We're gonna need a lot of butter
October 27, 2023 2:26 PM Subscribe
Presumably the aforementioned explosions.
posted by mittens at 2:34 PM on October 27, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by mittens at 2:34 PM on October 27, 2023 [11 favorites]
Nope.
While Michael made calculations, Robert considered the side issues of baking a loaf of this size. He first considered using a volcano to bake it (à la Mount St. Helens), but quickly discarded that idea in favor of digging into the Earth's crust until hitting the optimal baking temperature of 450 degrees.
posted by The Bellman at 2:38 PM on October 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
While Michael made calculations, Robert considered the side issues of baking a loaf of this size. He first considered using a volcano to bake it (à la Mount St. Helens), but quickly discarded that idea in favor of digging into the Earth's crust until hitting the optimal baking temperature of 450 degrees.
posted by The Bellman at 2:38 PM on October 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
discarded that idea in favor of digging into the Earth's crust until hitting the optimal baking temperature of 450 degrees
Do you want kaiju? Because this is how you get kaiju.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:39 PM on October 27, 2023 [18 favorites]
Do you want kaiju? Because this is how you get kaiju.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:39 PM on October 27, 2023 [18 favorites]
My point being that digging down through five and a half miles through the Earth's crust is completely impractical. We've never done it before; there's no reason to think we can do it. And even if we did, the heat would be unevenly applied, burning the dough at the bottom while never reaching the surface.
They've clearly not thought this through, and it's very irresponsible of them given the significant ecological importance of the non-bread lake. I think the responsible course would be to start with a smaller lake, one with less extreme variations in depth to work the bugs out of the system first. I propose Lake Erie. It's a much better choice, and nobody would miss it as it borders only parts of Ontario, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York where nobody ever goes.
posted by Naberius at 2:40 PM on October 27, 2023 [14 favorites]
They've clearly not thought this through, and it's very irresponsible of them given the significant ecological importance of the non-bread lake. I think the responsible course would be to start with a smaller lake, one with less extreme variations in depth to work the bugs out of the system first. I propose Lake Erie. It's a much better choice, and nobody would miss it as it borders only parts of Ontario, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York where nobody ever goes.
posted by Naberius at 2:40 PM on October 27, 2023 [14 favorites]
Do you want kaiju? Because this is how you get kaiju.
I mean... do I want tasty, toasty Breadzilla? Is it wrong that I think I do?
posted by The Bellman at 2:43 PM on October 27, 2023 [4 favorites]
I mean... do I want tasty, toasty Breadzilla? Is it wrong that I think I do?
posted by The Bellman at 2:43 PM on October 27, 2023 [4 favorites]
Wait...is the math right there? 33 quadrillion pounds of flour, when the lake represents 51.71 quadrillion cups of water? That seems awfully dry. Maybe I have a decimal wrong.
posted by mittens at 2:43 PM on October 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by mittens at 2:43 PM on October 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Have they considered making muffins?
posted by supermedusa at 2:44 PM on October 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 2:44 PM on October 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
How much PB as well as J do I need here help me out math is hard.
posted by whatevernot at 2:44 PM on October 27, 2023
posted by whatevernot at 2:44 PM on October 27, 2023
Okay, now how are you going to bake it?
posted by Naberius
Give it time. Global warming got your back.
posted by Splunge at 2:54 PM on October 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Naberius
Give it time. Global warming got your back.
posted by Splunge at 2:54 PM on October 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Well, it's a very simple demonstration of how silly US measurements are. You wouldn't need a calculator to do this in metric measurements, specially not if you were a math major.
posted by mumimor at 2:55 PM on October 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by mumimor at 2:55 PM on October 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Does any one know how much flour does go
When a kid turns the lake into pasties?
posted by credulous at 3:01 PM on October 27, 2023 [4 favorites]
When a kid turns the lake into pasties?
posted by credulous at 3:01 PM on October 27, 2023 [4 favorites]
An argument can be made that since yeasted bread technically is a living thing, that the bread itself is the kaiju? King Yeastora?
Like, everyone who wants to can take a pilgrimage to Lake Superior and dump in a bag of flour, and eventually all these pilgrimages will create Breadzilla?
Not sure if I'm doing the math right, but if the article is saying that yearly world flour production is .01% of the flour needed, then even if all the flour in the world were diverted to this it would take 10,000 years? Is that right?
posted by LionIndex at 3:05 PM on October 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
Like, everyone who wants to can take a pilgrimage to Lake Superior and dump in a bag of flour, and eventually all these pilgrimages will create Breadzilla?
