You’re about to put on some Lycra. Everything is awesome. Except, your beer is incorrect English stereotype warm. What in the living hell do you do?
OK, first thought, run some liquid nitrogen over your beer. You can get your hands on it, right? Or send your beer back in time, to when it might have been able to be chilled. That’s also a thing, right? Maybe Instagram a picture of your beers on some ice and shame anyone who misses out on the chilliness of it all?
Skip The Cooler, Grab A Bowl
Sure, it seems simple. But if you need to cool some beers quickly, grab a big bowl, fill it with ice, and chuck some beers (4 to 5, depending on the size) into the bowl. Yes, you’ve put beers into a cooler of ice before, but here, the ice/coolant should outweigh the beer. With fewer beers, the cooling reaction should happen faster.
Put Some Salt In The Ice Water
.
Not just for flavor. Salt lowers the freezing temperature of water, so once you put some salt in water you can theoretically get your beers down to the mid 30 degree Fahrenheit mark in under 5 minutes. Which means you can spare some time to remember how in the living hell you ever knew how to twerk.
Wrap Your Beer Bottles In Wet Paper Towels
OK, let’s disregard the fact that you’ve been avoiding wet paper towels in your entire tactile life. When a spill happens, you dive in, reluctantly, and sop up the situation despite your better instincts (to maintain total dryness at all times, and yes, showers are a bust). But if you want to chill a beer—or a bottle of wine, that is—you can absolutely wrap it in a wet paper towel and stash it in the freezer. Ten minutes later, you’re good.
Dry Ice
If you can get your hands on some dry ice, a couple things to know: don’t actually get your hands on dry ice, and don’t let your beer bottles/cans actually touch the dry ice. Packets of dry ice and some distance from the incredible cold source (about-109.3 F) will help you chill your beer to a point where you’re comfortable, and then you can possibly walk through some fog as a victory strut.
Copper
Chances are you can’t get your hands on it, but if you can, copper is a great thermal conductor. It’s actually 60% better at thermal conducting than aluminum, meaning we should all be wrapping our leftover roasted meats and veggies in copper foil…but we probably won’t. But if you can get some, introduce it (carefully) to your freezer. (Also, if you’re buying copper, talk to the hardware store guy/gal.)
Compressed Air
This might sound crazy, and it’s probably a waste of a can of compressed air, but trust us, it works. If you have one of those compressed air bottles that you’d usually use to clean your keyboard, simply spray your beer with it at close range for about a minute. You’ll see frost form on the outside of the can, and your beer will get nice and cool. Just don’t spray the gas anywhere near the mouth and pour the beer into a glass once it’s chilled.
Chill ahead
Yep, it sounds like a terribly mundane piece of advice. But if you buy that six pack and just chuck it into the refrigerator, you’ll save yourself a lot of time the next day (or a couple hours later).
