How to Chill a Drink Quickly

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Have you ever forgotten to stock your refrigerator with your favorite soda or beer? All you are left with is that room temperature beverage. Fortunately, it is possible to chill canned and bottled drinks in a matter of minutes with this easy method, and without diluting the drink itself with ice.

Steps

1. Measure the temperature of the drink. This step is optional; once you open a can, this method won't be as effective. If this is your first time trying it, though, it will be interesting to record how drastically the temperature can change.
   
2. Fill a bowl (the thicker and/or more insulated the better) with water and add ice to it. Add as much ice to the water as you can, but not so much that it prevents the entire beverage container from being submerged into the water. A 50/50 mix of ice and water is a good rule of thumb.
   
3. Add table salt to the ice. A small handful should do. Adding salt lowers the freezing temperature of the water. That means that the water can get colder than the normal freezing temperature (32F, 0C) without turning into ice.
   
4. Place your drinks in the ice water solution and rapidly stir them all around. By stirring, you're using forced convection to speed the transfer of heat out of your drink and into the ice water solution.
   
5. Wait two minutes. Measure the temperature of one of the drinks - the temperature should have fallen dramatically in a very short time. If it needs more time chilling, stir the remaining drinks in the salted ice water for another minute or two.
   
6. Enjoy your cold drink. It should now be about the perfect temperature to quench your thirst.
   
7. 
   

Video

Tips

• This will work with just about any drink, in a conveniently sized can or bottle.
  
• This method is amazingly better than merely adding ice cubes to the glass of warm coke. Placing ice cubes directly into the drink causes it to become diluted and lose its fizz and snappy flavor.
  
• If you want to chill wine quickly, the saltwater convection trick may take too long due to the size and thickness of the bottle. Try pouring a couple glasses worth in a plastic sandwich bag, sealing it with as little air as possible, and laying it on the ice in your freezer. Although you don't have convection or the surface-area advantage of ice water this way, the very thin barrier presented by the plastic, together with the colder temperature of ice in a freezer as compared to even salted ice-water, more than compensate. Alternately, you can put the smaller bag in a larger bag with ice cubes and palpitate to produce convection. Either method will bring room-temperature white wine to appropriate drinking temperature in about 2-4 minutes. To pour, pinch the plastic bag between thumb and forefinger in the middle of the bottom edge. Hold one of the top corners and lift to pour.
  
• Smaller containers will chill more rapidly than large containers because the smaller ones have much more surface area in contact with the cold water per unit volume. Smaller containers will also chill more rapidly because they contain less liquid.
  
• If you don't have salt, then plain water plus ice is still more effective than ice alone at chilling containers. This is because liquid water is a better heat conductor than air (many times better), and the ice by itself can't cover much of the container's surface.
  
• If you do not have extra clean water available, using ice alone and stirring it and the drinks around in the ice is still better than just putting the drinks in an ice chest with ice still in the bag with the drinks sitting on top or in a refrigerator. Air, which is less dense, can not absorb and conduct as much heat away from the containers compared to water.
  
  • So to have cooler air circulating among the pieces of ice, try putting the bowl in a bag and tie it closed, and then swirl the bowl a little every 15 to 30 seconds to stir the drinks.
    
  
  
• Make sure to at least rinse the can top in clean, potable water before you drink the beverage. The salt that may be left on the can lid may cause the beverage to taste very salty.
  

Warnings

• Carbonated cans may become pressurized after rapidly stirring in the ice water. Opening cans before the carbonation has a chance to settle may cause an overflowing mess.
  

Things You'll Need

• Beverages in cans or bottles
  
• Bowl
  
• Water
  
• Ice cubes
  
• Salt
  
• Thermometer (Optional)
  

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Sources and Citations

• Kipkay video Original video by Kipkay on Metacafe, shared with permission.
  

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