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Physics, help me out here

This is the can we pour fat into before throwing it out. As far as I recall it’s a layer of lard followed by a layer of runoff from a roast chicken and capped with another layer of lard. Yesterday, it was level with the top of the can.

Today it looks like a big gross greasy lipstick. It’s a little warmer today. All I can think is the chicken grease expanded and pushed the lard out. I got his exact effect putting a can of refried beans over a candle once.

Yes, lard. Sadly, I no longer have a jar of bacon grease on the stove to use for cooking. British bacon doesn’t leak grease. In fact, I have to add lard to the skillet to make it cook evenly.

I don’t touch the stuff myself.

Comments


Comment from Uncle Al
Time: February 7, 2024, 9:14 pm

Low confidence guess: The roast chicken runoff has generated a bit of decomposition gas whose expansion has pushed upwards the lard layer above it. The lard and greasy liquid are sufficiently viscous that the gas cannot easily escape.

I repeat: low confidence. But I rather doubt that the thermal expansion coefficient of any of that stuff is enough to cause that much growth.


Comment from QuasiModo
Time: February 7, 2024, 9:24 pm

Might be bacteria growing on a lower layer and giving off gasses.


Comment from S. Weasel,
Time: February 7, 2024, 10:30 pm

Three days. But eh. It all went out in the garbage tonight,so we will never know.


Comment from Deborah HH
Time: February 7, 2024, 10:31 pm

I stopped saving bacon grease in 1995, when we were moving 45 miles to the little farm we’d inherited. I was trying to figure out how to pack that aluminum grease pot (with a spout!) and dumped it in the kitchen trash instead.

Stoaty?—why can’t you and Uncle Badger have a hog butchered the way you want? Or become bacon importers! Badger’s Bacon Barn sounds catchy. And you can design a logo that does NOT look like Porky the Pig 🙂


Comment from JC
Time: February 7, 2024, 11:14 pm

Expansion on phase change, that’s all


Comment from Durnedyankee
Time: February 8, 2024, 2:06 am

Good that you got rid of this before Steve McQueen had to fly it to the Arctic.


Comment from Uncle Al
Time: February 8, 2024, 3:02 am

@JC — Do you think something melted, boiled, condensed, or froze?

I doubt plasma is involved, and Bose-Einstein condensates we can safely dismiss.

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