent heat, either to condense or freeze. That’s why a steam burn is so dangerous. That water will instantly condense and release A LOT of latent heat. The principle of latent heat is also very useful for a lot of things. The most common one is refrigeration. Refrigerants are special gasses that are easy to compress to high pressures, thus raising the boiling point a lot. The refrigerant enters a compressor, gets compressed, then moves into a heat exchanger called the condenser. Due to the high pressure and the fact that it just got very hot (hopefully much hotter than the surrounding area) from being compressed, the gaseous refrigerant begins to blow off its heat and condense into a liquid. It loses a lot of heat in this process. It’s also beneficial to continue cooling the now liquid refrigerant through subcooling. This can be accomplished by a larger heat exchanger or water cooling. It then moves into a low pressure heat exchanger called the evaporator. Due to the low pressure, the boiling point shoots way way down, and the refrigerant wants to boil. It needs energy to do this though. It’ll first take energy from itself because it’s almost certainly still above the boiling point (that’s why it helps to subcool) and it’ll drop to that temperature. There will still be plenty of liquid refrigerant though which wants to evaporate, so it takes it from the air surrounding the evaporator, evaporates, and, most importantly, cools the air around it because it just stole all that energy.

at 0:01 steel ice cubes make sounds like obtaining EXp orbs in minecraft lol.

That sponsee spot was incredible. That is the first AI text-to-speech that sounded passable. I never would have thought it was not you. Even if there were hints in a long format, it is far ahead of the previous text-to-speech software that I have seen.

This is the best and most worthy sponsor ad I've ever seen!

"Okay, here's our negative 196 degree ball" I love your videos not only because of how educative they are, but also for phrases like this

You didn't take into account that the ice had a larger contact area than the iron ball, which affects your results.

I work on refrigeration. Sometimes refrigeration coils will freeze. Using hot water melts the ice WAY faster than using a torch.

I was just about to buy some stainless steel ice cubes, then I stumbled on your video. 😂😂😂😂 thanks for the info and saving me money