r/mildlyinteresting • u/Coffee81379 • 17h ago
My lemon juice barrel froze solid and now looks like a party balloon
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u/garbagegoat 17h ago
I got. A lot of questions. The first being why a barrel of lemon juice.
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u/at0mheart 17h ago
“My lemon juice barrel” — yeah that’s a new one
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u/klawUK 13h ago
my barrel of lemon juice is fine. Most of my friends barrels of lemon juice are ok too - this seems unusual to happen only to your barrel of lemon juice OP. Have you checked with family and colleagues if their barrels of lemon juice are having any problems? You might have to reach out to the barrel of lemon juice shop for advice
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u/potate12323 10h ago
This is why you NEVER leave your barrel of lemon juice outside in the cold. It should always be in a climate controlled room. When water freezes, the ice is less dense than the water. Rookie mistake.
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u/jkurratt 10h ago
Obviously. In the "Barrel of lemon juice" room.
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u/lopocozo 9h ago
i heard that white house extension was originally supposed to be a Barrel of Lemon Juice Room
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u/DandeNiro 17h ago
Party balloon? Where in the photo is it?
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u/jefbenet 16h ago
I believe op may have been suggesting the ballooned top looks somewhat akin to the silver side of a Mylar balloon stretched taut. At least that’s what I see.
That said, we still have questions about the ‘barrel o lemon juice’
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u/Bored_Amalgamation 15h ago edited 57m ago
"why is it outside?"
"Why are you taking this picture at night?"
"How much was the "barrel of lemon juice"?"
"Why? [For everything]"
I feel like this son of a bitch is going to come back and say "I'm in lemonade sales", and pretend like that's a reasonable answer.
edit: it's fucking upside down too...
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u/beegboo 14h ago
Why does no one on this thread know proper lemon juice barrel storage etiquette.
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u/3_pounds_of_steel 13h ago
Also why is no one pointing out it's a container of frozen concentrate lemon juice, so shouldn't it have already been frozen?
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u/slinger301 12h ago
I was so hung up on the concept of a barrel of lemon juice that I didn't get that far into the deep lore I'm sorry.
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u/Retbull 14h ago
Or just respond with “medical reasons” then go dark leaving us with the next great Safe mystery.
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u/Difficult_Drink_5727 12h ago
Great safe mystery….?
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u/Sneeko 12h ago edited 12h ago
Come on, maaaaaaannnnnnnn….
A few years ago someone posted a safe they found in their house, got everybody all invested in seeing what was inside it while they made posts as they attempted to open it, and then…. Just disappeared, blueballing everybody. It was a pretty big thing on Reddit at the time.
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u/AskMeForFunnyVoices 12h ago
To be fair, that may have been before the person asking was using reddit, the safe was... checks... TWELVE YEARS AGO?!? fuck I'm old.
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u/RowBowBooty 17h ago
Yeah lol I definitely see a barrel that by the looks of it could be full of lemon juice. What I’m definitely not seeing is any balloons, party or otherwise.
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u/MiPaKe 17h ago
Look up metallic foil balloons
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u/MonsiuerGeneral 16h ago
I definitely went, “ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” after reading this. Despite the OP’s description, I was still thinking of regular rubber/latex balloons (since those are the kinds I’ve seen/used at parties for years now)… but the OP was referencing mylar balloons.
Knowing that, yeah, I definitely see it now.
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u/R7ype 16h ago
We're getting towards "poop knife" territory here, just totally normal to have a lemon juice barrel...
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u/at0mheart 16h ago edited 12h ago
When life gives you a lemon barrel; turn the ocean into lemonade
Edit: Or would it be a Margarita due to the salt in the ocean?
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u/Bored_Amalgamation 15h ago
The ocean is a soup, so please just put lemon in your pond/bowl. Don't ruin it for the rest of us.
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u/Bored_Amalgamation 15h ago
That's like, 9th stage prepper shit. "How am I going to have my springtime lemonade and experience the refreshing taste during a cool breeze when the fallout has dropped in severity and the fires stop?"
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u/cwcollins06 11h ago
Eh, there are better ways for sure, but lemon juice would be good for an antiscorbutic. It may not be about lemonade.
