The Fastest Way To Make a Drink Cold 

I know you all wanted the liquid nitrogen in the machine, but the liquid nitrogen just cracks the plastic due to the quick cooling.

I think the most interesting thing was that spinning the can's didn't stir them up, only side-to-side vibrations did.

There is actually another factor I think helps cool down the liquids so well. Unlike liquid nitrogen the machine is trimmed to never allow the temperature to drop below 0C so that ice never appear inside the bottles. I think avoiding ice formation is the biggest key to fast cooling, closely followed by steering.

One factor also to consider with the bottle is the thermal conductivity of the thin aluminium can is likely way better than the plastic helping it to not only cool faster but feel cooler to hold… meaning cans also warm up faster.

If I saw that machine in a store, I would think it was a gimmick product that wouldn't work. It's incredible to see it function so well.

Works for a cold swimming pool, too. If you're in at night and the water is still, if you don't move, the water warms up around you noticbably.

I bought one of those Cooper Coolers back in 2016 and absolutely love it. I actually stopped keeping drinks in the fridge and exclusively used that for probably two years, until I lost the power cable for it

There's a limit to the amount of heat transfer due to surface area, and when the liquid phase changes to ice - it's ability to transfer heat is even less. So the best way to cool it is to have the largest flow rate of the heat transfer medium over the surface. The can rolling machine does the trick, but it could probably be made simpler and cheaper than the one here.

The salt and ice method may also make a thin ice layer that slows down the cooling process. Just adding a bit of salt to the machine might be a winner.

You should repeat your liquid nitrogen experiment but make the can horizontal before spinning it (e.g. Put the nitrogen in a tub or something). That way, you will hopefully avoid the situation where there's ice at the bottom.

Another factor that helps the machine is that when the can is spinning, the parts of the water that have a higher temp gets pushed to the outside from the centrifugal force. Years back, a company was prototyping a spinning heatsink(can't remember the name), and thermal imaging showed how the centrifugal forces flung the heat to the outer rim of the heatsink.

I bought my dad that drink chiller machine for Father’s Day a few years back and it work’s absolutely incredible.

I've owned two of the Cooper Cooler. Both of them failed after a few months of regular use. I never left water in the unit and followed the directions. I loved it, but they were too expensive to keep replacing. For occasional use, especially for wine, it works really well.

Best way to pour drink in glass. Put ice in cup, wet ice with water to get rid of nucleation sites, pour out water, keep drink as cold as possible, slowly pour drink over ice. Makes for the coldest drink with the most carbonation.

If I don’t have a cold can in the fridge ready to go, then I usually wrap a warm one in a paper towel, then wet it in the sink, then stick it in the freezer for 20m or so (with a timer set). Works pretty well if you’re willing to wait a bit

Definitely fun to watch. What an ingenious device for cooling drinks.

The Action Lab has done it again. These experiments are on an entirely different level.

I think another factor is the density of water, which can carry much more heat than even liquid nitrogen, which tends to instantly turn into ultra low density nitrogen gas at this ambient temp. Might work better if in a cryo chamber cold enough to keep the nitrogen liquid. Love you Mr Action Lan guy!

I have that same machine somewhere downstairs. I got it for free from this place where they were gonna chuck it out. I thought it was cool, and it really does cool down cans super fast. You can do a full bottle of wine too. One thing this video doesn't show is that the thing is really loud though, like vacuum loud, lol.

Damn Daniel back at it again with the warm cans! 😂😂😂 Love your channel!

Maybe you should always give the temperature in °C as well, not just in the beginning, that doesn't make sense at all.

I'd be interested to see the machine with dry ice and isopropyl alcohol. It also has an advantage over liquid nitrogen because it doesn't have leidenfrost effect.

I've had that thing for years! Still does a great job

As an engineer, this device looked very satisfying in operation. Clear indication of a good thermodynamic grasp

James I love your constant enthusiasm and clever ideas, youre such an amazing educator. I want to see the drink... Colder, with salt water, I bet that does even better.

Very useful for all those times when I forget to put things in the fridge but remember to keep liquid nitrogen on hand!

I use a fish tank circulator(like an underwater fan) for quickly cooling or defrosting things. it'd be interesting to see if having the bottle/can move as well would make a difference

I have one of those, it´s a great machine! The pannel on mine went bad a couple of years ago, so I bypassed it and now it just starts working when you plug it on the wall, but still works great!

