Disturbing technology: the defrost-o-plate
A few years ago, my dad bought a mad thing from JML (they advertise on TV and their slogan should be “we sell weird shit for your house”). I dubbed it the defrost-o-plate: it claimed to defrost food in record time, without heat. Bollocks! I cried. My dad showed me it in action. I bought one for myself.
My defrost-o-plate (I’ve no idea what it’s officially called) is a rectangular metal tray, painted matt black, with a half-dozen grooves in it (although as the photo shows, there are other designs out there). You don’t need to heat it up, it has no power source, it doesn’t seem to be made of anything unusual, and it is clearly of human origin: the feet fell off within days. And I have absolutely no idea how it works.
I tried an experiment: I got two ice cubes and put one on the defrost-o-plate, with the second ice cube on a normal plate. After half a minute, the normal-plate ice cube was starting to look a bit shiny; the defrost-o-plate cube was a puddle of water. If I leave a couple of steaks out to defrost, they take a few hours; on the defrost-o-plate, half an hour.
Naturally, I think it’s a great thing – but my complete inability to work out how it does its magic is driving me daft. There are lots of sites offering defrost-o-plates on the net, such as this one, but nobody tells you how it actually works. So I’d like to turn this over to you, as you’re all much smarter than me. How can a bit of metal perform such magic? Is there a scientific explanation, or is it witchcraft?
102 Responses to “Disturbing technology: the defrost-o-plate”
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Norman Lamont on April 28th, 2005
I relies on people like you watching it in fascination. Your body heat thaws the food.
David on April 28th, 2005
I would guess that it is because it has a defrosting mesh plate made from aluminum laminae processed into a plate with a plurality of polygonal meshes, appearing like a honeycomb. The meshes effectively enlarge the heat exchange surface and, working in cooperation with the aluminum laminae of good heat conductivity, speed up defrosting. The meshes also promote air circulation to allow hot air reach the food on the defrosting mesh plate from all directions to prevent dead spots. The water drops formed during defrosting may also flow through the meshes into the tray below.
David on April 28th, 2005
Is it not essentially a heatsink? They are extremely good heat conductors. You put something cold on them in a warm environment and they’ll try and equalise the temperature by taking heat from the air and moving it to the cold bit.
Exactly the opposite of a processor heatsink, which moves the heat from the processor and disapates it into the cooler air. Both rely on very high conductivity and a large surface area.
I might have made all that up though.
Gary on April 28th, 2005
> I would guess that
I was with you until “that”. I got a bit lost afterwards.
> Is it not essentially a heatsink?
I DON’T KNOW!!!!! ;-)
David on April 28th, 2005
OK, so the first one was pasted from the US patents site. ;-)
>>I DON’T KNOW!!!!!
When I said “is it not…?” I should’ve just said “it is”. Cos it is.
Frank on June 15th, 2005
So where do I buy one of these things?
Gary on June 15th, 2005
I got mine in Makro, which makes me think that any place that sells mad stuff that you’ve seen on TV is a good place – cash and carries, woolworths, homebase, those kinds of places (if you’re in the UK. If you’re in the US, I’m not sure…)
Matthew on May 17th, 2007
It’s a physical heat sink. Aluminum is a great thermal conductor — particularly aluminum that is painted black. Those “grooves” increase the surface area of whatever is being de-frosted, accelerating the heat transfer.
Keep it in a warm place and will work even better…
Gary on May 17th, 2007
Thanks Matthew.
Andy on July 6th, 2007
I stumbled on you blog while I was searching for a cooling surface for my Mac Mini. This is exactly what I am looking for.
I am guessing that it had embedded heat pipe in the plate. The heat pipe can instantaneously transfer heat/cold from one point of contact through out the whole body of the heat pipe which spread to the whole plate much quicker than normal heat transfer through the metal. Many of the computer processor heat sinks use heat pipe. You can search on heat pipe to find out how it work. It’s a really old physical discovery but it’s almost like magic.
Gary on July 7th, 2007
Hi Andy, thanks for the explanation. I still reckon it’s magic :)
Anna on August 12th, 2007
Pleeeeeease let me know where to buy one of these in the US, specifically Atlanta, Georgia. I have been trying to find this product for a long time. Thank you in advance, somebody.
Digital.Diablo on January 12th, 2008
I’m able to produce similar effects from an old CPU heatsink – stick a pack of bacon on top and it 1/2′s the defrost time. Doing a bit of experimenting it does what you’d expect, the heat rises into the product, the cold ‘drops’ out of the product. Seems like this gadget is an enhanced version of it. Might have to get one!
Karen on June 26th, 2008
I use to have one of these. I gave it to my son who left it at one of his apts. I am trying to find out where to get another one. Do you have any ideas of where I can find one?
VINCE MOLINA on July 11th, 2008
where can I buy a couple of these plates?
VINCE MOLINA on July 11th, 2008
WHERE CAN I BUY ONE OF THESE PLATES?
Gary on July 11th, 2008
I FIND THAT GOOGLING “DEFROSTING PLATE” GIVES ME LINKS LIKE THIS http://bellacopper.stores.yahoo.net/deplti.html
In the UK, Kleeneze sells ‘em.
mupwangle on July 11th, 2008
WHY’S EVERYONE SHOUTING!
richie on July 31st, 2008
i’m using one right now. steak for dinner!
Jose Hernandez on August 2nd, 2008
I was looking for this thing also and I googled “defrost plate” and bingo, plenty of sites to buy it from. Kind of expensive though. I found this site too.
Squander Two on August 2nd, 2008
I find this the single weirdest thing about blogging: never being able to tell which of your posts are going to get the biggest reaction.
