This episode of Modern Rogue is brought to you by Squarespace.
Go to squarespace.com slash [trails off] Ah dammit.
Sorry.
It's perfect.
That got intense there for a bit, I was like, "It's hotter than I thought,
it's hotter than I thought!"
>> Modulated Rogue: The Modern Rogue cooks with thermite.
I would say this is a fairly traditional American cookout, right?
We got steaks, we've got seasonings, we have... rust and powdered aluminum.
I think this could be a horrible disaster.
I think you're right.
I'm very excited.
We have two fire extinguishers, we have a bag of a sand and we all can run really, really fast.
So there's a bunch of different types of thermite, but the most common one uses rust
and aluminum powder.
But not just any aluminum powder!
It has to be of a certain fine-grain mesh, and then once the reaction starts it self-oxidizes,
right?
Correct.
The rust is the oxidizing agent?
That's right, that's right.
Because the end result you get aluminum oxide, you get iron, and you get heat.
And in fact, like imagine you have a block of iron, it turns into rust, this reaction
just takes out the oxygen and makes it back into iron.
Yes, and we're basically making just a bunch of molten metal.
How do we harness this energy for the incredibly frivolous purpose of cooking these steaks?
Well first, let's make some thermite.
There's a bunch of different recipes and each one will have a different reaction, but the
one I learned is that it's three parts by weight of aluminum powder to eight parts of
iron oxide.
In this case, it just happened that we have three pounds and five pounds, so we have exactly
eight pounds of iron oxide, now we just need three pounds of aluminum.
So this is five pounds of fine mesh aluminum, I figure if we just take out two pounds then
we mix them all together and we're good?
I think so, yeah.
All right.
By doing bigger quantities, the rounding errors kind of blend out there.
Right.
Because it's finicky stuff, when we tried to do it before there's been times that it
just wouldn't ignite.
There we go, well we took out two pounds so this is three pounds of aluminum powder, and
then we got eight pounds of iron oxide.
What do we want to mix this in?
We should get a box.
Okay, we're going to mix all these.
We really should have respirators, just don't breathe!
All right, so at this point we just mix.
Oh hey, right on!
Hey yeah, remember we made these?
Yeah!
Probably the best way to do this is to get it in a closed bag and just shake it up like crazy,
I remember once when we made sixty pounds of this stuff, we put it in a box and just
kicked it down a hill.
And so the idea is, once the reaction's hot enough, it begins to self-oxidize as it bonds
the elements together.
But the problem is, how do you stop it once it starts, right?
Most of the time when you use a fire extinguisher it robs it of oxygen and it stops the flame,
but since it has its own oxygen it won't stop, but you can possibly cool everything down
enough that the reaction stops happening.
Because that's the thing, is this is extremely stable, it's very difficult to get started.
Once it gets started though, there's very difficult to stop.
Want to give it a try?
Yeah, are we gonna test it first?
Yeah.
I'm going to be honest with you, these masks will offer little to no protection but they
look kind of cool.
At least they won't blind you!
Oh, there's that.
If we mixed it correctly, if we have the right ratios, all we need is enough heat to start
the reaction.
But you need way hotter, like look at this.
You can even take this flame and nothing really happens there, it needs something with a little
more kick so we got magnesium strips.
This is test one, see if we got the recipe right!
Yeah!
Huh.
I don't think we got the recipe right.
I don't think we did.
Okay, all right.
So we'll add a little bit more aluminum.
All right, take two.
Hey!
Now we're talking.
Holy cow!
Oh this is going to be great.
Outstanding!
Dude, that was gorgeous.
I made the mistake of looking at it without the welding protection.
You're Egon-- I liked into the trap, Ray!
So that mixture right now is a mixture of aluminum oxide and iron!
Basically, we've reconstituted the iron that originally rusted to form the iron oxide.
So now the question is- How do we cook this?
How do we cook a steak?
Oh man, that stays hot.
It is glowing.
This one'll be a little bit bigger, here's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to get some gloves, and I'll actually hold the pan over it like I'm frying over
a campfire.
Are you kidding me?
No, no no no, I think it'll work.
Okay.
This is ill advised, I like it.
Pour on a little bit of woosh.
Pour a little touch of vegetable oil.
A little dab.
These are not sanitary conditions, but I've seen you eat pizza off the street so...
Okay, that did not end well and you know it.
Garlic.
Yeah.
I'll let you do the honors, sir.
