Cool Beer in Six Minutes

You can enjoy a cool can of beer (or other beverage) in just 6 minutes by following this instructable on how to build a Beer cooling system. It's not too complicated, but in my mind takes the use of plastic products to another level.

The core of the BCS (Beer Cooling System) is a 1 liter plastic bottle and a plastic jug. The coolant being employed is a super saturated solution of Sodium Chloride with a temperature differential of -30c amberant.... OK, its a plastic bottle of salt water placed in the freezer.

• Heat a liter of water.
• Add some salt.
• Add some more salt and stir to dissolve.
• Keep adding salt untill no more can be disolved.
• Pour solution into a 1 liter plastic bottle.
• Let it cool.
• Place it in the freezer part of your fridge to super cool.

I wanted to use my food thermometer to measure the beer's temperature as it was being cooled but found it had been left on and the battery was flat.
Rather than waiting another day and buying a replacement, I made an extra arm for my 'button battery replacement octopus' and connected it to a battery made for 4 cents.

• Take the super cooled bottle of salt water out of the freezer. It should still be a liquid.
• Place a can of beer in a plastic jug.
• Pour in the salt water.
• Spin the can a couple of time to get the beer in it moving around a bit to help cooling.

Every 2 minutes give the beer can a spin. I used this 2 minute timer as a guide: Two minute coke bottle timer.

After six minutes your can of beer will be cool. Mine had cooled from about 20c to 4c in six minutes.

1 liter of salt water cools the 333 mills can of beer nicely. About 3 times salt water to beverage volume being cooled works nicely. I have found a ratio of 1to1 (i.e. trying to use 333 mills of salt water to cool a 333 mill can) doesn't cool the can cold enough.

Rinse off any salt water from the beer can and pour the beer into a glass to enjoy.
The salt water can be poured back into the plastic bottle and placed back in the freezer to recharge.

In the interests of science, the following day I retested the BCS. It was still working. I may need to test it again, just to be sure...

If the beverage can is rotated while being cooled, this will assist with the conduction of heat away from the core of the can to the sides, hence cooling the drink faster. To make rotating the can easier a simple rotation devise was built. A 'sucker' was glued to the end of a piece of dowel. Attach to the bottom of the can and rotate between your fingers.
After only 4 minutes the can had cooled to 2c and there was ice formed on the inner walls. On another test, it had cooled to 2c in 2 minutes from 23c. That's fast!