if i argue with that guy he would turn me into a gummy bear

didn't fuck up making cinnamaldehyde from styrofoam, fucked up candy making. this is the content i always come back for

I love how almost every Nile's video goes like "This may have 97% kill rate, but I'm gonna try it anyways."

Weeks of painstaking chemistry followed by minutes of complete improvisation.

You won't hear the words "it's really corrosive and kinda toxic, but it was exactly was exactly what I needed to make my cinnamon flavor" anywhere else

$6,500 for a candy roller is the craziest part of this video

i figured reheating the hardened candy with a double boiler would be obvious, but then i remember this guy is a chemist and not a cook

Alternate title "I eat plastic so the fish don't have to."

39:53 - "What I needed though, was hard crack." - NileRed, 2024

Styrofoam is already tasty enough.

Your way of setting up a sentence and then never finish it the way id think you would and keep the video going like that for 52 minutes is amazing. It reminds me of rhythmic verbal hypnosis techniques.

Nile pretending he couldnt take out 78% of new york on a sunday afternoon

nilered: and I set it up for a distillation nilered: ... and I set it up for a distillation nilered, crying internally: ... and I set it up for another distillation

42:00 gotta love how he had basically 0 problems with the complicated science stuff but he ran into problems 4 steps into making the actual candy

Coming from a cooking background I have to say, well done for not giving up with the crystallised lump, you did the right thing reheating it.

Hello Nile! My name is Michael Lesser, I'm a college student from Florida. I'd like to ask you to consider adding captions to videos, and not the auto generated stuff since some chemicals can not be translated. This is so Deaf people or people who are hard of hearing can enjoy your videos easier and have the full experience, the science you do is so amazing, it would be a shame if anyone missed out. Love your content!

First step: homemade Napalm 4:45

49:43 "And I'm gonna be focusing on some more dangerous projects like turning AIR into a BOMB" nilegreen really predicted it all along

15:05 i love looking at the reflection in the flask and seeing you just staring at the setup

New favorite video to fall asleep to. Your voice is just too soothing 😅

If there’s one thing Nile Red has taught me, it’s that 90% of the work in chemistry is purification.

This guy is the embodiment of someone who is smart/skilled enough to be allowed in the lab, but also insane enough to be banned from it

this channel and generally everything of nilered/nileblue has been a major point as to why im so interested in chemistry. i started taking the class this year in high school, and while it was rough at first im now getting the hang of it a lot more, and on top of that im able to understand this channels content a lot more and that has made it more enjoyable to watch the process of these various reactions. i feel highly confident about persuing chemistry when im done with high school, even with how rocky that journey may be. thank you nigel

I love how he presents those "2 little instruments that I have", and I know they must be VERY expensive.

As someone who makes a lot of candy at home, it's funny seeing that Nile struggled more making basic hard candy than converting styrofoam into cinnamon oil in a lab.

NileRed is the perfect blend of extremely detailed and diligent chemistry and phrases like “I figured it would probably be fine” and “I felt like the reaction was probably done”

I love that you've casually just reminded everyone how to make vegan napalm in your *checks notes* Cinnamon Candy Video

Candy maker here! What happened there was it was too hot you have to use ice baths to slowly cool down the pan before putting on the table it shouldn't look like a liquid when it hits the table should be more solid. Like you guessed this is time sensitive.. Also to get it more crunchy you have stretch it on a warmed rod that keeps it from fully cooling this is the hardest part because going too slow can cause it to harden but this part is important for removing air and also mixing the flavor more evenly.

Nile starving looking around his apartment for something to eat and drink and seeing styrofoam cups, plastic gloves, and paint thinner sitting in the corner of the room

The way he narrates cracks me up. "In theory, it could ignite and potentially cause the blender to explode. So I made the decision to pretty much immediately stop it."

Nile: _'Honeeey!!! Made you some candy!~'_ Nile's Wife: *'I am NOT gonna clean after your dishes'*

Can't wait for nilered to buy a particle accelerator for a transformation project.

Organic chemistry: Measured and precise Candy making: Chaos and use feeling

the fact that the red dye was more dangerous than the flavouring made of plastic in the final recipe was impressive

It's not just the chemistry. It's the storytelling. Amazing video, Nile.

I don't know why but I was so proud of how well you actually did the candy making part of this even with the mistakes

As a pastry chef, what happened was you Seized the sugar. using the metal scraper on it caused it to create small sugar crystals in the syrup. when mixing molten sugars, you only fold it using the silmat till the sugar becomes more dense.

