So, you want a cold beer and you want it now. But there’s no ice around! What do you do? You’ve got a few options for chilling your beer fast even without using ice.
1. Cold Towel Method
If you have access to a freezer, wet a rag or paper towel and wrap it around your beer cans. It should be damp but not dripping wet. Place this combo in the freezer for around 5 minutes and you should have a nicely chilled drink. The water in the towel freezes around the beer, cooling it down faster than it would if the beer were just sitting loose in the freezer.
2. Use Nature
Cooling With Water
If you’re hanging out by a body of water, submerge the cans or bottles in the water. Water stays cooler than the air, so this should cool your beer down at least a little bit. You can let them float in the pool, or wedge them between rocks in a river. It should be noted that if you don’t trust the water source, make sure the top of the can (where you’ll drink from) stays clean.
Cooling With Snow
Of course, if you happen to be in an area with snow, use that to your advantage! Stick you beer cans or bottles in the snow until you’re ready to enjoy a nice, cold, snow-chilled drink.
Cooling Underground
In the summer time, it’ll be a little cooler underground than it is above ground. If you can dig a hole to put your beers in, they’ll at least cool down a smidgeon more than if they were left to open air. The most practical example of this is burying your beer in the sand at the beach. Bonus if you dig down far enough that they also meet water. Make sure you know exactly where each can is so you don’t lose any!
3. Run Them Under The Faucet
You can let your room temperature beer cans run under cold water for a few minutes to chill them down. This isn’t the best method, though, as you’ll waste a significant amount of water. Better to just fill a big bowl or container with cold water and let your beers soak. This won’t get them super cold, but it’ll pull a little warmth out of your beer. Better than nothing!
4. Cooling Stones
It’s wise to keep cooling stones in you freezer at all times so you can chill a beverage quickly and without ice. They take up almost no room – you can just put them in there and forget them. These are typically used for whiskey, but there’s no reason you can’t use cooling stones in your beer. And you can use them over and over, forever really. They’re one of those things that your future self will thank your current self for thinking about.
Best Way To Chill Beer Fast
I’ll assume if you’re reading this, it’s because you want cold beer ASAP and you don’t have any ice to get you there. But if you’re wondering about the absolute best way to chill beer (for next time when you do have ice), try the salty ice bath method. Take a container that’s deep enough to submerge your beer and fill it with water and ice. Add a liberal amount of salt and mix everything around.
The salt lowers the freezing point of water, meaning the ice won’t be able to stay frozen as long as it normally would. When the ice melts, it turns into a liquid, but it’s still just as cold as it was as a solid. If you remember from science class, heat flows from hot to cold. So the heat energy of the beer is pulled into the cold water, naturally cooling the beer cans.
Of course, the best way to ensure cold beer is to put some in the fridge or cooler several hours before you want to drink them. But if you’re already looking up best ways to chill beer fast without ice, you might be beyond that point 🙂 Whether you’re in the house and are able to quick-chill in the freezer, or are out on the beach, hopefully these tips will allow you to have a refreshingly cool beer stat.
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