For the ice and salt method you need to use ice to salt about 1:1 - this will give you in the ideal chase -20 °C or whatever that is in F 😅. We regularly used this in the lab when we did not want to go for liq. N2 or solid CO2 - sort of the cheap option 😂.

The most convenient way to make a drink cold is to wrap it in wet papertowel and stick it in the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes. Works like a charm. It's not the quickest, but it's the easiest!

Brilliant and informative!

I don't know how significantly this would help, or whether it would mess up the electronics, but you could put the entire machine in the freezer for a while first, that way the otherwise room temperature channel that the water is being pumped through wouldn't slightly warm the iced water.

This reminds me of those speed defrosters which are super efficient heat pipes that wick heat into whatever is laid onto them very efficiently.

But, wouldn't be easier to store salty water in the freezer (always liquid) at -18 C, you just need to put the can in the water for 20 seconds. Then you can reuse the same water.

I usually wrap a wet towel around my can or bottle and put it in the freezer for 15-30 minutes, depending of the size of the bottle. The evaporating water helps A LOT in the cooling process

This is a topic that is studied by mixologists. For open fluids, there are different techniques for a chilled mixture ie. stirring or shaking the fluid in a container with ice. Some major variables: the size of the ice, temperature of the fluid, temperature of the container will normally affect the dilution of the fluid - before the mixture reaches equilibrium (its below freezing). The reason I mention technique for mixing: technique will result in different rates of dilution / results as well. Examples: Stirring fluids into a mixture (usually) helps to prevent unwanted emulsification to preserve the initial fluids flavor (nodes), but it also takes much longer for a fluid to reach equilibrium. Shaking fluids comes in different forms - most specialists will use a “2-point shake” resulting in fluid rushing from on side of a shaker to another, circulating. The main idea of the “Japanese whip shake” is to incorporate a rotation, so the fluid can circulate in the perpendicular direction inside the shaker - theoretically resulting in a faster equilibrium. Notable mention: shaking also helps to incorporate air into the mixture, which usually is good for citrus. Alternatively, if dilution is a concern, and we wanted to chill a fluid, the alternatives have their trade offs… In a container, rather than using ice to cool a fluid, there are options that don’t melt (ie stones): the trade off is [high-key throwback to the ActionLab previous video] water retains its cooler temperature (MUCH) better than any stone could. Or chilling the fluid in a cool environment (fridge/freezer): takes a long time (is why you made this video). The fastest way I’ve been able to chill a fluid in a closed container, is by submerging the container in water/soda-water with ice. It gets really cold really fast, at an affordable price. Cheers!

The way I make a drink cold quick is to wet a paper towel, wrap it around the drink and put it in the freezer for a few minutes. It actually works. If I had ice cubes which I don't, I would just put the ice in a glass and pour my drink over it.

Salt water in the cooling device with the ice. Bet you can get it to below 37 even more efficiently.

when you give the cool water velocity, its heat transfer coefficient increases. Here the machined moved both water as well as the soda can so the heat transfer rate increased a lot. So faster and effective cooling.

Usually I put one in the freezer near the fan and turn it to coldest setting and I noticed if I rinse the can off with cool water first it helps the can get cooler faster. In six mins I have a cold can of soda water, but not as cold as that machine or the liquid nitrogen here. Great Vid!

For the liquid nitrogen you should spin in left and right so the liquid in the can can mix with the outward cold liquid.

The control, I think, for this experiment would be to put the soda in an equal sized volume container as the ice spinning machine, fill it with ice, close the lid, and leave it for one minute. The temperature difference between the two tests, one spinning and one not, would then tell you the significance of lowering the temperature because of the spinning.

You're always the man!

“Icy bottom” had me rolling for some reason lol

You can use a sous vide circulator in a large bucket of ice water to chill your drinks super fast. I use a large cooler for mine

I know you use Fahrenheit because that is where you live, but it would be handy even if there was some text on the screen that would flash the temp in Celsius when you give a temperature reading. Saves me having to pause the video then go to my web browser or calculator and then have to convert the difference. Good videos as always, been watching you for years.

this is the equivalent of active (convective) cooling with air, which works much better. except you are moving the liquid inside also so the effect is greater

Thanks for the video, sir. I need to get me one of those.