Gary on August 3rd, 2008
Definitely. The better and funnier you think a post is, the less traffic it gets :)
Anonymous on December 26th, 2008
i remember the commercial for these in the us around late 80′s early 90′s i think they are cheap superconductive sheets been searching wiki for more but nothing yet… bullocks
Karen on January 8th, 2009
I have a something like this and would love to get another one, but for the life of me I have no cluse where to get one. Any ideas?
mupwangle on January 9th, 2009
Kleeneze (www.kleeneze.com) still do them. £10. JML don’t appear to any more. (With Woolies gone bust and Wilkinsons laying off lots of people, the future don’t look too bright for those nutters.)
I’ve heard that you can defrost stuff quite quickly using a george forman grill when it’s switched off – they’re made of aluminium so you get the heat transfer thing. Not as quick though, but it’s meant to be quicker than normal.
This is the 2nd link when you search for defrost plate. That’s really sad.
Gary on January 9th, 2009
Don’t write off JML just yet. They’re stocked by Asda and Homebase.
> This is the 2nd link when you search for defrost plate. That’s really sad
At last, an achievement I can be proud of!
tm on January 9th, 2009
yeah, never count out JML – I stumble across their stuff in all sorts of shops when I’m least expecting it. I’m just never sure who actually buys a specialised brush for dusting round corners.
>At last, an achievement I can be proud of!
Apparently the UK Department For Transport has about the top 50 links for “Stupendously Incompetent”. As a regular train user this is no surprise to me…
tm on January 9th, 2009
Oh and BTW is 4 years the record time between a post and active debate being continued on it (as opposed to the odd spam post) on your site Gary?
Gary on January 9th, 2009
I think it may be. Although that’s nothing compared to the gap between me receiving emails and actually replying to them atm.
Squander Two on January 10th, 2009
I just went and Googled “stupendously incompetent” and my God! It’s true! Brilliant.
mupwangle on January 10th, 2009
>>I just went and Googled “stupendously incompetent”
Yeah, I did too. Not that I didn’t believe Tom, It’s just that he said “apparently” so I needed to be sure.
sarah on March 22nd, 2009
Just so all of you know…you don’t need to go out and buy one of these things. You can turn your frying pan over and use the bottom of it as the same effect.
mupwangle on March 22nd, 2009
For it to be as effective, your frying pan would probably have to be about 5 feet wide. In theory it’s true, as a frying pan has a heat-conductive surface so you do get the same effect, but the whole point is about surface area. The surface area of one of these things is really disproportionately large and a frying pan isn’t. In theory a ridged frying pan should work better than a normal one although not by much.
Gary on March 22nd, 2009
Dammit! I was all excited!
tm on March 22nd, 2009
>disproportionately large and a frying pan isn’t.
But if you bought it from anything but the bargain basement or more than about 10 years ago, your frying pans base is probably covered with special heat distributing rings and spots all of which are highly an evenly conductive to heat. What effect do they have?
mupwangle on March 23rd, 2009
I didn’t say it wouldn’t work – it just wouldn’t be as freakishly fast. Anything that improves the heat disapation would make it defrost quicker.
mupwangle on March 23rd, 2009
Mind you, the FTC in the states reckons that you shouldn’t defrost anything at room temperature anyway as you increase the chances of food poisoning.
Squander Two on March 23rd, 2009
Yeah, but they also reckon you shouldn’t eat decent cheese. (Mark Steyn once therefore referred to Americans as “cheese-surrendering eating monkeys”.)
Carl on April 4th, 2009
I own one of these plates and have always been fascinated by it. My theory is that the metal tries to remain at room temperature (or it’s natural temperature) and when you add an extreme temperature to it, it tries harder to get back to its natural state, which creates a friction that would in effect, heat up the frozen object.
Carl on April 4th, 2009
Oh, and it’s probably important that the frozen object isn’t a constant. It would offer less resistance.
mupwangle on April 4th, 2009
Friction is resistance to movement. Nothing is moving or trying to move.
Squander Two on April 4th, 2009
The idea that physics involves things trying to get back to their natural state was the Ancient Greeks’. It was one of things they were wrong about.
tm on April 4th, 2009
>It was one of things they were wrong about.
of course. But in this case things are attempting to get to an equilibrium with their environment (i.e. at the same temperature as its surroundings thus minimizing the amount of heat exchanged between them) which could naively be described as its “natural state”.
Squander Two on April 6th, 2009
Yeah, but I don’t think that’s what Carl’s saying. If you remove the incorrect terminology and try to get to the essence of his theory, it appears to be that the metal actually generates heat — not just gives off, but generates — as a result of cooling.
mike on April 11th, 2009
I used to have one of those and it works. Not sure how but I want another one. can anytone tell me how to get one? I did the ice cube experiment and it works. It can defrost a steak in 10-15 minutes without cooking part of it like in a microwave.
Shelly on November 3rd, 2009
This product was called Miracle Thaw and is hard to find in it’s orignal form…however you can find the “new and improved product” by googling…Miracle Thaw…..it works just as well
tm on November 3rd, 2009
One day Gary, when you write/blog/transmit direct into our brains your memoirs the unfeasibly long lasting defrost-o-plate thread is surely going to warrant a chapter by itself…
mupwangle on November 3rd, 2009
It’s not even a decade!
tm on November 3rd, 2009
Getting on for Five years isn’t long enough to still be talking about a plate?
Gary on November 3rd, 2009
When I die, I’ll be able to say that I created a thread that enabled people to find the right defrosting solution for their steaks. I think that’s a pretty good legacy. Gordon Brown would kill for a legacy like that.