There’s nothing like lukewarm beer to bring down the mood of a party. Unless you’re already hammered (or have horribly low standards), if the beer in your hand isn’t at least, a little cold to the touch, it’s undrinkable – especially in the summer, when the only thing that’s hotter than the air that surrounds you, is the apartment that you just came from.
While sticking your beer in the freezer will eventually work, it’s not an exact science. Inevitably in your eagerness to get back to party rocking, you’ll wind up opening and closing the door enough times where you’ll actually be slowing down the process. Nobody wants that. So, without further ado, here’s how to get your beer cold so you can get back to the party sooner.
Here’s how it works: Take a bowl, fill it with water, add some ice and stir in a teaspoon or two of salt. Insert your beer into said bowl. Give it a minute, and then give your bowl full of booze a good stir.
If you’re wondering why you add the salt, get ready for a science lesson (whoever said you couldn’t learn anything just because you were at a party): adding salt lowers the freezing temperature of water, which means your beer will get colder faster. Basically, when you add salt to ice, the salt starts dissolving in the film of liquid water that’s always chilling on an ice cube’s surface. Once you lower the surface water, everything else follows suit. Science, it’s pretty miraculous.
In just five short minutes (provided you weren’t drunk enough to totally f-ck it up), your beer should be a cool 45 degrees Fahrenheit, which is a good 30 degrees colder than you beer started out back in its room temperature days. Of course, if you’re a sober Sally or Saul, the same trick will work with any canned or bottled beverage, which should ensure that you spend the rest of your summer spending more time on the things that matter than pointless matters of DIY refrigeration. Don’t say you never learned anything useful on the Internet.