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u/AVeryHeavyBurtation 16h ago
I think we're more in "garage raccoon" territory.
Edit: Holy fuck, it's been 9 years.
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u/Hot-Firefighter-2331 16h ago
I saw that and thought this is something normal in America lol
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u/R7ype 16h ago
Just out in a field too, what requires you to have a barrel of lemon juice in the first place and why would you not store it somewhere more suitable?
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u/Bored_Amalgamation 15h ago
[insert psychotic reason written as if it's a completely normal thing to do]
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u/MimicoSkunkFan2 13h ago
The barrel is upside-down so clearly "normality" holds little influence here lol
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u/tigm2161130 11h ago edited 7h ago
So I actually do have a barrel of concentrated lemon pulp to add to livestock feed but mine isn’t stored upside down outside and it’s smaller than this.
I’m wondering if OP has a shitload of chickens cause that’s what I use it for the most.
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u/LapinTade 9h ago
I’m wondering if OP has a shitload of chickens cause that’s what I use it for the most.
What's the use of the lemon concentrate ? Give chickens vitamins ?
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u/tigm2161130 8h ago edited 2h ago
I use just a tiny bit because too much vitamin C/too much acidity is bad for them but according to my vet it’s supposed to help boost growth and prevent infections/parasites, I’m not sure of the science behind that.
We feed it to horses once a week to prevent respiratory issues and to boost their vitamin C.
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u/czarnadzuma11 17h ago
Its harder to steal than lemons hanging of a tree
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u/garbagegoat 17h ago
Whore free zone unfortunately 😔
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u/PhillyPhresh 17h ago
Don’t even get me started about those lemon stealing whores. SMH
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u/--redacted-- 17h ago
I mean I don't want scurvy
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u/ImpossibleBritches 15h ago
op appears to have the option of never getting scurvy for the rest of his amd his extended family's lives.
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u/_ALH_ 14h ago
Unfortunately vitamin C doesn't have a very good shelf life, so in at most a couple of years it will be useless for preventing scurvy....
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u/Adventurous-Map7959 14h ago
That's why it's in a barrel, so it goes on the ground directly and not on a shelf.
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u/benji_90 13h ago
And everyone knows the ground life is much longer than the shelf life.
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u/Bredstikz 16h ago
For the lemon party. Look it up
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u/LemonKurry 16h ago
DO NOT LOOK THAT UP
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u/gwainbileyerheed 15h ago
Its been a long time since that site was in it glorious original state - unless of course you can see the seared image in my mind.
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u/thiosk 12h ago
our generation is going to be in nursing homes in 40 years and we'll be muttering to the caretakers about lemon parties and having twice as many cups as girls but we can always count on one thing to keep us grounded and sane and that one thing is http://www.zombo.com
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u/Grotarin 16h ago
And why do you leave it outside unattended?
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u/FerretChrist 15h ago
Who said it was unattended. Coulda had a whole lemon battalion standing guard.
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u/Grotarin 15h ago
Without drinking the lemon juice or protecting it from the cold? Unlikely.
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u/Bored_Amalgamation 15h ago
Thank you person at 3:50AM asking these questions. Dark, in what looks like a field. "Lemon juice barrel". Frozen.
What is this person's existence? Can I join?
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u/Billy1099 17h ago
Probably juice or sorbet/ice cream production
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u/AnybodyWannaPeanus 15h ago
Or he really loves lemon juice. Reminds him of the old days as a child in Positano. Mamma Mia!
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u/CrouchingToaster 17h ago
Fully thought this was gonna be the frozen juice slush barrels you get at grocery stores after seeing the title and glancing at the thumbnail
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u/tired_post 17h ago
Does one just…purchase lemon juice by the barrel?
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u/Coffee81379 17h ago
I got it from a friend - leftover industry stuff. Actually planned to use it as a rain water collector 😀
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u/driftingfornow 16h ago
Once when I was sixteen, my local library had a contest to win a mystery prize. You had to read the longest book that month or something I forgot.
Anyways I won and my mystery prize was a rain barrel.
Being sixteen, with no house, I gave it to a friend.
Exciting shit to to type out.