Not sure if I'm doing the math right, but if the article is saying that yearly world flour production is .01% of the flour needed, then even if all the flour in the world were diverted to this it would take 10,000 years? Is that right?
posted by LionIndex at 3:05 PM on October 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
Okay, now how are you going to bake it?
global warming should work just fine.
posted by The_Vegetables at 3:14 PM on October 27, 2023
global warming should work just fine.
posted by The_Vegetables at 3:14 PM on October 27, 2023
move the Jiffy factory to Marquette.
posted by clavdivs at 3:20 PM on October 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by clavdivs at 3:20 PM on October 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Where has all the flour gone, long time passing?
Really? You want to do this? Fine, but I'm only doing one verse, you guys can do the rest.
The Wreck of the -- ugh, I'm so sorry -- Breadmund Fitzgerald
The legend lives on, from the bakers on down,
Of the big lake they called Gitche Gumee.
The lake, it is said, never gives up her (yep) bread
When the skies of November turn gloomy.
With a boatload of flour, 30 'drillion pounds more
Than the Breadmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and true was bread-loaf kaiju
When the gales of November came early . . .
posted by The Bellman at 3:21 PM on October 27, 2023 [53 favorites]
Really? You want to do this? Fine, but I'm only doing one verse, you guys can do the rest.
The Wreck of the -- ugh, I'm so sorry -- Breadmund Fitzgerald
The legend lives on, from the bakers on down,
Of the big lake they called Gitche Gumee.
The lake, it is said, never gives up her (yep) bread
When the skies of November turn gloomy.
With a boatload of flour, 30 'drillion pounds more
Than the Breadmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and true was bread-loaf kaiju
When the gales of November came early . . .
posted by The Bellman at 3:21 PM on October 27, 2023 [53 favorites]
Do you want kaiju? Because this is how you get kaiju.
I mean... do I want tasty, toasty Breadzilla? Is it wrong that I think I do?
mmmmm King Ghidora Cakes!
posted by lalochezia at 3:23 PM on October 27, 2023
I think we need to seriously consider the possibility that this proposal was planted in the media by a secret consortium of ducks.
posted by dephlogisticated at 3:25 PM on October 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by dephlogisticated at 3:25 PM on October 27, 2023 [7 favorites]
but but but how much american style cheese food type slices to make it a grilled cheese? (A LOT)
Meteors, I should think, for the toasting. Bajillionaire meteors preferably.
No you cannot top it with tater tots and call it a baked dish, no
Meanwhile we're turning a lot of other lakes into hot pots, so
May I also add, completely sincerely, thanks for a post I feel no guilt about not reading, just adding my own silly friday thoughts. Carb it up!
posted by winesong at 3:27 PM on October 27, 2023
Meteors, I should think, for the toasting. Bajillionaire meteors preferably.
No you cannot top it with tater tots and call it a baked dish, no
Meanwhile we're turning a lot of other lakes into hot pots, so
May I also add, completely sincerely, thanks for a post I feel no guilt about not reading, just adding my own silly friday thoughts. Carb it up!
posted by winesong at 3:27 PM on October 27, 2023
So lets imagine that instead of a single loaf, you made bread rolls.
Enormous bread rolls, each topped with kosher salt and caraway seeds. SO enormous that
"Hey boss! Looks like when we scooped up all the water in Lake Superior, we also picked up some pretty large objects. That then got into the dough. Look at this one; it's got the hull of an entire cargo ship baked inside."
'Good God man! Do you realize what you've found here? A salt and caraway bread roll, with a Lake Superior cargo ship in it?'
It's the weck of the Edmund Fitzgerald!
(its possible this joke only works in upstate NY and Austria)
posted by bartleby at 3:32 PM on October 27, 2023 [10 favorites]
Enormous bread rolls, each topped with kosher salt and caraway seeds. SO enormous that
"Hey boss! Looks like when we scooped up all the water in Lake Superior, we also picked up some pretty large objects. That then got into the dough. Look at this one; it's got the hull of an entire cargo ship baked inside."
'Good God man! Do you realize what you've found here? A salt and caraway bread roll, with a Lake Superior cargo ship in it?'
It's the weck of the Edmund Fitzgerald!
(its possible this joke only works in upstate NY and Austria)
posted by bartleby at 3:32 PM on October 27, 2023 [10 favorites]
As this is a question from Minnesota were talking about white bread, right??
I'll excuse myself....
posted by djseafood at 3:49 PM on October 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'll excuse myself....
posted by djseafood at 3:49 PM on October 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Half the bread is Canada's.
We will gladly pay you $254,100,000,000 Tuesday, for the full loaf today.
posted by clavdivs at 3:58 PM on October 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
We will gladly pay you $254,100,000,000 Tuesday, for the full loaf today.
posted by clavdivs at 3:58 PM on October 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Look, I know we're all thinking Bread Kaiju, but once that loaf starts to rise and overrun its shores it's going to be more of The Blob writ large.
Duluth, the doughy Pompeii of the twenty first century. "The bakers were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."
posted by phooky at 4:21 PM on October 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
Duluth, the doughy Pompeii of the twenty first century. "The bakers were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."
posted by phooky at 4:21 PM on October 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
Forget baking it, how are you going to leaven and proof this thing!?
