What gets cold faster? a beer put in ice only? or a beer put in ice AND ice cold water?

Answer 1

This was on Mythbusters:

Fastest way of cooling a six-pack
Myth: Can gasoline cool a six-pack? A contributor said that in Vietnam they would bury the six-pack in the sand, pour quart of gasoline over it, and set it on fire.

"There's nothing more patriotic than gasoline and beer"

Connecticut Yankee and Fritz for their expert opinion. 38 degrees -- ideal temperature

Tested experiment with sand, gas, and beer. The end result: warmer, sandy beer.

This was an example of using a obviously fake myth in order to do a bunch of experiments.

Experiment 1: Ice vs. Ice + water vs. Ice + water + salt vs. fridge vs. freezer
Initial measurements:

Ice
Ice + water: 33 degrees
Ice + water + salt (salt melts ice and lowers the freezing point): 24 degrees
Results (after 5 minutes):

ice: 57 degrees
ice water: 44 degrees
salt water: 35.9 degrees
freezer: 55 degrees
fridge: 60 degrees
Final results:

Ice + water + salt: 5 minutes
Ice + water: 15 minutes
Freezer: 25 minutes
Ice: 30 minutes
Fridge: 40+ minutes
Experiment 2: Fire extinguisher
Squirted for 3 minutes: 37 degrees

Jamie, "If you do have one and you're willing to spend maybe, you know, $30 on having your beer cooled, now, then I guess you could do that"

Answer 2

Beer in ice AND ice cold water.

Theoretically, you can see why because the ice only touches here and there on the cans with icy air touching everywhere else while icy water instead of the air is better because water absorbs nine or so times as much heat as air does which it them passes to the ice fairly readily and so is faster than icy air.

In practice, the Mythbusters show did this experiment along with some other cooling possiblities and showed this much faster than all but one other method they tried: salted, icy water. That was even faster. Makes sense too, as the salted, icy water can get colder than 32 F and so the temperature difference between it and the beer is always greater than for icy water alone.

Added:

Sorry, forgot about the extinguisher. Yeah, that was amazingly fast. Buy some frozen nitrogen (dry ice) and a cooler and it'll be even faster. You can use that to instant chill mixtures of things that don't work well in an ice cream maker into ice cream too. Put chunks at the edges of your yard and mosquitos won't bother your partiers much either.

Answer 3

Ice and ice cold water.

This way you have the entire surface area of the can being cooled at once. WIth ice, you get cooling by the places where the ice is in direct contact with the can (bottole). Depends on if you are using shaved ice, or chips or cubes....the size of the ice pieces matters. If you are talking cubes, then definitely ice and water, if you're talking shaved ice (tiny pieces), then that could potentially be the fastest.

I'm gonna invite lisa h to my next party! lol She's got the info!

Answer 4

Ice water and salt is what they put white wine in to keep it cold in the restaurant. The salt when it dissolves in ice water pulls heat from the environment, thereby chilling the water that much more than the ice alone.

Answer 5

Ice and Cold water.
The Ice keeps the water at the freezing point and water is in full surface contact with the can or bottle of beer.
Ice on its own does not make great contact with the container.
And if you swirl the water/ice mixture around it even works more quickly because you remove the heated water from being in contact

Answer 6

Hmmm...good question.

I would say beer put in ice and ice water because the ice water surrounds the bottle/can more easily than just plain ice would, thus, cooling it quicker.

Answer 7

The ice cold water will conduct the heat away faster and should be at vertually the same temperature as the ice.

Party on

Answer 8

I would say ice and ice cold water.

Answer 9

Throw the beer in a ice/water bath. However, don't drink and drive.

Answer 10

Ice in cold water, it surrounds the can.