How Not to Run Out of Cold Beer

Whether it has been at a party, at an event that you have hosted, or as a guest at someone else's party, it has happened to us all. It may have been at the beach, in the park, or at someone's house, but you have experienced it. Perhaps it was on New Year's Eve, Memorial Day, your Nephew's graduation, your cousin Bob's birthday, or just any old Saturday at the beach.

No matter where or when, everyone has had that frightening experience when you realize that...you are out of cold beer! No matter how much you think you have prepared for the event or how much extra beer your guests bring you always seem to run out. Just running out of beer alone is not that big of a problem or challenge to solve. Oh, you may have some extra cases of beer in the garage you could tap into, or one of the sober party guests could go on a beer run.

That's right; if a beer run is necessary, please make sure that whoever goes has not been drinking. Having more beer is not as important as being safe.

But, now that you have more beer, the biggest challenge that you do face is: how do you cool it down quick enough to be able to have one or serve it to your guests? You'll have to solve this challenge quickly because no one want to drink a warm beer!

The ideal beer drinking temperature is between 35 and 38 degrees Fahrenheit. There are several ways you can attempt to cool the beer down quickly. The beer cooling methodologies that I am about to describe were recently tested and validated on the television program MythBusters "Episode 29: Cooling a Six-Pack."

One way to cool down your six-pack is to simply put the beer in the fridge and crank the temperature down. But, unless you want some very thirst guests, I wouldn't recommend this method as it can take upwards of 40 minutes to cool down the beer.

Putting the beer the freezer and turning the temp down is not fast enough either. This method will take 20 plus minutes before the beer will be at ideal drinking temp, again much too long.

Placing the beer in a cooler with some water and ice will cool it down to the ideal drinking temperature faster than putting it in the fridge or freezer, but it is still not fast enough.

Here is the answer you have been waiting for. The quickest way to cool down beer is to submerge it in a cooler filled with ice, water, and a special ingredient. That special ingredient is: salt. Why salt? Well, as we all know, salt will melt ice. However, it does one other thing as well. Salt lowers the freezing temperature of water below 32 degrees Fahrenheit. This chemical reaction will cause the overall temperature of the cooler to be colder than just ordinary ice and water. Therefore, you will achieve your optimally cold beer faster.

So, if you every run out of cold, and need some as quickly as possible, don't fret! You can have cold beer in less than 6 minutes! All you need is a cooler, some ice, water, and that special ingredient: salt.

Source:
"Episode 29: Cooling a Six-Pack." MythBusters. Credit (DCI). Discovery Channel. Tampa. June 20, 2007.