The sheer amount of yeast or sourdough starter this is going to take will be staggering.
Speaking of yeast and just to make sure everyone is on the same page, here.
Even if we discount the environmental effects of growing this much wheat and the energy required to mill it and sift it, and long before we even try to bake it - you do all understand that once we get to the part about letting yeast do its thing and turn sugars and starches into carbon dioxide it's probably game over, right?
The amount of CO2 this will release is probably going to be enough to reduce oxygen levels enough to suffocate most of North America, maybe even the whole planet. (Can someone please do the math on this? Any Matlab or Wolfram Alpha witches out there?)
And, well, baking it would likely finish the job in a hurry.
I'm not exactly opposed to any of this. There's worse (and much less tragic-comedic-ally ironic!) ways to end civilization as we know it.
And I can finally fulfill my weird dreams of sleeping in a giant mattress-sized slab of hot, fresh bread and snacking on it while stoned and half-asleep.
posted by loquacious at 4:34 PM on October 27, 2023 [4 favorites]
The sheer amount of yeast or sourdough starter this is going to take will be staggering.
Speaking of yeast and just to make sure everyone is on the same page, here.
Even if we discount the environmental effects of growing this much wheat and the energy required to mill it and sift it, and long before we even try to bake it - you do all understand that once we get to the part about letting yeast do its thing and turn sugars and starches into carbon dioxide it's probably game over, right?
The amount of CO2 this will release is probably going to be enough to reduce oxygen levels enough to suffocate most of North America, maybe even the whole planet. (Can someone please do the math on this? Any Matlab or Wolfram Alpha witches out there?)
And, well, baking it would likely finish the job in a hurry.
I'm not exactly opposed to any of this. There's worse (and much less tragic-comedic-ally ironic!) ways to end civilization as we know it.
And I can finally fulfill my weird dreams of sleeping in a giant mattress-sized slab of hot, fresh bread and snacking on it while stoned and half-asleep.
posted by loquacious at 4:34 PM on October 27, 2023 [4 favorites]
Look, I know we're all thinking Bread Kaiju, but once that loaf starts to rise and overrun its shores it's going to be more of The Blob writ large.
Yeah, I'm trying to wrap my head around the concept of a loaf of bread made out of a 15x15 mile cube of water and however many cubic miles of flour that is, and what happens when it rises and goes to like double or quadruple the original volume.
Because it's probably going to not exactly mound up into a nice ball of bread with a surprisingly small maximum height as it collapses and spread out over at least several states, if not most/all of the Midwest.
We're not just talking about godzilla-sized Kaiju, here. We're talking like a tera or petakaiju blob the size of several states at a minimum. Godzilla would be the scale and size of a bacteria cell if this loaf of bread was the size of a human.
posted by loquacious at 4:42 PM on October 27, 2023
Yeah, I'm trying to wrap my head around the concept of a loaf of bread made out of a 15x15 mile cube of water and however many cubic miles of flour that is, and what happens when it rises and goes to like double or quadruple the original volume.
Because it's probably going to not exactly mound up into a nice ball of bread with a surprisingly small maximum height as it collapses and spread out over at least several states, if not most/all of the Midwest.
We're not just talking about godzilla-sized Kaiju, here. We're talking like a tera or petakaiju blob the size of several states at a minimum. Godzilla would be the scale and size of a bacteria cell if this loaf of bread was the size of a human.
posted by loquacious at 4:42 PM on October 27, 2023
Surely there are worse ways to die?
posted by supermedusa at 4:51 PM on October 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 4:51 PM on October 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
Worse? To be clear, I'm not sure if there's a better way to die.
I'm just not sure if we'll make it to the part where there's a loaf of baked bread to eat.
On that note it wouldn't even be remotely possible eat all of this bread before it spoils even if we had every living human on the planet there to try and eat it.
So while we're at it, we should imagine a great sea of mold the size of most/all of the Midwest.
Wait, I'm pretty sure this is the unpublished prequel to Greg Bear's Blood Music.
posted by loquacious at 5:14 PM on October 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm just not sure if we'll make it to the part where there's a loaf of baked bread to eat.
On that note it wouldn't even be remotely possible eat all of this bread before it spoils even if we had every living human on the planet there to try and eat it.
So while we're at it, we should imagine a great sea of mold the size of most/all of the Midwest.
Wait, I'm pretty sure this is the unpublished prequel to Greg Bear's Blood Music.
posted by loquacious at 5:14 PM on October 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Well, it's a very simple demonstration of how silly US measurements are.
