Se7en Experiments With A Red Cabbage… Litmus Fun!!!

It’s been a while since we blogged some scientific fun… so I thought I would show you what happens when we get a red cabbage in our vegi-box. Firstly I am the only member of my family that considers red cabbage to be a food – sad I know, but moving on…

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We got down to some serious scientific fun.

Experiment #1: Cabbage Juice: We had to begin by making ourselves a supply of Red Cabbage Juice… Which turns out to be purple – the cabbage is red, but the juice is purple.

Chop your cabbage and pop it into a pot, cover it with water and let it boil away for about twenty minutes. That’s it!

 

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Once it had cooled we popped it into a jar and kept it in the fridge. Then it was ready for all our experiment whenever the inspiration arose.

 

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Apparently, red cabbage can be used as ph indicator…

  • If a drop of the red cabbage juice turns the solution red then the solution is an acid.
  • If a drop of the red cabbage juice keeps the solution purple then the solution is neutral.
  • If a drop of the red cabbage juice turns the solution blue then the solution is a base.

And we set out to test the theory…

 

Experiment #2: Drips and Drops around the kitchen: First we drips of solution onto different foods we had been eating to see if it would change color… DSC_0162

And it did!!!

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Experiment #3: Kitchen Concoctions: Then we started testing it with different solutions:

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  • Washing Up Liquid: A drop of cabbage juice turned it from clear to pink.
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  • General Household Cleaner: turned blue…
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  • Milk: Turned bluish.
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  • Lemon Juice: A dash in lemon juice turned instantly pink.
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Experiment #4: Turning Back Time: We added baking powder to our lemon juice and not only did it make a delightful fizz but the solution went back to its original neutral color.

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Experiment #5: Making Cabbage Juice Paper Art: We started by putting some cabbage juice into a baking tray, and then soaked some paper in it. Once the paper had soaked a while we left it out to dry.

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Then we did some surprise arting… with lemon juice and kitchen cleaner. DSC_0271DSC_0269

Experiment #6: Then We Made Our Own Litmus Paper: We cut some of our sheets of dried “cabbage juice paper” into strips.

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And then we dipped it into some of our solutions to see if we could use it to test for acids and bases.

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Experiment #7: Icy Blocks of Red Cabbage Juice: We started by making ice-blocks.

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Then we popped the ice blocks into our lemonade…

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And look at the pretty pink drinks!!! DSC_0279

Just one word of warning… the smell of cabbage is quite pervasive!!! And drinking lemonade with a cabbage juice ice-block may well require a peg!!!

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Have fun!!!

5 Replies to “Se7en Experiments With A Red Cabbage… Litmus Fun!!!”

  1. Hay Phyllis good to hear from you!!! I am with you about the ice-cubes… the aroma was not good at all!!! I can’t imagine my ice-cube tray will ever be they same again!!! Hope you guys have a wonderful weekend!!!

  2. I learn something new everytime I visit your blog. I want to try this next time we have red cabbage. I’ll give the ice cubes a miss.

  3. Hi Cheryl!!! Looks like you guys are enjoying the Autumn!!! The best part of the whole cabbage thing was definitely dropping drips into glasses of solutions and watching the results!!! It soon turned into a HUGE concoction session!!! Sometimes you just have to go there!!! Have a fun weekend…

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