A can of pop is at room temp. How long in the fridge to get where it maintains its temp,and never gets colder

Question

Refrigerator set on medium.

Answer 1

If you care practically, Dr. R is right about doing an experiment. Idealistically, it would take forever for heat transfer to completely stop between the pop and fridge. The pop temperature will asymptotically approach that of the fridge, but never quite get there. The heat transfer rate dies out as the temperature difference approaches zero.

A crude estimate could be made using an overall heat transfer coefficient of say 10 Btu/hr-ft2-F, and calculating beginning and end conditions for small increments of time. Base heat transfer for each increment on the avg pop temp for that inc. Pretty simple on a spreadsheet.

Answer 2

That's more complicated than it sounds because the cooling involves both conduction and (since soda is liquid) thermal convection. You really just need to do an experiment.

Also, to be a meaningful question, you need to specify how close to the air temp you want it to be. Cooling from 2 to 1 degrees above the air temperature takes, for example, takes as long as cooling from 20 degrees to 10 over air temp.

Answer 3

Depends on the temp in the fridge, no?