Gotta love how, time and time again, Nile proves how great he is at chemistry, and completely helpless he is with cooking.

Nilered is probably the best chemistry youtube channel, everything he says is extremely clear and easy to understand, he teaches me alot about different chemicals and compounds (which is why i love chemistry) he also does a bunch of interesting and cool experiments which i find awesome in short: Nilered is the best!

It is worth noting that the early phase - the melting of the polystyrene glasses - is how modelling plastic cement works. You apply a thin layer to one side of the new joint, press the two parts together, and the cement (which is by half acetone and by half butyl acetate) melts a layer of plastic, which will then weld the two pieces together when it solidifies again.

"Dude I could go for a drink and some candy, what you got?" *Nile looking intently at gloves and styrofoam cups*

It's striking how there's simultaneously so much overlap between chemistry skills and kitchen skills and yet they don't quite seem to transfer.

Chemistry is more about winging it rather than was I expected, formulations and exact calculable procedures.

Thank you so much Nile, your videos are curing my trauma i have from my chemistry internships during my biology studies at university. I had shitty internship teachers, but your videos give me back the fascination about chemistry ❤️. 😊

Nile spending 6250 USD on a candy roller will never not be amazing

I like how hardest part for nile was making actual candy instead of the chemistry.

it's crazy how this semester, i'm taking ochem lab and now i can fully understand the processes nile does in his videos

I love these long format videos, absolutely fantastic and hope you keep them going.

I love Nile doing a bunch of precise chemistry, walking us through it as a teacher and entertainer... and then kind of beefing it on the last possible step with a regular household skill

Nile was the perfect mix between a deranged but smart scientist and that one unemployed friend at 2 pm on a tuesday

I am a chemist too, and I was initially scared when you said you needed to evaporate the acetone off of the polystyrene -- I was like "don't use an oven, don't use an oven, don't use a flame, don't use a flame, just let it sit out" haha

I didn’t know I would like this video but I enjoyed the whole procedure and hard work it took for you to achieve your goal! Great job to you!🎉❤

if you're looking for more projects like this, you can turn coal into margarine. the process for making "Coal Butter" was developed in Germany in the 1930s.

Honestly love how he goes from sounding really professional and educated reading papers on how to do processes to turn polystyrene into cinnamon to complete and utter panic at making hard sweets

Turning air into a bomb right after making candy is a crazy leap

It feels like his KZfaq Rep had a convo with him, cuz he keeps saying, "Again, SUPER dangerous.. Really dangerous. Did I mention this is dangerous? Lmao I love it

I love the transition from your domain of chemistry ("I carefully extracted 3.7ml with a pipette") to food science ("... And a completely arbitrary amount of corn syrup")

I love that the chemistry bits are super-precise, and the candy making turns into, "Then I added some random amount of water and corn syrup, and dumped in a bunch of food coloring." Excellent video!

It would be really interesting if you had a series where you compared how you did it, to how the actual flavorings are made.

When I worked for a company that recycled EPS we had to grind up all the eps we got back into it's littlest unpressed form and the friction from pushing the eps out of the machine into a long plank or brank hardened it on the outside making it like bricks or planks of heavy wood

as a chemistry student who vaguely knows things about chemistry now these videos are 100% more entertaining and also 100% more dangerous because my fatal flaw is looking at something i cannot do and going "i can do that"

Nile following the OChem stereotype of "Putting 1 Colorless Liquid into another Colorless Liquid to get a third, also colorless, liquid" is the YT Chemistry I'm here for.

13:05 YES! It's the breakdancing pill!!! Aw yeah, woo yeah!

I love how it turned into a cooking video 2/3 of the way through

Its funny how good Nigel's chemistry cooking skills differ so much from his actual food cooking skills.

Nile during a famine: "Just let me turn this uranium into some nice chocolate." Edit: Due to the valid objection that this is a chemistry channel, let's use Triuranium octoxide or Uranyl nitrate instead of pure uranium.

sugar / corn syrup / water mixture can solidify like that if there is still to much water in it / not boiled long enough at the desired temperature.

Very detailed brother. Great job.

As a professional chef for many many years it's incredible he managed to make candy without horrifically burning himself. Also the reason why your candy seized like that is because you added in alot of cold liquid(food dye) without a stabilizer, which caused it to start instantly crystalizing around it even before you poured it out of the pan. Basically, in short, make sure to heat it to 300 or 320 or whatever ur temp is AFTER any additives or you'll get a chalky crumbly sugar mess instead of candy.

