Got Ice? The Physics of Chilling Your Beer

My uncle built a really cool beer chilling device. I posted it about a year ago.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1634090

Another question: if the beers in the fridge are running out and you have to "restock" with room-temperature ones (http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail39.html), how long does it take a 4*C fridge to get them down to that temperature? And how long for the freezer to do the same thing?

This probably ought to include the heat lost through the walls of the cooler, which is the big ice melter for outdoor picnics. (After all, you can put the beer in the fridge before you go out.) I did some of these calculations at http://lists.canonical.org/pipermail/kragen-tol/2007-Decembe... with a somewhat larger cooler in mind.

The first comment on wired has a very good tip:

For best cooling you want to use a mix of Ice and cold water, with a ton of salt. This lets the water temp drop below freezing, and makes better contact with the cans/bottles, transferring heat away from them faster.

It makes a pretty big difference, especially when you've got a bunch of warm beer / wine and want to get it to a drinkable temperature as fast as possible.

I looking for suggestions on how to get a can of dr pepper down to the temperature where it just starts to get slushy but not freeze and then stay there. My current approach is to stick it in a bucket filled with ice and salt wAter, stick that in the freezer for 20 mins, then enjoy. :)

I enjoyed reading the comments pointing out numerous flaws and errors in the article. :) Happy 4th of July!

The title should be "Got Beer?" because that photo doesn't have any real beer in it ...

Talk about partying on July 4th. List all temperatures in celsius. ಠ_ಠ