Cubic miles are indeed a very silly unit of volume for water, but it could be much worse. Volumes of water are often expressed in acre-feet in the US, a truly cursed unit.
posted by ssg at 5:19 PM on October 27, 2023 [6 favorites]
Cubic miles are indeed a very silly unit of volume for water, but it could be much worse. Volumes of water are often expressed in acre-feet in the US, a truly cursed unit.
posted by ssg at 5:19 PM on October 27, 2023 [6 favorites]
I was going to make a comment about how awesomely large Lake Superior is, with some props to the north shore...
But we've gone all Kaiju, and it seems delete able...
(It's a really big lake. And you can see the Northern Lights from there).
posted by Windopaene at 5:32 PM on October 27, 2023
But we've gone all Kaiju, and it seems delete able...
(It's a really big lake. And you can see the Northern Lights from there).
posted by Windopaene at 5:32 PM on October 27, 2023
Also: bread Kaiju rising from the lake would be bad...
Given the temperature. would probably be underproved though...
posted by Windopaene at 5:39 PM on October 27, 2023
Given the temperature. would probably be underproved though...
posted by Windopaene at 5:39 PM on October 27, 2023
(Paul Hollywood voice...)
posted by Windopaene at 5:44 PM on October 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Windopaene at 5:44 PM on October 27, 2023 [3 favorites]
Wait...is the math right there? 33 quadrillion pounds of flour, when the lake represents 51.71 quadrillion cups of water? That seems awfully dry. Maybe I have a decimal wrong.
No, that's about right. Here, I'll even do it in godless communist units.
Lake Superior is 12100 km3 of water or 1.21e13 cubic meters. So, 1.21e13 godless tons of water. At 80\% hydration that implies 1.51e13 metric tons of flour. Which of course is 3.32e16 pounds of flour, or 33.2 quadrillion.
1.51e13 tons of flour appears to be about 20-30 times the entire biomass of Earth.
That's a big twinkie.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:21 PM on October 27, 2023 [10 favorites]
No, that's about right. Here, I'll even do it in godless communist units.
Lake Superior is 12100 km3 of water or 1.21e13 cubic meters. So, 1.21e13 godless tons of water. At 80\% hydration that implies 1.51e13 metric tons of flour. Which of course is 3.32e16 pounds of flour, or 33.2 quadrillion.
1.51e13 tons of flour appears to be about 20-30 times the entire biomass of Earth.
That's a big twinkie.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:21 PM on October 27, 2023 [10 favorites]
That's a big twinkie.
Previously: an exhaustive analysis of the hypothetical Twinkie in Ghostbusters
posted by dephlogisticated at 6:45 PM on October 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Previously: an exhaustive analysis of the hypothetical Twinkie in Ghostbusters
posted by dephlogisticated at 6:45 PM on October 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
So, 1.21e13 godless tons of water.
I think you have a little Jesus seeping in there. Surely your truly godless communist would insist on SI units, thus 1.21e16 kg of water.
posted by ssg at 7:10 PM on October 27, 2023
I think you have a little Jesus seeping in there. Surely your truly godless communist would insist on SI units, thus 1.21e16 kg of water.
posted by ssg at 7:10 PM on October 27, 2023
1.51e13 tons of flour appears to be about 20-30 times the entire biomass of Earth.
I appear to have vastly underestimated how much of this loaf of bread we might be able to actually eat even if every person on the planet absolutely gorged themselves.
Now I *really* want to know exactly how much CO2 this would release if we could get it to proof and rise like a normal loaf of bread.
Because being anywhere near it while it's rising would probably asphyxiate you because it's basically going to displace all of the oxygen for *waves hands* I don't know, maybe a state or three away, depending if you were upwind or downwind.
posted by loquacious at 7:44 PM on October 27, 2023
I appear to have vastly underestimated how much of this loaf of bread we might be able to actually eat even if every person on the planet absolutely gorged themselves.
Now I *really* want to know exactly how much CO2 this would release if we could get it to proof and rise like a normal loaf of bread.
Because being anywhere near it while it's rising would probably asphyxiate you because it's basically going to displace all of the oxygen for *waves hands* I don't know, maybe a state or three away, depending if you were upwind or downwind.
posted by loquacious at 7:44 PM on October 27, 2023
what's 778 metric tonnes of Flour in cups.
1 cup of (sifted) flour weighs 4 ounces. There are 35274 ounces in 1 metric tonne. If my math is right, 778 metric tonnes of (again, sifted) flour is equal to 6,860,793 cups.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:45 PM on October 27, 2023
1 cup of (sifted) flour weighs 4 ounces. There are 35274 ounces in 1 metric tonne. If my math is right, 778 metric tonnes of (again, sifted) flour is equal to 6,860,793 cups.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:45 PM on October 27, 2023
How much flower would it take to turn Bread into Lake Superior? Baby I'ma want you...
posted by credulous at 7:56 PM on October 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by credulous at 7:56 PM on October 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Now I *really* want to know exactly how much CO2 this would release if we could get it to proof and rise like a normal loaf of bread.