Here it goes, here it goes, here it goes.
Come on, baby!
No.
We need a little more aluminum.
Let's try this again.
One steak, coming up!
And keep on it.
There you go.
All right!
Yeah, once it starts... okay.
So- Oh god that's bright.
Yeah, it's hot.
Oh, you can feel the heat.
Yeah, I can feel the heat.
It's hot!
It's very hot!
Okay, okay.
So hot.
It's melting.
Is it melting the plate?
The gloves!
Should have worn the other gloves!
All right, we're good, we're good.
Oh my god, it's gorgeous!
Is it cooking the steak?!
The steak is cooking!
Oh my good, look look look.
It's working!
Yeah!
Holy cow!
I did not expect this to work.
Yeah, me neither.
Ahahaha, woo!
Oh this is great!
I can't believe it!
Holy hell, that is amazing.
I think you're going to get your medium steak, buddy.
Yeah.
It is really, really hot.
Open up that garage door immediately.
Wow!
That was extraordinary.
Super effective!
That was amazing.
Yes!
Well and what I didn't expect is that it's even better, it's a more even heat that holds
on after it stops sparking and glowing.
Oh it smells good, too!
Oh dude.
My guess, is it's going to be super rare on the inside, but the outside looks like it's
nicely seared.
I'm concerned about its rawness, that makes me a little nervous.
Well then let's cook it some more.
The trick is, you gotta do the thermite flash and then let it just ride the residual heat.
Wow.
It's starting to look good now, you got that juices bubbling up on top.
I'm just concerned about that center there, you know?
I love the fact that we went from, "Oh golly, it worked" to "Well, let's make it as good
a steak as we can.
I mean, if we're going to eat this thing."
It's steak, right?
I say we throw another, just a small flash of the stuff on there.
Okay.
Uh, keep it on there just like you did.
Keep going.
There we go!
There we go.
Yeah!
That's good stuff.
It's starting to smell real good.
Yeah it is.
I sell thermite, and thermite cooking accessories.
Hahaha!
Taste the rust, it's not a bust!
Partake of our thermeat.
Ther-meat!
How long have you been sitting on that one?
Just came up with it, just now.
Right here.
The first-ever making of thermeat.
This iron slag got heated up to around four thousand degrees Fahrenheit, and even after
the chemical reaction stopped it retains all that heat and slowly dissipates just by radiating
it out, right?
Smells pretty good!
Dare we try cutting off a slice?
Oh, much better!
That looks perfect.
Would you like to do the honors?
Yeah!
Mr. Brushwood.
Yeah?
That is a good steak.
Yeaaahh haha!
Oh my god, you're right.
Look at that!
Look at that.
It's a perfect medium steak.
That is good stuff, man.
I'm calling off the rest of the shoot, I'm just going to cook and eat steak.
Well done, sir.
No pun intended.
Yo man, you see the modern rogue remix?
It's gorgeous and terrifying.
Okay, well gorgeous because it features the two of us, terrifying because it takes old
modern rogue episodes and chops 'em up into complete nonsense.
This is our fault, you know.
We're the ones who asked for fan tribute sites, and we got it.
Yeah, but I didn't expect them to make The Ring video.
Haha, it pretty much is, here check this out.
Cutting glass, oooh-kay.
We did this wrong.
You're right.
This is a dumb solution.
It was your idea.
We're going to be cutting glass.
Oooh-kay.
We did this wrong.
I love that it's so surreal, and it puts a completely different, usually sinister context
to it.
So I'm going to give him minus points for not having the complete archive of modern
rogue remix episodes, but I am going to give him a plus points for using Squarespace and
because I'm sure this took him all of like three seconds to put together using one of
their templates.
That's why there is no excuse to have a website in 2016 that looks like a garbage fire.
Just use Squarespace!
Head on over to Squarespace.com/rogue, sign up for our free trial and when you do sign
up make sure to use promo code rogue at checkout.
Not only will you get ten percent off, but more importantly you'll be keeping our garbage
fire in business.
How about that?
Yes, I like it.
I didn't even have to shock you that time.
So what do we want to feature next?
I assume not everybody needs to make remixes- Let's just get them to send in any cool sites
that they've made, I'm sure that our viewers are exceptionally creative and they've probably
built some gorgeous works of art.
He's talking to you guys.
I'm talking to you.
Let's make it happen.
Send it to us.
Yeah.
Let's show it off.
What this guy said.
Yes.