For The Love Of Port

Same technique for coolers with beers and soda; lots of salt.

I think I'd need to see this actually tested before I'll believe that the salt - in the situation described in the article - actually makes any difference.

In Moses' example, the salt makes a difference because it helps melt the ice in the cooler and create the water needed for efficient heat extraction.

But in the article's example, you're adding (cold) water to the ice bucket so there's no need to create water by melting ice. And since you're adding water, that water is already above the freezing point so lowering the freezing point doesn't actually accomplish anything. (You lower the freezing point in order to melt ice in the cooler, not to make the water colder.)

Unless you're taking the ice out of an extremely cold deep freeze, normal ice isn't actually cold enough to bring the temp of salt water down below the freezing point of pure water.

So save your salt... just use cold water and fresh ice in your ice bucket.

A typical freezer is set at 0 F, so I presume the ice I pull out of it is close to 0 F. If you add salt to the water, won't the water be closer to 0 F, as opposed to 32 F?

Eric Menchen wrote:A typical freezer is set at 0 F, so I presume the ice I pull out of it is close to 0 F. If you add salt to the water, won't the water be closer to 0 F, as opposed to 32 F?

Correct.

So that suggests to me that this will put near 0 F water against your bottle instead of 32 F water, and thus the salt will help chill it quickly.

Of course you could probably just use regular water and ice and stir constantly and be done just about as soon. Stirring has a big effect.

Eric Menchen wrote:A typical freezer is set at 0 F, so I presume the ice I pull out of it is close to 0 F. If you add salt to the water, won't the water be closer to 0 F, as opposed to 32 F?

The ice starts at 0 degrees. But the water starts at "cold" tap water temp, which isn't as cold as you might think. Well water is normally around 55 degrees, for example, which really isn't that cold. Reservoir water is warmer (or possibly colder, depending on where you live). If you use water out of your fridge it will be fridge temp, but even that is likely only 40 degrees. (And if you're caught off guard and having to chill a bottle of wine rapidly, what are the chances that you have half a gallon of pre-chilled water ready to go?) And the salt will start at room temp, though by volume it probably doesn't have that significant of an effect on the solution's temp.

At best you're going to get about a 50/50 mix of ice and water in your ice bucket. In reality you're going to have more water than ice by volume because your wine counts as water for this purpose. Which means that the best temp you can hope for is about 25-27 degrees. Yes, that's colder than 32, but not by enough to make a significant difference in the time it takes to chill a bottle of wine.