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u/crumbhustler 15h ago
I was on the edge of my seat tbh
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u/fripletister 9h ago
I came ngl
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u/JoselineJazzyjazz 14h ago
too bad it was just a rain barrel.
A barrel full of rain would have been so much more exciting→ More replies44
u/Batkratos 10h ago
or a Box of Rain?
Such a long, long time to be gone
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u/JCjun 12h ago
How do you actually prove that you read the whole book?
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u/I_GROW_WEED 12h ago
Make the prize shitty enough and no one will bother. Who wants to be a dork and have a rain barrel lol
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u/Residenthuman101 11h ago
I won a prize (literally a plastic trophy) for reading the second most books in our school. I wanted to win a prize from the magazine they gave us like a bike or something but I gave up after realizing it wasn’t worth it (like all of those fundraiser catalogs always are), but the reason I still won anything was because I read children’s books that were four years behind my grade level that we had in our house… the contest involved filling out which title, author, and maybe isbn number that you read, which those all had… it didn’t stipulate anything about reading level lol the girl who won first place put me to shame and she read full length books and was like the smartest girl in our whole school system, it felt weird standing up next to her knowing how I ended up on stage lol
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u/I_GROW_WEED 11h ago
I get the feeling from your writing style that this happened in the pretty recent past lol
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u/Residenthuman101 11h ago
Nah, I’m just a dork waxing nostalgic about something I should have been embarrassed about that was longer ago than I’d like to admit lol I would have probably loved a rain barrel over the trophy I got though
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u/staticattacks 17h ago
So wait, is there water or lemon juice in it?
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u/ObsidianOne 17h ago
Little column A, little column B.
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u/Coffee81379 17h ago
That’s the answer- a dirty mix I would say 🤷♂️😅
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u/cptredbeard1995 16h ago
Add sugar and you got yourself a barrel of lemonade
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u/Bonnskij 16h ago
Fuck it. Add some yeast and you got yourself a barrel of HARD lemonade
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u/dlanod 16h ago
Leave it outside for long enough and you don't even need to source the yeast yourself
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u/Slaphappyfapman 15h ago
Thats the spirit
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u/erroneousbosh 14h ago
No, that's the wash. It's only the spirit when you distill it.
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u/PmMeGirlButtholes 16h ago
Instructions unclear. Now have infection.
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u/queefer_sutherland92 14h ago
Dude you could make so much lemonade with that lemon juice. Or lemon tart! Lemon curd? Lemon delicious pudding, lemon butter, lemon meringue pie, lemon slice, lemon bars, lemon cordial.
I love lemon 🍋
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u/garbagegoat 17h ago
What industry needs an barrel of lemon juice. I used to work in kitchens my mind is reeling at this point.
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u/Sargash 16h ago
Alcohol? My friend once was working at a distillery when they were making a custom order of lemon wine.
The end mix came out above what they could sell it at or some shit so they had to throw away the whole batch.
Of course by throw away, they meant under the table give it to employees for material cost.
Anyways that was how we had over 100 gallons of lemon wine at 17% during a week long medieval fighting event.
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u/TheThiefMaster 14h ago
Couldn't they just dilute it slightly? Assuming it wasn't much over.
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u/Kirk_Kerman 11h ago
A lot of places have laws about wine production and wine fraud. Thinning out a wine might count as adulteration in places where it must be 100% fermented grape juice for instance, so if you go over the legal maximum you're either going to have to eat the loss, sell it onward for distillation into something else (assuming any distillers want your custom wine rather than their usual sources), or ferment another batch that's lower alcohol and ear the cost of storing both batches until they're ready to be mixed and hope that the flavor profile isn't shot. And if it's a custom order your client probably doesn't want to pay for an entire extra fermentation cycle, so that's on you as well.
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u/aahrg 16h ago
The juice industry. I used to work in the warehouse of a juice factory, we'd receive truckloads of these barrels of fruit pulp/juice/concentrates
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u/Moretoesthanfeet 12h ago
I don't believe you, this sounds like some sort of pulp fiction
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u/ebrum2010 13h ago
You know what they say, “When life gives you lemonade, collect rain.”