I'm not even a minute in and I'm predicting that the hardest part for Nigel will be making the actual candy. He's a decent chemist, I don't think he's an amazing chef lol.

Nile be solving pollution and world hunger w/ these 🙏🙏🙏

nigel, I used to work for genpak, big canadian foam container company. resin pellets, isobutane or pentane is what the blowing agent we used on that, nothing else went into them. so has to be the base resin.

What happened on the first attempt at the cinnamon candy is something called “sugaring”. It’s when the candy is so saturated that it crystallizes back into regular sugar. This can be cause by too much agitation, too much water, too little water, and too high of a temperature. The fix is exactly what you did, using corn syrup to help stabilize the sugar.

Love how Nile is just dropping that “oh yea we can use this for napalm sometimes” while mixing two common and very cheap products together.

My brain cannot handle videos where the narrator does not actually know what happens next or makes a very good illusion of it. My brain keeps screaming something bad is going to happen. I cannot stop watching and this is only creator that can make my brain scream.

Never realized how much I love the way he says "so!"

I love how NileRed's philosophy with these videos is "anything is edible if you're not a coward"

49:43 "turning air into bomb" my man nilegreen really predicted the future 💀😭

This man has tenacity. I would have burst into tears during the candy making process. Should have removed it at the right temp.

Really glad this guy uses his powers for good instead of evil

As a hobbyist candymaker, the candy seizing up is crystallization. The usual suspect here is undissolved sugar left on the sides of the pot. Most recipes recommend you apply a wet brush to the sides of the pot to get rid of any crystals left once it's reached the boiling point; some recommend putting a lid on for a few minutes, causing the condensed water to do the same job. The issue is that hard candy is meant to be a glass, an amorphous solid -- so any seed crystals will spread if introduced. The process happens very fast with hot candy, but still happens slowly at room temperature. Freezing is exothermic, and if it happens again, you can actually feel the latent heat of fusion as it occurs! At 40:24, you can see some crystals left on the sides of the pot, after the heating has already been turned off. Leaving the syrup in the pot, adding in cold ingredients, and stirring it, all cool down the syrup and increase the risk of picking up a small amount of solid sugar that won't melt -- and, just picking up a few molecules can cause crystallization when the candy gets closer to the freezing point. The second attempt likely worked because the bubbling action brought the hot syrup in contact with the solid crystals, allowing the heat to melt them. In general, remelting candy causes decomposition reactions to happen, possibly causing off flavors and colors; as well as boiling of volatile oils, making the intended flavor less pronounced. That said, fantastic job getting it to work on the first batch!

So there's one thing you're missing from this project: a heated table. It helps to keep the candy from getting too hard and stay malleable. You have the press next to the table and run it through the press straight from the table.

This is cool, love what your doing.

I love how he tries to put a little bit of chemestry on the cooking part so its not as strange for him

Absolutely love that NileRed's close to mastering chemistry as a whole and yet, when it comes to cooking/baking anything, he's a toddler with an apron

I love that the hard chemistry portion involves a lot of research and meticulous attention to detail but then the candy making process, which is really just applied chemistry, boils down to "idk, I'm sure it can't be that hard" XD

"Why are you eating styrofoam?!?" "Because Nile made it into candy"

Insane how many steps are involved in this one.

nile saying he needed “hard crack” at 39:53 literally made me spit out my food from laughing 💀 this video has sm good clips

For people who don't know, the terms "lemon drops" and "cough drops" come from the process we see at the end here. You drop a sheet of them and they break into perfect chunks.

This is straight up alchemy and I love it!! 😂

Watching Nigel make candy is satisfying af

6:05 "It kinda felt like pulling apart a fresh quesadilla" *DON'T EAT IT NILE DON'T DO IT*

I love how once it goes from chemistry to candy-making Nile ends up beating a bag of sugar with a meat tenderizer and breaking a stool.

The reason all the acetone vapor wasn't gone was because you forgot to place the polystyrene inside of a vacuum chamber while it was still fresh.

I love you Nile, video had come out on my Bday

Fun fact. Styrofoam and acetone are used as practical effects in movies to simulate strong acid effects.

>"very carefully break all the sugar" >puts the blob in a ziploc bag and hits it with a tenderizer >breaks the wooden chair upon which the breaking is done Never change, Nigel, never change.

In britain we just call styrofoam polystyrene, kind of interesting to know that its the chemical it's made of rather than just being a random name someone thought of

Thanks for your hard work