hey guys welcome back to the king of
random today we’re going to be trying an
experiment I’ve seen some people do
before but haven’t seen very well
explained we’re going to try to be
making what’s called fire snakes a
combination of burning sugar and baking
soda in a base of sand we’re gonna try a
few different combinations of regular
sugar powdered sugar baking soda and two
different types of accelerant see what
gives us the very best results we’ve got
a giant bag of sand and some metal trays
to burn our sugar in so let’s get
started now all of my research indicates
that it should be four parts of sugar to
one part baking soda by weight so that’s
what we’re gonna do we’re gonna try
three things we’re gonna have our
regular sugar mixed with our baking soda
we’re going to have our powdered sugar
mixed with our baking soda and then
we’re also going to try mixing some of
our regular sugar with the baking soda
and then blending it up so we have an
even finer powder we’ll see how that
does in comparison if we take all three
of those mixtures and try burning each
of them with alcohol and lighter fluid
and see which of our six combinations
gives us the best results white powders
everywhere
[Music]
20 grams of regular sugar add 5 grams of
baking soda
[Music]
and except another one of the same thing
which I’ll blend in just a minute one
thing that might cause a different
result with the powdered sugar is most
powdered sugar actually also has some
cornstarch in it to help keep it from
taking together too much grams or bacon
[Music]
now let’s get a little blender and blend
up one of the mixtures of regular sugar
and baking soda
[Music]
yes unsurprisingly that now kind of
looks like powdered sugar all right
we’ve got our three different trays for
our three different mixtures let’s build
these up with sand
[Music]
my first fuel is 91% concentration of
isopropyl alcohol also known as rubbing
alcohol my other one is a common
barbecue lighter fluid I’m going to pour
some of each fluid on one side of the
sand and then we’ll put little piles of
each kind of sugar on that so overall
we’ll have 6 different combinations of
sugar and fuel going at once
[Music]
so here we’ve got granulated sugar and
alcohol is the fuel here we’ve got
granulated sugar and lighter fluid as a
fuel blend and sugar with alcohol when
it’s your lighter fluid powdered sugar
alcohol powdered sugar lightest
[Music]
a little harder time getting the lighter
fluid delight than the alcohol so that’s
one point for alcohol that when it lit
well
[Music]
here we go
[Music]
so let’s take a little bit of a look at
what is happening here as the sugar
burns it bubbles and boils and turns
black and turns into just basically
carbon some of the gas is being led off
by the baking soda are actually filling
the molten sugar as its creative it
doesn’t just turn into a puddle of black
sugar it turns into a sort of expanded
foam of black sugar well here we go
here’s the results of our test the
powdered sugar definitely started making
the fire snakes the fastest they took
off pretty quickly the powdered sugar
with the lighter fluid never got very
far we only got this one little weird
stumpy thing which still looks pretty
cool but it’s not very big you can see
most of the sugar is still just kind of
there clumps together another
interesting point something I want to
talk about is that if you’ve seen videos
of this before it doesn’t occur to you
how unbelievably lightweight this stuff
is because you have a pile of sugar
that’s all of the mass and then it’s
just expanded out to this large snake so
this thing weighs almost nothing is like
styrofoam because it’s also incredibly
fragile look at this it just comes right
apart you can see how light and fluffy
it is inside then if I crush it
basically just turns into dust I’m solid
you just watch dust fly up off of it
powdered sugar with alcohol that one
worked great it started off very quickly
it kept going for quite a while there is
still a lump of unburned sugar down at
the bottom but it’s pretty small it
really got most of it that grew and
twist it around and we got like a
secondary growth coming off of it at one
point I’m pretty good that’s a lot of
big black snake curls wonderfully
there’s I don’t know if you can get to
some cameras even a little bits of
iridescent sort of colored going through
parts of this so it’s pretty neat so
powdered sugar with alcohol is a fuel
that works really well our blended sugar
well our blended sugar with the lighter
fluid got basically nowhere almost all
the sugar mixed with the baking soda is
still here didn’t burn
we got a little bit of result but not a
lot blended sugar with the alcohol it
took a while and then it did start
growing but it didn’t get very far it’s
not bad that does kind of look like a
cool demon horn some sort of cancerous
sand growth or something not bad
granulated sugar with lighter fluid