This paper indicates 3.24kg of 53% hydration dough proving in a 0.36 m3 closed container at 36C increased CO2 by 2624ppm. Let's assume that the amount of CO2 produced is proportional to the amount of flour, though I'm sure there are small differences depending on hydration level, and also assume that an equivalent amount of CO2 is produced in bulk fermentation before proving and in the early stages of baking (I suspect you could increase the total amount of CO2 produced by fermenting longer at a lower temperature, but let's assume we've managed to find a way to prove the loaf at a relatively higher temperature).
So for 2.05kg of flour, we produce 5248ppm in 0.36 m3. Using the amount of flour from above, we have 7.40e15 times as much flour.
If you assume the height of the atmosphere is 100km (for the purposes of containing CO2, see Figure 8 in this paper), then the volume of the atmosphere is 5.18e19 m3. That's 1.44e20 times as much space.
Thus, we can expect a proportional increase in CO2 in our atmosphere of 0.27ppm. Not nothing, but roughly a tenth of our current annual increase in atmospheric CO2. So a little more than a month's worth of net anthropogenic CO2 emissions, in round numbers.
posted by ssg at 8:42 PM on October 27, 2023 [4 favorites]
This paper indicates 3.24kg of 53% hydration dough proving in a 0.36 m3 closed container at 36C increased CO2 by 2624ppm. Let's assume that the amount of CO2 produced is proportional to the amount of flour, though I'm sure there are small differences depending on hydration level, and also assume that an equivalent amount of CO2 is produced in bulk fermentation before proving and in the early stages of baking (I suspect you could increase the total amount of CO2 produced by fermenting longer at a lower temperature, but let's assume we've managed to find a way to prove the loaf at a relatively higher temperature).
So for 2.05kg of flour, we produce 5248ppm in 0.36 m3. Using the amount of flour from above, we have 7.40e15 times as much flour.
If you assume the height of the atmosphere is 100km (for the purposes of containing CO2, see Figure 8 in this paper), then the volume of the atmosphere is 5.18e19 m3. That's 1.44e20 times as much space.
Thus, we can expect a proportional increase in CO2 in our atmosphere of 0.27ppm. Not nothing, but roughly a tenth of our current annual increase in atmospheric CO2. So a little more than a month's worth of net anthropogenic CO2 emissions, in round numbers.
posted by ssg at 8:42 PM on October 27, 2023 [4 favorites]
Have I told all of you how much I love you lately? Because I really do.
posted by signal at 9:48 PM on October 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by signal at 9:48 PM on October 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
Thus, we can expect a proportional increase in CO2 in our atmosphere of 0.27ppm. Not nothing, but roughly a tenth of our current annual increase in atmospheric CO2. So a little more than a month's worth of net anthropogenic CO2 emissions, in round numbers.
Well, that's much less bonkers than I would have thought, but I still bet you wouldn't want to be right next to it without a bottle of oxygen or SCBA rig.
I'm all in. This will need to be a global effort and it's all hands on deck, and this could be just the task to finally unite all or most of humanity and give us a real purpose to strive for greatness. Every culture and part of humanity has some kind of bread.
We're going to need to get the von Neumann machines going and out there terraforming Mars and turning the asteroid belts into wheat farms. We could do a Dyson swarm or statites as farms. We're probably going to have to harvest a lot of comets or rob Europa for the water. We're going to need a whole lot of compost and soil, too, so maybe we really should terraform Mars first and really greenhouse it and turn it into a massive global jungle to generate biomass.
As for grinding and processing the wheat into flower I reckon we could get really big and silly but it might just be better to have the von Neumann machines just make a whole lot of grain mills and distribute them in the same places we're growing the wheat. I mean we could probably use nanobots but that just doesn't feel right for some reason.
As for moving all of that flour we probably have a lot of obvious options including an orbital ring with big vacuum powered hoses, but we'd really probably want to sequester transport into smaller units so we can avoid and mitigate any existential threat scale dust-air explosions.
As for mixing, kneading, proofing and baking it doesn't necessarily need to happen in Lake Superior or even on Earth, and there's a lot of options there. Perhaps an absolutely gigantic moon-sized bowl or Dutch oven capable of holding some pressure or atmosphere with solar mirrors for heating and baking, and then we could just sort of plop it down on Earth from orbit like a pancake the size of Kansas. Heck maybe reentry can help with a nice crisp crust and browning.
Though we could also use solar mirror arrays for warmth for proofing and then heat for doing it all right in Lake Superior.
If we get started right now we the bread might be ready in, oh, about 2500, 3000 AD?
I love this big dumb thought exercise. The math and hard science fiction details is the kind of silly thing that Larry Niven or even Ian M. Banks might take on. The logistics, scale and math on it is ridiculous for such a simple "What if?" question. it's reminding me of Douglas Adams and custom planets, and what if someone made a whole earth-sized planet of bread?
