You've been chilling your beer wrong! Experts reveal the fastest way to cool your booze - and it doesn't involve the freezer

Daily Mail​

17-05-2025

With summer around the corner, nothing quite beats hosting a barbeque in the back garden with plenty of ice cold bevvies.
But in the rush to get the meat on the grill, even the most experienced BBQ host can forget to chill the beer.
And nothing ruins a summer event quite as badly as warm lager.
Thankfully, a new study reveals the fastest way to chill a beer – and it doesn't mean putting it in the freezer.
Consumer champion Which? tested eight popular internet chilling 'hacks' on bottled beer – and found one clear winner.
In just half an hour, it brought the beer temperature down from 20.5°C to 1.6°C – more effective than any other.
So can you guess what the best chilling method is?
See the full results below!
According to the experts, the fastest way to chill a beer is putting it in a bucket of cold water with not only ice, but also salt.
Salt water has a lower freezing point than regular water.
And while the temperature of a bucket of ice and water might hover around or slightly above 0°C, adding salt will mean that the temperature of the icy slushy solution can actually be less than zero.
These sub-zero temperatures will chill your beer faster and ultimately leave it colder.
Using this method, Which? researchers found the temperature of the beer dropped by 18.9°C in half an hour, leaving the beer at a frosty 1.6°C.
After an hour, researchers managed to get the temperature of the beer down to a little less than 0°C.
If you find yourself without any salt, don't worry – all is not lost.
The second-most effective way to quickly chill beer is the same method but just without the salt.
BEER CHILLING METHODS - RANKED FROM WORST TO BEST
Chilling technique Start temperature (°C) End temperature (°C) Temperature change (°C)
Control: Temperature of a bottle of beer just left on the side throughout the experiment 20.5 21 0.5
8. Three minutes under a cold tap, twisting the bottle 20.5 18 -2.5
7. Bucket of cold tap water 20.5 18 -2.5
6. Bowl of cold water, covered over with a wet flannel, left in a breezy location 20.5 17.2 -3.3
5. Bottom shelf of the fridge 20.5 16.9 -3.6
4. Cover bottle with wet tissue paper and put in the middle of a freezer 20.5 8.9 -11.6
3. Bottle in the middle shelf of a freezer 20.5 7.8 -12.7
2. 1kg of ice and a bucket of cold water 20.5 3.9 -16.6
1. 1kg of ice, bucket of cold water, 100g of salt 20.5 1.6 -18.9
Ice and cold water – ideally placed in a big portable cooler or 'esky' – took the beer from 20°C to 3.9°C in half an hour, they found.
Failing this, another good method is putting the beer in the middle shelf of a freezer – taking the temperature down to 7.8°C in half an hour.
However, this method comes with potential issues, such as being able to find enough space and forgetting that the beers are there, leading to frozen or exploding bottles.
The experts also tested the popular online 'hack' of covering the bottle with wet tissue paper and putting it in the freezer.
This method did drop the temperature of a beer to 8.9°C in 30 minutes, but it didn't work as well as just putting the bottle in the freezer without any tissue.
The wet tissue method is also a faff to prepare and drips water over you once it's out of the freezer as you're drinking the beer.
Even less effective is putting the beer in a bowl of cold water, covered over with a wet flannel and left in a breezy location.
Which? explains: 'The idea is that the breeze evaporates the water from the towel and thus cools the bottle [but] it's a bit of a faff.'
One of the two worst methods was running the beer under a cold tap for three minutes – an approach usually opted for by students.
It took the beer down just 2.5°C – from 20.5°C to 18°C – resulting in a lukewarm beverage and a waste of water.
Equally as pointless was immersion in a bucket of cold tap water – also taking the temp down from 20.5°C to 18°C.
The full results, published on Which?'s website, are 'accurate, robust and repeatable', the consumer champion claims.
'Without a doubt, cold water with ice and salt is the most effective and fastest way to chill a beer,' it says.
'We used bottled beer for our test, but you should see the same methods work well with other bottled drinks and cans.'