again not very impressive I took this
piece off to try and let some of the
sugar inside get a little more access to
the heat didn’t really seem to do much
this still looks cool but it’s very
small it didn’t go very far I’m actually
gonna try eating a tiny bit of this and
it’s gonna taste terrible
I’m hoping this inner part will just
taste like burnt sugar and it won’t all
taste just like carbon there’s also
baking soda in it so it’s like salty
burn sugar no yeah it’s terrible
granulated sugar and alcohol this took a
good while to start doing anything like
it it took a long time for it to get
beyond just this first little bit but
eventually it started growing really
well and it just kept going until even
though it is very lightweight eventually
I had enough weight to just break a
piece off and then it started making
another piece and the mountain broke off
and then another piece for it came and
that broke off and it’s just kept on
going so I think we definitely got the
most volume out of the granulated sugar
eventually the the powdered sugar
definitely took off faster but in the
end I think the granulated sugar was the
most firesnake you at all oh it’s pretty
close tie between those two I actually
liked both of them pretty well but I’m
gonna say the granulated sugar with my
favorite just because it kept going and
diminishing and getting smaller and
smaller I think it’s pretty clear that
the 91% isopropyl alcohol that we were
using is a much better fuel than the
lighter fluid
so isopropyl alcohol very good
granulated sugar or powdered sugar both
quite good blended sugar not really so
good so we’re not going to use that
anymore well I’m gonna clean this up and
then I have a couple ideas of how to
scale this up to something a little bit
larger
it just disappears I’m gonna use our
powdered sugar mix for this one because
it started going fastest and use the
alcohol of course because that works way
better and I’m just gonna set up like a
whole bunch of different spots on one
tray of sand I’m gonna hope they kind of
grow together into one giant fire flame
smoke log we’ll see what happens
[Music]
all right oh it’s good let’s light it up
lit and it’s good
[Music]
[Music]
that was pretty cool it wasn’t exactly
what I was hoping for I was hoping for
we just kind of get like a large column
of this stuff rising up and that didn’t
really work out but it did get some good
volume we got quite a bit of the black
snake material which looked a little bit
cooler well it’s still on the tray make
a couple of times I cleared it off so we
could like let the new stuff go in
without all the weight of what was on
there crushing it down overall pretty
neat I’ve got one more thing that I want
to try and it’s gonna take up a little
more space for all these ins I am using
the powdered sugar rather than the
granulated sugar just because it starts
going faster still think the granulated
sugar might be better for a total result
in getting the biggest longest snakes I
just didn’t want to wait for it this
time now we’ve got 13 fire snakes going
at once I’ve spread them out a little
bit more so that they hopefully won’t
bond together like they were in the last
one this way I’m hoping we just get 13
different snakes rising a foot or two
off of the tray
[Music]
well there we go 13 different black
snakes all in one tray all together
making this sort of weird twisted field
of gnarled growing things I don’t even
know what to call them but that looks
pretty cool it was fun to do and guys
this experiment is so easy powdered
sugar baking soda and rubbing alcohol
you just put that in a little bit of
sand and light it and you get this it’s
like the cheapest experiment you could
ever do and it looks so cool I found
that I had really good results using
both granulated sugar and powdered sugar
the powdered sugar started working a
little bit faster the granulated sugar
kept going longer so you kind of have to
choose which one you prefer I definitely
found that the 91% rubbing alcohol
worked better as a fuel than the lighter
fluid I think it started better I think
it burned more consistently and just
gave us better results in the end if
you’re trying this at home make sure
you’re doing it in place with good
ventilation make sure you’re not gonna
light anything on fire around you and
you have proper safety equipment to put
anything out but this is absolutely
something you can do at home thanks for
joining us for this project today and
we’ll see you in the next one talk to
you then and now I’m gonna see how
quickly I can vacuum all of this up so
it’s just go on
probably the most satisfying thing to
vacuum that I’ve ever vacuumed hey guys
I know there are so many great videos
and great youtubers out there that you
could be watching instead of the king of
random I just want to say how grateful I
am that you choose to watch us
[Music]
