Let's Talk About Thermal Expansion - "The Sausage Incident"

Today I learned a valuable lesson. Always use the right size lid for your pan. Heed my tale.

So there I was, standing around the house. Warren had just been put down for a nap and I had things I needed to do but, just then, I hungered. The beast demanded meat. Luckily for us we’ve been eating high protein meals as part of a new diet plan. I could have some cottage cheese. Maybe. Or some chicken thighs. Hmm. Tilapia was also an option. Nah.

No, what I needed today was Bratwurst. A thick tube of beer-infused fatty meaty goodness that I could throw between two pieces of bread and slather with mustard for a transcendent lunch experience. I ripped open the package and flung a brat into the pan, I think there was an angelic choir involved. The sausage landed with a wet and anti-climactic plop. Also, I turned on the heat.

A few minutes later and the sausage is coming along nicely. The packaging says I should pour in some water at this point and cover for 12 minutes. I briefly consider this but, then again, I don’t want to muddle my bratwurst. I figure I’ll just let it finish frying in the pan, alone, at a lower heat. I got this. Although that bit about the lid sounds smart, I decide. If I throw a lid on maybe it will finish cooking slightly faster. That’s about when things started to go wrong.

At this point I should mention that we got a new pot and pan set for Christmas. I dug through the myriad covers lurking in the back of the cupboards for the right lid, only, there is no right lid for this newer pan. There is smaller lid. Ah. There is a lid of the exact same size as the previous lid. Uh...okay. And there is a lid of monstrous proportions that might just be a satellite dish that broke off of the international space station. Wonder if I should report that. No worries though, I still got this. There’s still that lid- it might fit.

The lid in question is vintage- a thick slab of metal with a handle attached. A couple hundred years ago people would have called it a buckler and appropriated it for honorable combat. It’s 2017 now though, so it’s a pot lid. The lid belongs to a set that originated in the 70’s, if the color is any indication, back when the design philosophy was that even if you can’t survive the nukes, you kitchenware should at least.

I gingerly placed the lid over the sizzling miracle that was my bratwurst. The alternative lid fit, but it didn’t rest lightly on the edge like a normal lid. No, this lid was slightly too small for the pan but rested nicely on the inner diameter about a quarter inch down. The result seemed more-or-less perfect. Seemed. Let’s just say it was less than perfect. I set the timer for 8 minutes and then most certainly did something significantly more productive than stand in the kitchen staring at the stove for the next 7 minutes.

Now, let’s talk about thermal expansion. Thermal expansion is the concept that when the temperature of a material increases so does the material’s volume. That means when you heat something it gets ever so slightly bigger. This is something I did not take into consideration at the time. No worries though, I got this.

So the pan comes off the heat slightly early. I want to make sure that the bratwurst is done before I reset the timer. I give a tug on the lid but it seems to be just a bit tight. Also the lid is radiating heat like it’s a fire-demon and I just beat it in a game of checkers, so I dutifully wait. Meanwhile, the bratwurst continues to sizzle in its iron cage- sounding its hauntingly beautiful sausage siren song.

A few minutes later the pan has cooled quite a bit. A few experimental tugs on the lid reveal that it’s more than a bit tight. The lid is so stuck that I can lift the entire pan by the lid. I can, in fact, bounce the pan up and down by the lid. Er, I think I still got this, though.

I’m generally a smart guy. I realize that the lid must have expanded due to the heat therefore, I surmise, all I need to do is cool everything down and it will contract. Brilliant. I got this. The pan, the new pan may I remind you, has now cooled down enough that I feel safe running it under some cold water. So I do. The pan and lid have now been cooled to the point that they are now cold to the touch. I tug on the lid. Nothing. I try to apply some simple leverage. The only good grip point is the pan handle, which threatens to bend anytime I apply more than moderate force, and a small black plastic handle in the center of the lid, which seems to be suggesting that all of creation will give way before it does.

I don’t got this.

It was around this point that I started to panic. I have just ruined a brand new pan and a 15th century buckler. Then it occurs to me, more contraction, that’s the solution! I open the freezer and pop the entire pan in and close the door. I even set a timer so my anxious meddling doesn’t interfere with the cold. I listen for the metallic pop of the lid coming loose but it never comes. Suddenly a new fear dawns on me. What if the heated lid created such a perfect seal that the bratwurst-space became essentially airtight? By that logic, by cooling the pan in the freezer, I am causing the trapped air to contract and creating negative pressure. The inside of the pan is becoming a vacuum. I realize my sausage is now a tiny, doomed, earthbound cosmonaut trapped in an artificial vacuum: Brat-space.

I yank the pan out of the freezer. My panicked man-brain is telling me that only a hammer can resolve this now. Somehow I think this is the proper course of action. Yes. The only course of action available to me now. Something in the back of my brain is telling me "just run and never look back". There is no turning back past this point. On my present course, at its logical conclusion, I will be digging a shallow grave at the base of a mountain in the rain. Fortunately for me I seem to have misplaced the hammer.

Out of options I revert to the primitive cave-man parts of my brain. There are no large rocks around so I drop to my knees and begin hitting the side of the pan on the ground with increasing force. In the course of 15 minutes I have become a monkey with a bone. The sky turns red and I think I see a black monolith out of the corner of my eye. My greasy cosmonaut is on the ride of his life in brat-space. Be brave for me bratwurst. Be brave. I can hear it bouncing around the inside of the pan with a sound like a liver in a bass drum.

Suddenly- it happens in slow motion- the lid comes off and everything is airborne. The moment is a combination of shock and awe. I watch the slick, engorged bratwurst wobble through the air in glorious flight and a spray of thick meat juices. I can hear the brilliant chords of the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey playing as the sausage reaches the apex of its arc. Somewhere in the back of my mind I feel as if I have inadvertently stumbled upon a homoerotic fan-fiction.

The sausage lands with an uninteresting ‘thppt’. The pan appears to be undamaged.

Everything is back to normal now. In one moment I had abandoned thousands of years of evolution, the next I am on my knees in the kitchen with an undamaged pan, an oleaginous mess, cold lunch, and a lid that could have served as a tank hatch in a past life.

And that is why you should always use the right size lid.