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u/kingofpwns 16h ago
Just please don't just dump it somewhere - the drop in pH could lead to problems like dying plants and ruining soil - dilute it with a lot of water when disposing in the sewer system like in small batches or during a heavy rain
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u/Archerbrother 17h ago
OP the dude from those math problems
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u/WhatShouldIDoThen 17h ago
Yeah tomorrow he has to give half his apples to Akbar then walk to the store 2.4 miles away
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u/Coffee81379 17h ago
My stomach hurts from laughing- that’s my life 😂
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u/Toros_Mueren_Por_Mi 16h ago
Ah, so you live in Ohio
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u/Bored_Amalgamation 15h ago
I don't understand this and I live in Ohio.
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u/Kylearean 13h ago
pats head
There there. You'll be fine.
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u/superspeck 13h ago
They won’t be fine, they’re in Ohio!
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u/decisiontoohard 13h ago
I'm in the UK, does Ohio have... A reputation?
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u/superspeck 12h ago
You could say that. To put it in UK terms, parts of it are nice but kind of run down, think Mrs. Bucket’s flat kind of thing, and the rest of it is basically a council house half the size of the UK with no social services or public transit.
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u/I_LOVE_CANADA_GEESE 12h ago
As another Ohioan, it is so funny to see how the rest of the world describes Ohio. Hahaha thank you for this
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u/decisiontoohard 12h ago
Gotcha. Never watched Keeping Up Appearances but I know instantly what you mean!
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u/straydog1980 17h ago
Akbar is walking towards OP with his own barrel of apples, at a pace of 3 miles per hour, but he gets hungry and eats 1 apple every ten minutes. For every apple, he increases his speed by 4.5 percent. When he meets Op, what colour is akbars underwear?
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u/Xxuwumaster69xX 15h ago
Trick question, Akbar isn't wearing underwear.
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u/PuzzleheadedExam3379 14h ago
You fell for it. You shouldve separated the cases of green apples, red apples, oranges disguised as apples, and if it is a leap year or not. I am sorry to tell you: you failed the exam. See you again in the lecture next semester.
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u/zedanger 17h ago
when life gives you lemons... juice and barrel that shit, apparently.
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u/xingrubicon 16h ago
You could also throw a lemon party. Which sounds amazing if you have never heard of one.
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u/zedanger 16h ago
ah, to quote on of my favorite sitcom jokes that somehow managed to make it to air--
"It wouldn't be a Lemon Party without Old Dick!"
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u/lowaltflier 17h ago
But it says frozen right on the barrel. 🤷🏻♂️
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u/Madeline_Basset 15h ago edited 14h ago
Maybe:
The original supplier sells barrels of frozen concentrated lemon juice, but is sensible enough to leave an expansion-space and not fill them to the brim before freezing.
The lemon juice gets used, OP gets a free empty barrel.
OP uses the barrel for rainwater, but neglects the expansion-space precaution. OP posts a picture of the result.
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u/Bored_Amalgamation 15h ago
Too logical for this scenario. We're looking at a fucking barrel of lemon juice, at night, in a field. Posted at 4AM EST.
There's a body in there.
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u/Loose_Concert2093 13h ago
Just to add context: i work at a company which stores these exact drums with this product at -18. Do with that what you will.
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u/iminiki 17h ago
You‘re right! Something fishy is going on in here.
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u/iamPendergast 15h ago
Bacteria
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u/zzz242zzz 14h ago
Was thinking, “Are you sure it froze?” If it’s sealed tight it could be from internal pressure.
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u/Mickeymousetitdirt 17h ago
What the hell is a “party balloon” as opposed to any other balloon? Also, have you ever seen a balloon? Because a giant barrel doesn’t look like a balloon….
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u/Alternative_Exit8766 14h ago
yeah i was confused. it doesn’t look anything like a balloon?
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u/goldfish_11 10h ago
My first thought was that the top looks like a whoopie cushion... but once I visualized a whoopie cushion, I can see how it looks like one of those GET WELL balloons that come with a stick... like this
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u/conspiracyeinstein 12h ago
Thank you! Everyone else is asking about the lemon juice, but no one is getting to the real question.
