Introduction: Cold Beer in 3 Minutes

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An empty 1 litre milk carton can be used to cool beer down fast - and we all know how important that is.


Here's how the cooling system works:

  1. Fill an empty milk carton with water
  2. Add some salt (more on this later)
  3. Freeze overnight

To use:

  1. Take the carton out of the freezer
  2. Cut out an area from the carton for the can to be placed directly on the ice
  3. Rotate the beer can quickly
  4. This will give you an ice cool beverage in 5 minutes or less. (23c to 3c) .

Step 1: Making Ice in a Milk Carton

To make ice in a milk carton:

Fill an empty milk carton with water, maybe even rinse it out first, but thats up to you


Update - add salt and rotate for fastest cooling:

Add 100 grams of salt to the water, mix it up and place it in a freezer. Why would you want to add salt? you may be wondering. Well, by adding some salt, the phase transformation temperature of the water is lowered slightly.

Let me explain: When the ice transforms to a liquid (water) it normally does so at 0 C but by adding the salt it will now do so a few degrees below zero. The cooler liquid will conduct heat out of the rotating beverage faster. Remember the ice in your freezor is below 0 C - probably at about negative 18 degrees C. Once phase transformation begins (Ice to water) the solid i.e. ice doen't get warmer untill this phase is comple, the can is cooled with liquird that is below 0 degrees. With out the added salt the liquird would be at 0 degrees.

Update: Adding 100 grams of salt pre freezing improved beer cooling - resulted in beer cooling from 24 C to 1C in 3 minutes.

Step 2: Cut an Area for the Can

Once the salt water mixture has frozen, cut an area from the milk carton. Place the can on the ice and rotate it to make a grove for the can to rotate in.

Step 3: Rotate the Can

I wanted to rotate the can by a motor. After looking into ways to attach a motor and gears, I figured the easist and best way was to rest a remote controlled car on top of the can and use its wheels to rotate the can. This worked well and rotated the can quickly.

To save holding the remote control all the time, a rubber band was used to keep the left wheels leaver locked down. To save having to hold the car against the can, it had its two right (stationary) wheels rested on a couple of upside down cups. Once some of the ice had turned into salt water, the temp of the salt water was measured to be -4C, It is important to rotate the can to cool it down quickly. When the can was just placed on top of the ice and rotated by hand every 30 seconds, the temperature of the beer only went to 15C after 3 minutes, rotating it with the wheels of the car cooled the beer to 1C in 3 minutes.

The reason the can needs to be rotated is to circulate the liquird inside it so different liquird gets in contact with the outside wall and cools. Same reason you stir a pot on a stove top - to distribute the heat..

Step 4: Using a Stick to Roll the Can

If you don't have a remote controlled car, you can also use a stick coved with tape to roll the can.

This method cooled the can to 1C atfter 3 minutes of rolling in the frozen salt water.

Step 5: A Short Time Later..

After rotating the can on the ice for a short time, remove it and drink the ice cold contents. You may like to put the can in a stubbly holder as this will help to keep it cool and also save your fingers from getting too cold from holding the can.

Cans were cooled for different times, with the milk container placed back in the freezer after each cooling. (note: these measurements were when only a dessert spoon of salt had been added to the water, adding 100 grams of salt pre-freezing, cooled the beer from 24c to 1 c in 3 minutes)

Time vs how cold the can gets:

Air Temp, Mins Cooled, Beverage Temp

24c 3mins 5c

23c 3mins 3c

23c 3mins 4c

23c 2.5mins 7c

23c 4mins 2c

Measurements made using a stubby holder vs not using one:

Without Stubby Holder

(Starting temp: 2c)

Time, Temp

12 Mins 6c

22 Mins 10c

32 Mins 14c

37 Mins 16c

42 Mins 19c

In Stubby Holder

(Starting temp 2c)

Time, Temp

12 Mins 5c

22 Mins 6c

32 Mins 8c

42 Mins 10c

Step 6: How Long Does Ice Last Without Insulation.

To test How long ice lasts without insulation, 3 blocks of different sizes and shapes were frozen then taken out of the freezer and left over night. In the morning they had all turned into water. As can be seen, the coldest was the one which was shaped closest to a square cube rather the biggest one.