random today we’re going to be trying an
experiment I’ve seen some people do
before but haven’t seen very well
explained we’re going to try to be
making what’s called fire snakes a
combination of burning sugar and baking
soda in a base of sand we’re gonna try a
few different combinations of regular
sugar powdered sugar baking soda and two
different types of accelerant see what
gives us the very best results we’ve got
a giant bag of sand and some metal trays
to burn our sugar in so let’s get
started now all of my research indicates
that it should be four parts of sugar to
one part baking soda by weight so that’s
what we’re gonna do we’re gonna try
three things we’re gonna have our
regular sugar mixed with our baking soda
we’re going to have our powdered sugar
mixed with our baking soda and then
we’re also going to try mixing some of
our regular sugar with the baking soda
and then blending it up so we have an
even finer powder we’ll see how that
does in comparison if we take all three
of those mixtures and try burning each
of them with alcohol and lighter fluid
and see which of our six combinations
gives us the best results white powders
everywhere
[Music]
20 grams of regular sugar add 5 grams of
baking soda
[Music]
and except another one of the same thing
which I’ll blend in just a minute one
thing that might cause a different
result with the powdered sugar is most
powdered sugar actually also has some
cornstarch in it to help keep it from
taking together too much grams or bacon
[Music]
now let’s get a little blender and blend
up one of the mixtures of regular sugar
and baking soda
[Music]
yes unsurprisingly that now kind of
looks like powdered sugar all right
we’ve got our three different trays for
our three different mixtures let’s build
these up with sand
[Music]
my first fuel is 91% concentration of
isopropyl alcohol also known as rubbing
alcohol my other one is a common
barbecue lighter fluid I’m going to pour
some of each fluid on one side of the
sand and then we’ll put little piles of
each kind of sugar on that so overall
we’ll have 6 different combinations of
sugar and fuel going at once
[Music]
so here we’ve got granulated sugar and
alcohol is the fuel here we’ve got
granulated sugar and lighter fluid as a
fuel blend and sugar with alcohol when
it’s your lighter fluid powdered sugar
alcohol powdered sugar lightest
[Music]
a little harder time getting the lighter
fluid delight than the alcohol so that’s
one point for alcohol that when it lit
well
[Music]
here we go
[Music]
so let’s take a little bit of a look at
what is happening here as the sugar
burns it bubbles and boils and turns
black and turns into just basically
carbon some of the gas is being led off
by the baking soda are actually filling
the molten sugar as its creative it
doesn’t just turn into a puddle of black
sugar it turns into a sort of expanded
foam of black sugar well here we go
here’s the results of our test the
powdered sugar definitely started making
the fire snakes the fastest they took
off pretty quickly the powdered sugar
with the lighter fluid never got very
far we only got this one little weird
stumpy thing which still looks pretty
cool but it’s not very big you can see
most of the sugar is still just kind of
there clumps together another
interesting point something I want to
talk about is that if you’ve seen videos
of this before it doesn’t occur to you
how unbelievably lightweight this stuff
is because you have a pile of sugar
that’s all of the mass and then it’s
just expanded out to this large snake so
this thing weighs almost nothing is like
styrofoam because it’s also incredibly
fragile look at this it just comes right
apart you can see how light and fluffy
it is inside then if I crush it
basically just turns into dust I’m solid
you just watch dust fly up off of it
powdered sugar with alcohol that one
worked great it started off very quickly
it kept going for quite a while there is
still a lump of unburned sugar down at
the bottom but it’s pretty small it
really got most of it that grew and
twist it around and we got like a
secondary growth coming off of it at one
point I’m pretty good that’s a lot of
big black snake curls wonderfully
there’s I don’t know if you can get to
some cameras even a little bits of
iridescent sort of colored going through
parts of this so it’s pretty neat so
powdered sugar with alcohol is a fuel
that works really well our blended sugar
well our blended sugar with the lighter
fluid got basically nowhere almost all
the sugar mixed with the baking soda is
still here didn’t burn
we got a little bit of result but not a
lot blended sugar with the alcohol it
took a while and then it did start
growing but it didn’t get very far it’s
not bad that does kind of look like a
cool demon horn some sort of cancerous
sand growth or something not bad
granulated sugar with lighter fluid
again not very impressive I took this
