Cooling
None of this is expert advice. It's what people worked out for themselves, usually the hard way — what actually helped, and what they'd tell someone standing where you are. Take what fits and leave the rest.
If you only read a few
Place cans in a large bowl with cold water, ice, and lots of salt, then stir for 3 minutes.
It produces an ice cold drink.
- Rinse off under tap before opening.
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Leave air space in plastic containers before freezing to allow for expansion; avoid glass bottles due to breakage risk.
Ice expands and can break glass or mangle plastic.
- Glass bottles have a breakage risk and are heavy.
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Freeze half or one gallon milk jugs to create large ice blocks that stay frozen longer and allow you to pour out melted water.
Larger ice cubes theoretically retain cold longer.
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Leave lids off food containers for an hour while dividing into smaller portions to allow heat to escape.
Smaller portions have less mass and will cool much faster.
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Drive to a gas station to buy a pre-chilled six-pack if you need cold beer immediately.
You can be drinking cold beer shortly after returning home.
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Set a timer when putting drinks in the freezer.
To prevent forgetting them and causing them to explode all over the freezer.
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Freeze a water bottle half-full on its side, then stand it up; if the ice melts and re-freezes vertically, the outage was long enough to spoil food.
Melting and re-freezing in the new orientation indicates the power was out while you were gone.
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Use sealable food saver bags to create custom-sized, leak-proof ice packs.
You can adjust the length and width before sealing them shut to prevent leaking.
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Fill a glass with ice and pour warm soda over it.
It creates an instant cold beverage.
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Use a dishrag or cloth instead of a paper towel for wet-wrapping drinks.
It saves paper and soaks up any spills if you forget the drink.
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Wrap ice packs in a small bath towel to help them lay flat across joints like knees without sliding off.
Towels prevent the awkward shapes formed in the freezer that cause packs to slide off.
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Submerge the drink in a salted ice bath; the reduced freezing point of the brine accelerates cooling.
Brine freezes at a lower temperature than plain water, which speeds up the chilling process for beer.
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- To cool warm drinks quickly, place items in an empty cooler, add sidewalk salt, fill with ice, then fill voids with water.1
- Add alcohol (ethanol) to an ice bath along with salt to lower the melting point further.1
Fill gaps in a cooler with garbage bags to keep contents frozen longer.
Filling gaps reduces the room available for cold air to escape.
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Fill empty freezer space with frozen water bottles.
This reduces the workload on the freezer and turns it into a cooler during power outages.
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Leave melted ice water in the cooler instead of dumping it out.
The cold water is often more effective at keeping items cool than replacing it with fresh ice.
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Use rigid plastic bottles rather than plastic bags for frozen water emergency ice packs to prevent leaks from freezing freezer mechanisms shut.
Leaking bags can drain water over pull-open freezer tracks, which then freezes and locks the mechanism.
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Freeze hot water bottles with fluffy covers and use them in bed during summer to stay cool.
Fluffy covers prevent condensation from forming on the frozen bottle.
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Separate food and beverage coolers.
Constantly opening and closing the cooler greatly affects the ice.
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Wet ice cubes with tap water before adding them to a carbonated drink to smooth the surface.
Smoothing the surface reduces nucleation sites for dissolved carbon dioxide, preventing excessive foaming.
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Bring a frozen water bottle to bed; drink the melted portion if you wake up at night and enjoy the remaining cold portion in the morning.
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Use a reusable, thicker cup instead of disposable ones to better retain cold temperatures.
Thicker reusable cups likely have the same insulating properties as two disposable cups.
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Avoid relying on evaporative cooling devices like Frio in humid environments or when they are not exposed to air.
Evaporative cooling relies on exposure to air and fails in high humidity.
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