Eli5: Some ice cream recipes put ice + salt outside the recipient to make it cool faster. But in the winter, salt is put on snow on the street to melt faster. Why one make cool and other melt?

Question

Edit: thank you all for the explanations, I now have understood much more!

In: 0

Answer 1

Salt makes the melting point of water/snow lower.

So salt water needs to be less than 32f/0c to freeze.

You put salt on snow to melt it because cold water is less dangerous than snow.

You do the same icecream makers on the outside with ice. This is because it’s better to have the colder than ice water than ice which has air pockets between the ice and the bowl