MythBusters · Video summary

Can You Cook Shrimp By Firing Them Through a "Special" Gun? | Mythbusters

Mythbusters tackles two viral food fables: cooking shrimp by firing them through an air cannon and juicing fruit with explosives. They meticulously recreate the setups to determine if these bizarre culinary claims hold any truth.

MythBusters · October 11, 2026 · 47-min episode · 4-min read

Can You Cook Shrimp By Firing Them Through a "Special" Gun? | Mythbusters

Key takeaways

🍳The Mythbusters dedicate an entire episode to 'cooking chaos,' exploring unusual methods of preparing food.01:29
🍤The viral video shows shrimp being fired through flour, egg, breadcrumbs, and fire to be instantly cooked.01:51
🍉The fruit juicing myth involves using an explosion's shockwave to turn the inside of fruit into juice without damaging the exterior.08:11
💥Initial attempts to fire shrimp intact from the cannon result in disintegration, requiring a sabot to protect them.23:31
⏱️Despite a perfectly choreographed ballistic ballet, the shrimp are neither coated nor cooked due to insufficient time in the clouds and fire.30:24
💧A small blasting cap in a water-filled tank successfully juices a tomato, yielding 30% of its weight in juice.33:40

Chapters

0:08Cooking Chaos Introduction
2:29The Shrimp Cooking Myth
5:02Building the Shrimp Cannon and Coating Stations
13:29The Fruit Juicing Myth
15:07Recreating the Explosive Juicing Setup
19:57Quantifying Juice Yield and Control Tests
28:34Testing the Explosive Juicing at Different Distances
34:03Testing the Shrimp Cannon System
48:19Final Shrimp Cooking Attempt and Myth Conclusion
53:26Quantifying Explosive Juice Yield and Plausibility
56:49Scaling Up the Fruit Juicing Experiment with TNT
1:03:48Results of the Large-Scale Fruit Juicing Experiment
1:06:44Final Verdict on the Fruit Juicing Myth

The digest

The world of viral videos often presents seemingly impossible feats, and when it comes to food, the Mythbusters are always ready to put these claims to the test. In an episode dedicated to "cooking chaos," Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman dive into two particularly outlandish culinary myths: cooking shrimp by launching them through a gauntlet of flour, egg, breadcrumbs, and fire, and creating fruit juice using only explosives.

The Instant Tempura Challenge

The first myth originates from a viral video depicting two women loading raw shrimp into an air cannon. The shrimp are then fired through successive clouds of flour, egg, and breadcrumbs, culminating in a fireball, before landing on a plate seemingly perfectly cooked. The Mythbusters aim to replicate this "instant tempura" process.

Their initial breakdown of the video's contraption reveals several key components: a pneumatic cannon for the shrimp, separate cannons for flour and breadcrumbs, an egg wash dispenser, a fireball, and a target plate. Adam takes on the dry ingredient cannons, while Jamie focuses on the egg wash and the main shrimp launcher. They repurpose existing equipment, including a pneumatic launcher previously used for testing lawnmower projectiles, and a solenoid valve system for the egg wash. Initial tests of the breadcrumb and flour cannons prove successful in creating dense clouds, and Jamie's egg wash dispenser also delivers a fine spray.