Comments on: Sunday Morning Links

By: zeph

zeph — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 04:32:47 +0000

11 JohnMcC, I think that’s apocryphal.
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a891215.html

By: anne

anne — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 00:36:05 +0000

The Pencil video is scary as shit

By: Wayne

Wayne — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 13:49:51 +0000

Three minutes to cool down beer that way? I guess so. However, as I would have likely had a few beers before even starting this, I think it would likely take me 5-10 minutes to dig out the big pot, another 5 minutes to find the measuring cup and pour out the salt, another 10 minutes to actually set up and mix, then a few more minutes to clean up. Probably be faster to just stick the beer in the ice tray in the freezer for a half hour.

By: JohnMcC

JohnMcC — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 22:56:24 +0000

A bit of useless information: The salted-water-below-freezing trick is the basis of the Farenheit scale. Back when the coldest thing in the world was ice someone noticed that salted water was liquid when ‘fresh’ water froze. Then someone invented a mercury thermometer and they could start to actually measure stuff; they needed a high and low number to act as the basis of a scale. So they said, let the coldest liquid water–heavily salted and just before it freezes– make Zero. And human beings are pretty much the same temp unless we’re sick so ‘normal’ human temp became 100. There you have the F scale.

Centigrade came much later (French Revolution, Napolean, all that) and they had better thermometers. Their scale used the temp of freezing fresh water for Zero and the temp of boiling fresh water is 100.

Interesting to me anyhow.

By: Matt Moore

Matt Moore — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:27:05 +0000

Per MythBusters the only thing better than salty ice water for chilling beer was emptying a CO2 fire extinguisher onto the six pack.

By: KBCraig

KBCraig — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 18:24:59 +0000

““Seriously, adding salt to make ice water colder is news?”

“Well gosh darn it, dont u think it oughta be?”

It should be, it’s just now “new”. If it’s new to Radley, his Theta Chi days were very different from mine. ;-D

Chilling beer and lighting fires are two of the Manly Arts. For a beautiful demonstration of how to light a fire quickly, see this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBLr_XrooLs

Education and testosterone can be a dangerous combination. :-D

By: claude

claude — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 16:10:55 +0000

“Seriously, adding salt to make ice water colder is news?”

Well gosh darn it, dont u think it oughta be? :D

By: claude

claude — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 16:09:05 +0000

Regarding the beer trick. We used to do this all the time. Its a Minnesota tradition. Ice water can get to 33 degrees. Ice water with salt in it can get to 25 degrees. U can also roll a beer is snow for about 2 minutes and it will get good and cold. Mythbusters once tackled this story.

http://kwc.org/mythbusters/2005/03/mythbusters_cooling_a_sixpack.html

Experiment 1: Ice vs. Ice + water vs. Ice + water + salt vs. fridge vs. freezer

Initial measurements:
Ice
Ice + water: 33 degrees
Ice + water + salt (salt melts ice and lowers the freezing point): 24 degrees

Results (after 5 minutes):
ice: 57 degrees
ice water: 44 degrees
salt water: 35.9 degrees
freezer: 55 degrees
fridge: 60 degrees

Final results: * Ice + water + salt: 5 minutes * Ice + water: 15 minutes * Freezer: 25 minutes * Ice: 30 minutes * Fridge: 40+ minutes

By: KBCraig

KBCraig — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 16:07:53 +0000

Seriously, adding salt to make ice water colder is news?

By: UCrawford

UCrawford — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 15:29:55 +0000

Damn, Dave stole my explanation. As soon as I saw that article’s description I had a flashback to when my brother and I had to help make homemade ice cream for family get-togethers when we were kids.

Never really thought about applying that same trick to beer, though.

By: News You Can Use § Unqualified Offerings

News You Can Use § Unqualified Offerings — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 13:32:20 +0000

[...] The single most useful link that will ever appear on this blog. [...]

By: Dave Krueger

Dave Krueger — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 12:45:06 +0000

Hey, maybe NORML could do a Marijuana billboard!

By: Dave Krueger

Dave Krueger — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 12:40:31 +0000

I think the cold beer trick isn’t that original to anyone who has made ice cream. Adding salt to ice lowers the freezing point, so it has to melt. Melting (a change of state) requires it to absorb heat which cools the beer faster than mere ice alone.

Personally, I find that a rigid rotation system, wherein one always replaces a cold beer with a warm one, works great. As long as you maintain a first-in, first-out rule, you will always have cold beer. Of course, the guests sometimes find my mandatory pre-party procedural indoctrination a little annoying, but if the beer is free…

By: Tokin42

Tokin42 — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 11:40:58 +0000

The pencil video was nicely done, wish I knew wtf the point was.