I was really hoping he would put liquid nitrogen in the cooling machine 🤣

Based on your explanation at 7:39, for your method at 1:40 would it be better to submerge the can vertically in a tall container (like that thermos you used for the liquid nitrogen method) and stir the water around the can instead of spinning the can? The can can be held down with a magnet or a weight or something. By doing it this way you can keep your hands warm so it's a lot more comfortable. Also, you don't transfer heat from your hands to the can, there's more surface area of water in contact with the can, and you can stir water a lot faster than you can spin the can by hand (assuming you don't attach the can to a drill).

Most likely why you didn't see much of an improvement with the liquid nitrogen method is because of pressure. The bottom froze first, which increased the pressure in the can (which you saw multiple times when you opened it). Increased pressure = higher temperature. At some point, the pressure is too high to freeze any more soda and the can _has_ to explode in order to reduce the temperature further. Another issue is the temperature gradient, and if you were to mix it or let it equalize, you would probably see the temp just a couple of degrees above freezing. Had you opened the soda before you put it in the liquid nitrogen, you would have soda everywhere, and what was left in the can would be solid.

Wonder if there is a version of that cooler that uses cooling tubes (like a freezer) so you only need to add water. I could see that kind of thing would be very handy.

Hey man, is it possible to include into the video, like labels when you talk, about temperature degrees, in Celsius too as you bigger audience worldwide don't use F⁰? That way will speeds up the comprehension in temperature related videos. Tks

Please do wet towel soda can cooling with different fabrics (napkin/toilet paper/etc)!! I heard too many to count!!!

Yup it works pretty darn good, love that product and have used it for years now, but now I'm wondering if adding salt would make it work even better 🤔

If you have a big metal shaker use it to cool down the cans with the ice salt and water method

you could probably use the oddball can spinner thing with dry ice and everclear or ISO, rather than normal ice and normal water. It'd make it cold as hell in like 15 seconds or less.

For the liquid nitrogen, would you be able to just cool the top of the can? The cold liquid would fall and the warm liquid would rise to be cooled. It might help with the temperature distribution (in the same way kettles only heat the bottom liquid).

Now that's some crazy engineering stuff!

What happended with the liquid nitrogen actually happens in lakes aswell. Once ice has formed it prevents the rest of the water from freezing too fast, which works like a soft cap on ice thickness.

Let's get him to 10 Million . He deserves it!!!

People look at me crazy when I'm jumping salt and my coolers in the summertime for cookouts. But then when they grab a cold drink and can't believe how freezing cold it is I explain why. I've been doing this for a long time It is tried and true works awesome , salt, water, and ice in your coolers

what about the evaporative factor? does increasing the total liquid surface area of the water flowing around the can cause an evaporative cooling effect? if so how much might that effect it, and would there be a way to increase the effect?

Got a cooper cooler for my father in law...that thing is awesome.

Am I the only one disappointed he didn't try filling the cooler with liquid nitrogen?

Pour it into a glass with ice cubes in it. Yes it slightly dilutes the beverage but most sodas are too strong in the can for that reason.

I’ve had this for years. It’s great

When I need to quickly thaw fish or shrimp or some such, I put the unwrapped items in a mixing bowl filled with water, then float this in a sink full of hot tap water. It takes maybe a half hour. I’ll have to figure out some way of adding spin.

Finally! The solution!

Please use metric units 🙏

I wasgona say surface contact is important but u covered it brilliantly

My method for last minute chilling of the soda beverage was to pop it into the freezer right up against where the cold freezer air would have direct contact with the can/bottle, and periodically swirling the can/bottle in a circular motion making sure not to shake the contents to even out the temperature. Given the apparatus that was being used spun its contents with fresh cold liquid poured over it was pretty much my method but on steroids. I now want one of those.

Please use METRIC units for scientific experiments

My Dad once showed me a trick where you just spin a drink in ice for about a minute... Similar to your method, but no water or salt. Works great!

I like your sponsors they could be useful in most situations

OMG! Thank you for the Celciuc. ❤

Why not add salt to the machine just to see if it improves it any further or pour the liquid nitrogen instead of ice.