And I just realized that this whole thread is probably a very particular kind of nightmare for anyone with Celiac's or gluten allergies. Sorry about that.
I guess while we're at it we could try to do a gluten free loaf with Lake Eire if you know a good recipe. /s
Narrator: This fragment of a historical comment ends here and while we know it was meant to be humorous, we also all know how this is just one example of the many hapless, dangerous words that started the first galactic diaspora of our ancestors, which spread through billions of systems, and then tens of thousands of galaxies in the Laniakea Supercluster fueled by endless interstellar and intergalactic strife and open warfare and bread.
Once our ancestors took on this noble-sounding task of turning their largest freshwater lake into a loaf of bread, it wasn't very long until they started disagreeing violently about exactly what kind of bread they would bake or even what recipe to use.
And by our standards of time it wasn't very long after this that the great warring Breadships went out into the cosmos for so many chaotic eons and epochs, turning everything they could into a nearly infinite variety of different kinds of bread, constantly inventing new recipes and cults around them, creating ever-larger loaves of bread and consuming everything in its path.
This is, of course, why any form of wild yeast is contraband in the rest of the civilized Laniakea Supercluster and why we eat crackers.
posted by loquacious at 10:13 PM on October 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
Well, that's much less bonkers than I would have thought, but I still bet you wouldn't want to be right next to it without a bottle of oxygen or SCBA rig.
I'm all in. This will need to be a global effort and it's all hands on deck, and this could be just the task to finally unite all or most of humanity and give us a real purpose to strive for greatness. Every culture and part of humanity has some kind of bread.
We're going to need to get the von Neumann machines going and out there terraforming Mars and turning the asteroid belts into wheat farms. We could do a Dyson swarm or statites as farms. We're probably going to have to harvest a lot of comets or rob Europa for the water. We're going to need a whole lot of compost and soil, too, so maybe we really should terraform Mars first and really greenhouse it and turn it into a massive global jungle to generate biomass.
As for grinding and processing the wheat into flower I reckon we could get really big and silly but it might just be better to have the von Neumann machines just make a whole lot of grain mills and distribute them in the same places we're growing the wheat. I mean we could probably use nanobots but that just doesn't feel right for some reason.
As for moving all of that flour we probably have a lot of obvious options including an orbital ring with big vacuum powered hoses, but we'd really probably want to sequester transport into smaller units so we can avoid and mitigate any existential threat scale dust-air explosions.
As for mixing, kneading, proofing and baking it doesn't necessarily need to happen in Lake Superior or even on Earth, and there's a lot of options there. Perhaps an absolutely gigantic moon-sized bowl or Dutch oven capable of holding some pressure or atmosphere with solar mirrors for heating and baking, and then we could just sort of plop it down on Earth from orbit like a pancake the size of Kansas. Heck maybe reentry can help with a nice crisp crust and browning.
Though we could also use solar mirror arrays for warmth for proofing and then heat for doing it all right in Lake Superior.
If we get started right now we the bread might be ready in, oh, about 2500, 3000 AD?
I love this big dumb thought exercise. The math and hard science fiction details is the kind of silly thing that Larry Niven or even Ian M. Banks might take on. The logistics, scale and math on it is ridiculous for such a simple "What if?" question. it's reminding me of Douglas Adams and custom planets, and what if someone made a whole earth-sized planet of bread?
And I just realized that this whole thread is probably a very particular kind of nightmare for anyone with Celiac's or gluten allergies. Sorry about that.
I guess while we're at it we could try to do a gluten free loaf with Lake Eire if you know a good recipe. /s
Narrator: This fragment of a historical comment ends here and while we know it was meant to be humorous, we also all know how this is just one example of the many hapless, dangerous words that started the first galactic diaspora of our ancestors, which spread through billions of systems, and then tens of thousands of galaxies in the Laniakea Supercluster fueled by endless interstellar and intergalactic strife and open warfare and bread.
Once our ancestors took on this noble-sounding task of turning their largest freshwater lake into a loaf of bread, it wasn't very long until they started disagreeing violently about exactly what kind of bread they would bake or even what recipe to use.
And by our standards of time it wasn't very long after this that the great warring Breadships went out into the cosmos for so many chaotic eons and epochs, turning everything they could into a nearly infinite variety of different kinds of bread, constantly inventing new recipes and cults around them, creating ever-larger loaves of bread and consuming everything in its path.
This is, of course, why any form of wild yeast is contraband in the rest of the civilized Laniakea Supercluster and why we eat crackers.
posted by loquacious at 10:13 PM on October 27, 2023 [5 favorites]
windopaene. . . how awesomely large Lake Superior is . . .