piece off to try and let some of the
sugar inside get a little more access to
the heat didn’t really seem to do much
this still looks cool but it’s very
small it didn’t go very far I’m actually
gonna try eating a tiny bit of this and
it’s gonna taste terrible
I’m hoping this inner part will just
taste like burnt sugar and it won’t all
taste just like carbon there’s also
baking soda in it so it’s like salty
burn sugar no yeah it’s terrible
granulated sugar and alcohol this took a
good while to start doing anything like
it it took a long time for it to get
beyond just this first little bit but
eventually it started growing really
well and it just kept going until even
though it is very lightweight eventually
I had enough weight to just break a
piece off and then it started making
another piece and the mountain broke off
and then another piece for it came and
that broke off and it’s just kept on
going so I think we definitely got the
most volume out of the granulated sugar
eventually the the powdered sugar
definitely took off faster but in the
end I think the granulated sugar was the
most firesnake you at all oh it’s pretty
close tie between those two I actually
liked both of them pretty well but I’m
gonna say the granulated sugar with my
favorite just because it kept going and
diminishing and getting smaller and
smaller I think it’s pretty clear that
the 91% isopropyl alcohol that we were
using is a much better fuel than the
lighter fluid
so isopropyl alcohol very good
granulated sugar or powdered sugar both
quite good blended sugar not really so
good so we’re not going to use that
anymore well I’m gonna clean this up and
then I have a couple ideas of how to
scale this up to something a little bit
larger
it just disappears I’m gonna use our
powdered sugar mix for this one because
it started going fastest and use the
alcohol of course because that works way
better and I’m just gonna set up like a
whole bunch of different spots on one
tray of sand I’m gonna hope they kind of
grow together into one giant fire flame
smoke log we’ll see what happens
[Music]
all right oh it’s good let’s light it up
lit and it’s good
[Music]
[Music]
that was pretty cool it wasn’t exactly
what I was hoping for I was hoping for
we just kind of get like a large column
of this stuff rising up and that didn’t
really work out but it did get some good
volume we got quite a bit of the black
snake material which looked a little bit
cooler well it’s still on the tray make
a couple of times I cleared it off so we
could like let the new stuff go in
without all the weight of what was on
there crushing it down overall pretty
neat I’ve got one more thing that I want
to try and it’s gonna take up a little
more space for all these ins I am using
the powdered sugar rather than the
granulated sugar just because it starts
going faster still think the granulated
sugar might be better for a total result
in getting the biggest longest snakes I
just didn’t want to wait for it this
time now we’ve got 13 fire snakes going
at once I’ve spread them out a little
bit more so that they hopefully won’t
bond together like they were in the last
one this way I’m hoping we just get 13
different snakes rising a foot or two
off of the tray
[Music]
well there we go 13 different black
snakes all in one tray all together
making this sort of weird twisted field
of gnarled growing things I don’t even
know what to call them but that looks
pretty cool it was fun to do and guys
this experiment is so easy powdered
sugar baking soda and rubbing alcohol
you just put that in a little bit of
sand and light it and you get this it’s
like the cheapest experiment you could
ever do and it looks so cool I found
that I had really good results using
both granulated sugar and powdered sugar
the powdered sugar started working a
little bit faster the granulated sugar
kept going longer so you kind of have to
choose which one you prefer I definitely
found that the 91% rubbing alcohol
worked better as a fuel than the lighter
fluid I think it started better I think
it burned more consistently and just
gave us better results in the end if
you’re trying this at home make sure
you’re doing it in place with good
ventilation make sure you’re not gonna
light anything on fire around you and
you have proper safety equipment to put
anything out but this is absolutely
something you can do at home thanks for
joining us for this project today and
we’ll see you in the next one talk to
you then and now I’m gonna see how
quickly I can vacuum all of this up so
it’s just go on
probably the most satisfying thing to
vacuum that I’ve ever vacuumed hey guys
I know there are so many great videos
and great youtubers out there that you
could be watching instead of the king of
random I just want to say how grateful I
am that you choose to watch us
[Music]
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