I wish you would’ve added salt to the machine to see if that made a difference. Also adding liquid nitrogen to the machine would be interesting, but would probably break it lol

How is this spinning water cooling device called and where can it be bought?

interesting since the spinning sideways motion has the most surface are contact with the fully enveloping water and the turning of the inner liquid that allows it to turn more hot liquid to contact new cold liquid instantly. thats why the topside nitrogen spinning didnt work. since only the spining bottom had contacr with the cold liquid and the instant freeze removed the possibility of free moving fluid in the can to spread the cold heat dissipation across the inner and outer surface. retaining it at the bottom. a very fascinating effect. I like to pop a drink in the freezer for 10 minutes and turn it every 2 to 4-5 minutes, personally here in the desert. and sometimes it causes heavy frost in my only mini fridge

The DUH files: In the winter, the porch is a great cooler. Even a closet on an outside wall keeps drinks cooler than room temp. Cold enough in my outside wall closets. AND in summer? Set beside the vent where the A/C blows. DUH, eh? My aunt used her winter porch as a fridge extension for all the extra foods needed for gatherings. The greatest natural fridge I have seen was on a property in VA. A rock builder built a rock 'cave' box area underground (you walked into it) and a natural spring ran thru the rock box area. The spring water was always cold. And voila! His civil war era fridge was still standing and functioning today in 2023. I want that one! Awesome video. Thank you! ✌🏼🙏🏼🖖🏼💕

Can we get the temperature in normal units normal people use?

I’m curious if the rapidly spinning can generates heat. Can you try running it without ice and water and see if the temperature increases? Thanks!

I do similar to you... But I fill half way a pot with ice, large enough to hold up to 4 cans. Mix in up to 4 cans and add water to near the rim. The cans should be mostly submerged in the ice water. Then with both hands I can spin the cans fairly quickly. Works great and chills multiple cans in a couple minutes. If I'm not in a big rush I can just let the cans sit in the ice water. Usually is ice cold in 10 minutes.That gadget is better for a single can, but not so much when you need to chill multiple

The trick I’ve always used with drinks is to pour it into a glass with ice in it and stick a straw into it and blow gently through the straw for several seconds. Gets the drink cold extremely quick! The disadvantage is obviously watering the drink down, but I find most soft drinks are already too sugary, syrupy, and sweet for my taste so I like them watered down more anyway so that’s just another win for me. It wouldn’t be for most people, though.

Please use SI system

I kind of wanted to see the ice and salt trick repeated in the thermos, with the can totally ensconced... My expectation is that it's the spinning that ensures the can is cooled through but I'm still curious to see if there would be a difference (just not curious enough to do it myself ... I totally would if I had any soda in the house)!

I have started wrapping a damp paper towel around the can and putting it in the freezer for around 15min, works pretty well

Fahrenheit. lol

throw it into liquid nitrogen.

Not only is this a good scientific demonstration, but its also a good advertisement for that machine. I think I want one

there's a spot you can bring the temperature down before start getting ice and then when you open the lid and releasing the pressure it gets a PERFECT ice gel drink. Happens so rarely that i need to find the correct way

Suggestion for a related experiment: wrap the lower third andm of a can with some layers of adhesive tape. Then submerge this and a reference can for some minutes in an ice bath. See, which one comes out colder. The one with the tape should have more internal convection, not only diffusion. Therefore, despite the reduced contact area due to partial insulation, it might be colder.

Great demonstrations! You missed telling the temperature in Celsius a couple of times though.

What is the software used for that thermal simulation?

If you give a good flick on a shake can, it re-calibrate the pressure and avoid spit or squirt before opening.

The Action Lab is never short of ideas.😂

Here the running water in the tap is +2c or so if you leave it running so for soda cans putting them under running water is the fastest way of cooing them I have access to. Takes about 1 min to cool a can down that way and 3-5 min if you want it really freezing cold. Another alternative is put the can in the deep freezer but that is much slower and take 30 - 40 min.

it's a horizontal idea of what they've been using in liquor stores to chill shelf wine for about 10-15 years now. They would let us chill single beer cans in it as well if they weren't busy. But the can (or bottle) wouldn't move, it would create a whirlpool bath of cold water around the object to chill it in 1-2 minutes.

I wet a paper towel and I wrap it around my can or bottle and I leave it in the freezer for like 3-4min and it usually works really well.