North American ter[r]abakers please spare a thought for your Russian counterparts? Lake Baikal has nearly twice the volume of Lake Superior. Notwithstanding the higher hydration level in rye bread, Russian bakers will have an even bigger bake-off.
ssg often expressed in acre-feet in the US, a truly cursed unit
Oh no: ac-ft gives you a graphic idea of what happens when you let the plug out. Superior's 10 billion ac-ft would flood the contiguous 48 to a depth of 5 feet. A leaking Baikal would only cover Mother Russia to a depth of 1 metre.
posted by BobTheScientist at 10:56 PM on October 27, 2023 [4 favorites]
North American ter[r]abakers please spare a thought for your Russian counterparts? Lake Baikal has nearly twice the volume of Lake Superior. Notwithstanding the higher hydration level in rye bread, Russian bakers will have an even bigger bake-off.
ssg often expressed in acre-feet in the US, a truly cursed unit
Oh no: ac-ft gives you a graphic idea of what happens when you let the plug out. Superior's 10 billion ac-ft would flood the contiguous 48 to a depth of 5 feet. A leaking Baikal would only cover Mother Russia to a depth of 1 metre.
posted by BobTheScientist at 10:56 PM on October 27, 2023 [4 favorites]
Do you want kaiju? Because this is how you get kaiju.
Of course we do. How else will we knead the dough?
posted by Thorzdad at 4:46 AM on October 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
Of course we do. How else will we knead the dough?
posted by Thorzdad at 4:46 AM on October 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
Wait, are we trying to fill the volume of Lake Superior with bread, or are we trying to use all the water in Lake Superior to make bread?
I.e. is the lake the water, or the hole that the water fills?
posted by clawsoon at 7:24 AM on October 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
I.e. is the lake the water, or the hole that the water fills?
posted by clawsoon at 7:24 AM on October 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
Can i get a whole wheat loaf in Huron? And a coupla tons of that irish butter?
posted by supermedusa at 7:35 AM on October 28, 2023
posted by supermedusa at 7:35 AM on October 28, 2023
Superior, they said, never gives up her bread.
posted by betaray at 7:41 AM on October 28, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by betaray at 7:41 AM on October 28, 2023 [6 favorites]
Can i get a whole wheat loaf in Huron? And a coupla tons of that irish butter?
Multigrain, sprouted, sourdough or spelted? Sandwich loaf or batard?
See, this is how the great cosmic Bread Wars start. We might be able to solve this by moving over to Minnesota and turning all of the lakes into different kinds of bread.
posted by loquacious at 9:43 AM on October 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
Multigrain, sprouted, sourdough or spelted? Sandwich loaf or batard?
See, this is how the great cosmic Bread Wars start. We might be able to solve this by moving over to Minnesota and turning all of the lakes into different kinds of bread.
posted by loquacious at 9:43 AM on October 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
And I'm still wondering about the physics and critical mass of a large asteroid, moon or rocky planet sized loaf of bread and how large it can actually get before collapsing on itself. Or, say, if you made a baguette or loaf how big could it be before gravity forces it into a sphere.
This thought experiment is weird and complicated because it likely depends a lot on what kind of bread it is, how airy or dense the crumb is, what kind of flour or gluten levels it uses, how crusty it is, etc.
Oh, and what about breadquakes? Bread tectonics?
Hey, NASA? Or Codys Lab? What happens to a loaf of bread in a near vacuum or exposed to space?
posted by loquacious at 9:51 AM on October 28, 2023
This thought experiment is weird and complicated because it likely depends a lot on what kind of bread it is, how airy or dense the crumb is, what kind of flour or gluten levels it uses, how crusty it is, etc.
Oh, and what about breadquakes? Bread tectonics?
Hey, NASA? Or Codys Lab? What happens to a loaf of bread in a near vacuum or exposed to space?
posted by loquacious at 9:51 AM on October 28, 2023
I'm loving CARB WEEK on the 'filter.
as may be apparent from the p a s t a thread, I love carbs. perhaps one of other lakes could be a dark rye or pumpernickel?
posted by supermedusa at 9:58 AM on October 28, 2023
as may be apparent from the p a s t a thread, I love carbs. perhaps one of other lakes could be a dark rye or pumpernickel?
posted by supermedusa at 9:58 AM on October 28, 2023
And I just realized that this whole thread is probably a very particular kind of nightmare for anyone with Celiac's or gluten allergies. Sorry about that.
Speaking as a Celiac, no worries this is not a new nightmare, our society already runs on a "lets shove some wheat in that" model. Ie:
Lip balm? - Sure!
Shampoo - Definitely!
Medications? - sure its a priority one allergen, but lets throw it in there anyway.
Cat food? - I mean, they are an obligate carnivore but lets shove some wheat in there just because.
posted by Pink Fuzzy Bunny at 3:21 PM on October 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
Speaking as a Celiac, no worries this is not a new nightmare, our society already runs on a "lets shove some wheat in that" model. Ie:
Lip balm? - Sure!
