Minding your mummies

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sherrillm
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Joined: Fri Feb 21, 2020 9:39 am
Occupation: Parent

Minding your mummies

Post by sherrillm »

Hello - my daughter is doing the Minding your mummies science fair project, with a slight twist (she is testing baking soda and salt, and pork and beef hot dogs).

Her results don't match the expected. The salt worked well on both dogs - they are stiff and don't smell.
The baking soda did not work - it shrunk after 7 days, but was still wiggly. By 14 days it smelled really bad, was not stiff and grew in size from 7 days.

We followed aspects of the experiment, and put the hot dogs in tupperware containers as the requirement for "air tight".

Was this incorrect? There was another post that this may be anerobic decomposition because the moisture is still trapped in the container?
cnoonan180
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Posts: 98
Joined: Tue Aug 27, 2019 9:33 am
Occupation: Student

Re: Minding your mummies

Post by cnoonan180 »

Hello!

Baking soda can be considered a drying agent, meaning that it absorbs moisture out of substances that are close to it or that come in contact with it. So, if the hot dog covered with baking soda shrunk, most likely the moisture had been absorbed by the baking soda, and according to science, namely chemistry, this is what should happen.

The hot dog may have been "wiggly" because as baking soda absorbs moisture, it beings to dissolve in the moisture, and this may have caused the texture of the hot dog you described.

If the baking soda absorbed more moisture than it could dissolve in, or if additional moisture besides what the baking soda could absorb was in the container, this may have prevented the hot dog from becoming even drier or stiff.

Hope this helps, feel free to reach out with more questions!
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