Ottawa Granite Blog & News

Science! Ottawa Granite Countertops is a Great Defroster

Besides being beautiful and popular, Ottawa granite is actually great for an unanticipated benefit – they are great for defrosting.  Who hasn’t forgotten to take something out of the freezer and then done the dance with the microwave to defrost without cooking?

If you place your item in a plastic bag on Ottawa granite it will, actually, work in that it will defrost (although not as fast a a microwave).

So why is this?  We know that Ottawa granite does not conduct heat. 

In it’s natural state, Ottawa granite has a high “specific heat.” Specific heat is how much energy it takes to raise some mass of the material to a specific temperature.

As Ottawa granite has a high specific heat and a really high density, a 3″ thick slate of granite holds a lot of heat. When you put something on the Ottawa granite countertop, that heat will be sufficient to defrost a lot of it. Even tho the granite doesn’t conduct very well, the granite is so massive that it has enough stored heat to thaw a pretty big amount of stock before become too cold to do much good.