by Darryl Miles

Created on: August 25, 2009

Have you ever found a beer that somehow didn't get put in the fridge and wished it was cold enough to drink now? There is one way to get that bad boy down to pop sickle temperatures in under a minute. You will require one basic tool that you should have laying around your house anyway, a fire extinguisher.

Some people will say that using your fire extinguisher is to cool down a beer is stupid and irresponsible. They are probably right, but fortunately there are some loop holes. Check your extinguisher, if it isn't pressurized high enough or if it is past its re-inspection date then you need to take it in anyway. Many fire departments will refill your extinguisher for free and get it back to perfect operating levels. Wow, a hot beer may have just saved your life.

So now for the procedure; it couldn't be more simple. Put the beer on the ground somewhere that you don't ming getting messy and that won't be damaged by getting cold. Next shoot the beer with the fire extinguiser. It will make a noise on it's own, but making one yourself adds to the fun. See told you it was simple.

You may be wondering how this gets a beer cold. This stuff puts out fires, it lowers temperatures for a living. The actual process it fairly interesting though. Inside a fire extinguisher is compressed gas, along with other stuff like fire squelching chemicals. Gases follow the Ideal Gas Law. That's basically a fancy sounding term for the way gases act. It is summed up in the formula PV=NRT. You don't need to know what most of these stand for but the P is for pressure and the T is for temperature. This equation is always in equilibrium so if something happens to one side something has to happen on the other side to counter act it.

When you fire the extinguisher the gas escapes and drops in pressure dramatically. The N and the R are unimpressed and stay the same. This leaves temperature to carry the full burden of the equation and drop a whole bunch to off set the pressure. It's the same thing that happens when you puncher a CO2 cartridge. This super nerdy stuff just means super cold gas will come out and get your beer icey pronto. So check your fire extinguisher, cool down a beer, then head to your local fire station.

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