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Preezing

Pressure freezing
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A fellow once told me that the first person to figure out how to freeze a tomato would make a million bucks.
(Personally, I think he is wrong. It will be the first person to exploit the figured out way that will make the million but that's beside the point)

Now I don't know if this will actually work but I would like to experiment with gradually increasing barometric pressure within a freezing chamber as the temperature drops.
I think it might be possible to keep the individual tomato cells from rupturing if the right temperature to pressure increase ratio can be found.


Prior art... Suspended_20Animation
...ala [Vernon] [2 fries shy of a happy meal, Aug 09 2009]

Dehydrated tomatoes http://www.harmonyh...Wl5wCFSMSagodiUFadQ
Hmm, actually dehydrated, not freeze-dried. [csea, Aug 09 2009]

[link]






       Bad science.   

       The problem is the size of a tomato (or rather its surface area to volume ratio). Fruit such as raspberrries can be frozen effectively using liquid Nitrogen; but with larger items, the outside freezes before the inside (in extreme cold) and you get bursting of the cell walls. Chilling the item to + 0.1 C, then drenching in LN2, sort-of works but is far from perfect - because on defrosting, the outside melts first .... barometric pressure has almost no effect on the thermodynamics.   

       For cryopreservation of vegetable material like soft fruit, rapid cooling resulting in minimal ice crystal sizes is the Holy Grail. The larger the item, the harder it is to cool the whole mass very fast.
8th of 7, Aug 09 2009
  

       A frozen tomato, maybe. A frozen then thawed tomato, never. As for the pressure thing, I don't think it will help.
WcW, Aug 09 2009
  

       "first one must assume a spherical tomato..."
FlyingToaster, Aug 09 2009
  

       They're actually oblate spheroids, as is your pathetic little planet (when seen from a decent distance)
8th of 7, Aug 09 2009
  

       We've seen it, it's rubbish. It's actually worse than Wales (a difficult concept, we admit).   

       Although to be fair, it doesn't rain all the time on Pluto. It has no atmosphere, and it's cold, bleak, unattractive, characterless, and uninhabitable, with no nightlife and incredibly dull and uninspiring scenery.   

       And it's still better than Cardiff.
8th of 7, Aug 09 2009
  

       //replacing the water in a tomato //   

       Sounds like a reasonable approach, but removing the water seems to work.   

       Has anyone tried freeze-dried tomatoes? [link] {this is what I turned up in a search; turns out they're actually diced and dehydrated.}   

       Tomatoes are a fruit, and many other fruits freeze-dry well, when sliced into small enough pieces, although they're usually best as part of a mixture after reconstitution.
csea, Aug 09 2009
  

       //still better than Cardiff// Cardiff-by-the-Sea, CA is an awesome surfing place, dude! Don't know about the original in Wales. I almost went there once, but it was raining. But I hear they have a wonderful choral festival (Eisteddfod.)
csea, Aug 09 2009
  

       [csea], you just don't realise what a lucky escape you had.   

       // some kind of singing //   

       We do awesome Barbershop ....   

       // special case //   

       As in, "A suitable case for treatment....."
8th of 7, Aug 10 2009
  
      
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