The Cold Beer Hack
Unless you live in the UK, cold warm beer is to be avoided. Not often is freezing cold cartons available straight from the shop; and if they are they warm up on the trip home. Want to waste half an hour waiting for refrigerated beer? Only bought the slab minutes before company arrives?
Try this. I can’t recall a source, I just heard this ’round the traps. The only solution I’ve seen on the web is using a fire extinguisher, and that’s just silly.
Solution
If you can, try getting a large tray - smaller if only a few beers - and fill it with salt water and ice cubes. Insert beer, put tray in freezer and wait a couple of minutes. It really only takes 1-2 minutes and you have freezing cold beers.
From what I can gather, the salt in the salt water lowers the freezing point, preventing the water to melt but allowing for equally low temperatures. There is also word of salt water absorbing heat better than regular water.
Either way, if you don’t use the salt, you only wait another minute or so.
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Comments
Reginald Adkins says on June 15th, 2007 at 8:41 am
In Memory of Mr. Wizard (Don Herbert) who died Tuesday June 12, 2007.
Want to know why it works. Thermodynamics.
When ice is melting, the surface of the ice is wet. At the surface, there is solid ice on one side, and liquid water on the other. The surface is exactly at the freezing point. This means that some water molecules are leaving the ice and moving into the water, but it also means that some liquid water is refreezing onto the ice. We say that the system is in equilibrium when the rate of melting is equal to the rate of freezing, and this happens at 0 degrees Celsius. The beer freezes because the salt and the ice mix to make a substance with a lower freezing point than ice alone.
Man, I’ll miss Mr. Wizard.
Dan says on June 15th, 2007 at 9:06 am
Shouldn’t that first line read: “Unless you live in the UK, _warm_ beer is to be avoided.”
Josh Bozarth says on June 15th, 2007 at 9:34 am
I recall a MythBusters episode where they tackle this problem. I believe the best option was similar to what is mentioned here — salted water and ice in a big cooler.
Of course, they played with liquid nitrogen as well, but let’s be practical!
Terinea Weblog says on June 15th, 2007 at 11:18 am
I’ve tried a fire extinguisher during one of my student days, it doesn’t work that well. I’ve done the salt thing too.
Dustin says on June 15th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Just to add to Reginald’s Mr Wizard moment, the salt actually lowers the temperature of the water/ice. When salt is added to water, the molecules break up into their component ions, Sodiom (Na+) and Chlorine (Cl-). It takes a little bit of energy to break the bonds, which is drawn from the water/ice around the salt. So there’s a sudden drop in temperature as the salt dissolves.
*Then* the melting point of the salt-water is lower — 28-degrees F, if I remember right (-2 or -3 C) — than that of regular water (32-degrees F or 0 C), which means that the water can get and stay cooler while remaining liquid. The lower melting point is why salt melts snow on your driveway (I think the salt we use for snow is potassium chloride, which has a slightly lower melting point than sodium chloride — table salt — but the principle is the same).
Better living through chemistry, indeed!
Chris says on June 15th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
You may believe it or not, liquid nitrogen isn’t that hard to come by, und always fun to play with
Pedro says on June 15th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
it’s a good idea to mix it too. I used to do this in parties, but I was a bit more extreme. I put beer+ice+water in a washer and power it on for about 2 minutes =) works great!
James says on June 16th, 2007 at 12:49 am
Another tip that I’ve seen used in a bar when they don’t have time to wait for a beer to cool off properly, get a large tray of ice, put the beer can on top of the ice, then spin the can quickly in a circle. It cools the can off very quickly and is useful when you don’t have access to a freezer (say at a campground).
Todd S. says on June 16th, 2007 at 11:19 am
These are all good explanations.
One more thing to add:
Water has four times the heat capacity of air. So it can cool or heat objects much quicker. The salt increases the heat capacity a little more.
linam97 says on June 17th, 2007 at 4:46 pm
actually back to dustin,
ur sort of right
adding salt does lower the melting point of water, so the ice will melt faster absorbing more heat. it doesnt lower the temp at all. and the reason potassium chloride works better is because it creates heat when separating. just wanted to show off my chem while studying for finals=P