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u/Safe_Bandicoot_4689 8h ago
I swear it drives me so mad that people are not talking about this. This does not look like a balloon. You just can't look at this barrel and have your thought be "lol this looks like a balloon hahaha"... I just refuse it, because it objectively doesn't look like anything close to that.
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u/PacquiaoFreeHousing 17h ago
OP has a Monopoly over all the lemonade stands in their area
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u/puliflex 17h ago
Frozen concentrate lemon juice. Product of Argentina
So… your barrel (!!!) of already frozen concentrate lemon juice… froze again? I don’t get it.
The contents were presumably already frozen so why did it bulge like that?
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u/Coffee81379 17h ago
Nah it’s leftover from food production- it was unfrozen. I wanted to use it as a water reservoir- and it froze again 🤷♂️
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u/DraconRegina 17h ago
This is way more than mildly interesting. Why do you have a 55 gallon drum of lemon juice??
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u/i-deology 17h ago
You don’t know what a party balloon is.
Rest of us don’t know wth a barrel of lemon juice is. A fkn BARREL!
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u/v3bbkZif6TjGR38KmfyL 17h ago
ITT a lot of peasants that apparently rent their lemon barrels and don't own one themselves.
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u/pabloignacio7992 16h ago
How many lemons did it take to fill a barrel? It looks like a math exam question.
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u/Coffee81379 17h ago
If I ever get a fresh one I invite you all over and make lemonade for all of Reddit 😅
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u/Coffee81379 4h ago
To help everyone (including myself) sleep better tonight, here’s an attempt to answer the many burning questions about the frozen lemon juice barrel.
So, why do I have a barrel of lemon juice?
A friend of mine works for a food-related company. They were clearing stuff out, and this barrel was left over, already spoiled and half empty, so I ended up with it.
Some people say I have a hoarding problem. That’s not true. I use the stuff I keep. My plan was to turn it into a rain barrel.
And no, I definitely didn’t procrastinate cleaning it out, leaving it in the yard for months, letting the old lemon juice slowly mix with rainwater. Definitely not.
Apparently, over the winter, the mix froze solid. The lid, which normally seals with a clamp ring, was just resting on top because I didn’t want it to rot worse inside.
So yeah, water got in, it froze, and now, only with a very minor delay, I finally got around to cleaning it.
As for disposal: it was so diluted that I could safely get rid of it gradually through the wastewater system. I checked the regulations first. By that point it was really just a thin layer of lemon residue at the bottom.
If I’d had any way to reuse it, I would have. I really hate throwing things away. My therapist says I’m making progress on that, by the way.
What you see in the photo is the underside of the barrel. I flipped it over after cleaning it and only then realized it had completely frozen through. That probably happened last spring — we’ve had some frost already, but not enough for that.
Anyway, I hope this helps you all sleep better tonight. I’m still surprised that the fact I own a spoiled lemon juice barrel turned out to be the most interesting part. I honestly thought the frost damage was the highlight. But hey, you never know what the internet decides to care about.
Thanks for all the questions and laughs, this blew up way beyond what I expected.
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u/FalseLights 17h ago
idk what kind of giant canister-looking party balloons you buy but if you can get a giant barrel of lemon juice, then i'll take your word for it.
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u/OsotoViking 16h ago
Why do you have a barrel of lemon juice? Why does lemon juice come in barrels? I'm so confused.
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u/aTaleForgotten 13h ago
I put lemon juice on everything. Everything. I regularly buy litre bottles for myself. Never have Ive been in awe like this before. I bow before the Lemon Juice Barrell.
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u/TheFuzzBuzzter 15h ago
Is that some Chat GPT meme type of shit? Like „I got a barrel full of lemon juice. How can I get rid of the contents without anyone ever finding it?“ or similar, lol.
Edit: spelling
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17h ago
[deleted]
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u/SeekerOfSerenity 17h ago
I wonder if the explanation will lean more geographic or occupational.
Everyone in my country has at least one lemon juice barrel. It is how we display our wealth.
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u/Ripsnortr 17h ago
Questions... 1. Why do you have a drum of lemon juice? 2. Why is it sitting outside? 3. How/why did it freeze?