Shampoo - Definitely!
Medications? - sure its a priority one allergen, but lets throw it in there anyway.
Cat food? - I mean, they are an obligate carnivore but lets shove some wheat in there just because.
posted by Pink Fuzzy Bunny at 3:21 PM on October 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
Superior's 10 billion ac-ft would flood the contiguous 48 to a depth of 5 feet
Have you calculated spillage from Lake Huron and Michigan and more importantly, will the Mackinac bridge still be intact.
posted by clavdivs at 3:26 PM on October 28, 2023
Have you calculated spillage from Lake Huron and Michigan and more importantly, will the Mackinac bridge still be intact.
posted by clavdivs at 3:26 PM on October 28, 2023
MetaFilter: Let's shove some wheat in that.
posted by loquacious at 3:27 PM on October 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by loquacious at 3:27 PM on October 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
Now I *really* want to know exactly how much CO2 this would release if we could get it to proof and rise like a normal loaf of bread.
I think it’s important to realize here that baker’s yeast, like brewer’s yeast, is just a specialized strain of saccharomyces cerevicea. Specialized for the particular tasks (baking or brewing) that humans have bred them for over tens of thousands of years, yes, but still the same species of critter that lives off simple sugars and ferments them into the carbon dioxide you’re so concerned with.
By my mention of brewing I expect you may have already figured out where this is going: that other byproduct of fermentation, alcohol. While in a normal loaf you’d end up with pretty negligible amounts, I think here the scale is likely to make it of practical concern.
Now when I was in brewing school, we learned that when a yeast cell breaks down a sugar molecule, it produces alcohol and carbon dioxide in equal volumes (not masses). As I mentioned, baker’s yeast is a specialized s. cerevicea, and I’m guessing it’s likely been bred to produce more CO2, but I’m also guessing there’s a minimum amount of alcohol you’re always going to get from fermentation. So I’m thinking all that alcohol is going to cover Duluth before the rising dough, drowning everyone or, if folks are unlucky, happening upon a spark somewhere and putting the entire Twin Ports area to the torch.
posted by nickmark at 3:28 PM on October 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
I think it’s important to realize here that baker’s yeast, like brewer’s yeast, is just a specialized strain of saccharomyces cerevicea. Specialized for the particular tasks (baking or brewing) that humans have bred them for over tens of thousands of years, yes, but still the same species of critter that lives off simple sugars and ferments them into the carbon dioxide you’re so concerned with.
By my mention of brewing I expect you may have already figured out where this is going: that other byproduct of fermentation, alcohol. While in a normal loaf you’d end up with pretty negligible amounts, I think here the scale is likely to make it of practical concern.
Now when I was in brewing school, we learned that when a yeast cell breaks down a sugar molecule, it produces alcohol and carbon dioxide in equal volumes (not masses). As I mentioned, baker’s yeast is a specialized s. cerevicea, and I’m guessing it’s likely been bred to produce more CO2, but I’m also guessing there’s a minimum amount of alcohol you’re always going to get from fermentation. So I’m thinking all that alcohol is going to cover Duluth before the rising dough, drowning everyone or, if folks are unlucky, happening upon a spark somewhere and putting the entire Twin Ports area to the torch.
posted by nickmark at 3:28 PM on October 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
perhaps one of other lakes could be a dark rye or pumpernickel?
IT IS THE 41ST MILLENIUM. IN THE GRIM DARKNESS OF THE FAR FUTURE THERE IS ONLY BREAD.
posted by loquacious at 3:30 PM on October 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
IT IS THE 41ST MILLENIUM. IN THE GRIM DARKNESS OF THE FAR FUTURE THERE IS ONLY BREAD.
posted by loquacious at 3:30 PM on October 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
Has anyone sent this to Randall Monroe?
posted by nickmark at 3:41 PM on October 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by nickmark at 3:41 PM on October 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
Now I *really* want to know exactly how much CO2 this would release if we could get it to proof and rise like a normal loaf of bread.
On the plus side, it sounds like you'd have to store ~10,000 years of wheat production and prevent it from rotting, which would surely act as a carbon sink.
posted by clawsoon at 3:58 PM on October 28, 2023
On the plus side, it sounds like you'd have to store ~10,000 years of wheat production and prevent it from rotting, which would surely act as a carbon sink.
posted by clawsoon at 3:58 PM on October 28, 2023
Mod note: [btw, this post has been added to the sidebar and the Best Of blog]
posted by taz (staff) at 1:53 AM on October 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 1:53 AM on October 29, 2023 [2 favorites]
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This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
"Oh, wow," Robert said, putting the lake's volume into perspective. "This is 3,000 Mount St. Helens explosions."
posted by jacquilynne at 2:33 PM on October 27, 2023 [7 favorites]