Fastest Way to Cool a Hot Pot of Soup

[arkie87]

Was wondering if anyone had any particularly good methods (besides putting it in a bigger pot of ice) of cooling hot pots of soup so they can be put in the fridge without spoiling everything inside.

The way i see it, the pot has a lot of thermal mass, and once the top layer of liquid cools, the steaming stops, so the heat is trapped in. Today, i had the idea to put wet paper towels on the sides of the pot. The hot pot quickly dries the towels, which essentially, allows the pot to continue to steam.

What do you guys think?

P.S. I've also found an idea for filling a glass bottle with water and sticking in the freezer. The glass bottle can then be placed into the soup to cool the internal part rapidly.

[stibbons]

Stirring it will circulate what's exposed to the top as well. Taken to extremes, if you have another pot you can pour it from one to the other a few times to maximise the surface area and help conductive cooling.

[arkie87]

Stirring it will circulate what's exposed to the top as well. Taken to extremes, if you have another pot you can pour it from one to the other a few times to maximise the surface area and help conductive cooling.

True, perhaps i should have specified: i am looking for passive ways. I am lazy and dont want to have to sit there doing anything

[KSK]

It's just going back to your first idea but a cold water bath (using the kitchen sink) is the way I normally do it.

[ChrisSpace]

Liquid Helium.

[peadar1987]

Was wondering if anyone had any particularly good methods (besides putting it in a bigger pot of ice) of cooling hot pots of soup so they can be put in the fridge without spoiling everything inside.

The way i see it, the pot has a lot of thermal mass, and once the top layer of liquid cools, the steaming stops, so the heat is trapped in. Today, i had the idea to put wet paper towels on the sides of the pot. The hot pot quickly dries the towels, which essentially, allows the pot to continue to steam.

What do you guys think?

P.S. I've also found an idea for filling a glass bottle with water and sticking in the freezer. The glass bottle can then be placed into the soup to cool the internal part rapidly.

Are you making and blending it yourself?

What I do then is just have it very thick when I blend it (by adding less water than the recipe requires), so it's almost a purée instead of a soup. Then after it's blended, I add cold water to bring it to the right consistency, which means it's pretty much ready to go in the fridge straight away.

[magnemoe]

It's just going back to your first idea but a cold water bath (using the kitchen sink) is the way I normally do it.

Yes this is obviously the best unless its cold outside and you can just put it outside.

[lajoswinkler]

Fill the sink with tap water, immerse the pot, wait. Be sure to put a lit on the pot. You don't want germs to fall in.

Liquid Helium.

Liquid helium has pathetic heat capacity compared to water, so no.

[Nuke]

i think most cooks opt for the ice chest method. like if you are going to make a large pot of stock. its very easy for stock to go bad on you so its very important to cool it off as fast as possible and get it into the fridge (even then it only keeps a few days).

one trick i use is to stick the pot in the sink and run cold water around it. i have one of those gimbal nozzels on my sink and i can usually make the water circulate around the pan. i tweak the flow rate so it the water level remains constant. it uses a lot of water though.

you can also get some copper tubing and make an immersible coil hook one end to a pump, fill a sink full of ice water and circulate that through the coil. the coil will draw heat out of the soup and transfer it to the sink, thus cooling it. pretty much a diy heat exchanger.

[PB666]

Was wondering if anyone had any particularly good methods (besides putting it in a bigger pot of ice) of cooling hot pots of soup so they can be put in the fridge without spoiling everything inside.

The way i see it, the pot has a lot of thermal mass, and once the top layer of liquid cools, the steaming stops, so the heat is trapped in. Today, i had the idea to put wet paper towels on the sides of the pot. The hot pot quickly dries the towels, which essentially, allows the pot to continue to steam.

What do you guys think?

P.S. I've also found an idea for filling a glass bottle with water and sticking in the freezer. The glass bottle can then be placed into the soup to cool the internal part rapidly.

Really?

Allow the pot to cool in a gamma irradiator 3.3, no problem. http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/food/irradiation/irradiation-facts/how-do-irradiators-work/

Take several strong black lights and place it in the fridge with the pot before the pot cools.

Take a 0.25 micron filter and wrap the lid pot interface sealing any holes or gaps.

What do you call a prfoundly high tech solution that is overkill for a commonly solved household problem, like using a hydrogen bomb to kill a housefly?

We could create a fantastic cryogenic cooler that radiates heat at 5000 meters elevation, over a 100 sq mile area, and a giant vacuum pump that compresses the air to 500 PSI and then cools it to -50K. Then you could store the air in a giant under ground container extracting any moistue from it, in about a 1000 years you would have removed enough of eaths atmoshere that microbes could no longer live. Those pesky oceans would have to be cryogenically frozen, of course, so you would need a million mile wide disk at ESL1, and it would take some time for the radiant heat inside the earth to dissipate.

Or, you could use common sense, put it in a tupperware or microwavable plastic container with a snap lid and microwave it until the lid swells a little, then refridgerate it, sterile for about three weeks.

[Kaos]

...

Liquid helium has pathetic heat capacity compared to water, so no.

But the liquid helium boils off, so you have spilled the soup in no way.

I would prefer liquid nitrogen, as it has similar properties for this application but is way cheaper.

[peadar1987]

I like all of the super-technological solutions, but if you're spending that much money anyway, it would be cheaper just to buy a separate soup-fridge, with nothing else in it to go off once you put hot soup in there!

[RainDreamer]

Pour it out on a big pan. Extra surface for cooling.

[lajoswinkler]

But the liquid helium boils off, so you have spilled the soup in no way.

I would prefer liquid nitrogen, as it has similar properties for this application but is way cheaper.

And how does the water filled sink spill the soup?

All cryogenic liquids have pathetic heat capacity. You'd need an enormous amount of liquid nitrogen to cool a pot of hot water, which soup basically is.

Just use cold water from the faucet like regular people. LOL

[SuperFastJellyfish]

Nuke mentioned this already, but something like this is what I use when I brew beer(I made my own). They hook up to the kitchen faucet. This works much faster than the ice bath method, but you do have to put the coils directly into the soup.

[vixr]

Just place it near my ex-wife's heart...

[AngelLestat]

Ok, there are a lot of pointless high tech answers..

Peadar has a good one, I use it each morning with my Tea, half of hot water, then once the tea is dissolve, I add cold water.

But if your soup is not instant soup, you need to use a different trick.

1- Use a metal bowl, not ceramic or plastic which are good insulators.

2- Put the bowl on water.

Another old trick is to have two bowl or containers, you drop the soup to one bowl, then from that bowl to the first, you repeat that process 5 or 7 times, and your soup is already cold.

Edited September 4, 2015 by AngelLestat

[arkie87]

All cryogenic liquids have pathetic heat capacity. You'd need an enormous amount of liquid nitrogen to cool a pot of hot water, which soup basically is.

Just use cold water from the faucet like regular people. LOL

What about latent heat?

- - - Updated - - -

Nuke mentioned this already, but something like this is what I use when I brew beer(I made my own). They hook up to the kitchen faucet. This works much faster than the ice bath method, but you do have to put the coils directly into the soup.

This wastes water and costs extra money. I am looking for a free solution, that doesnt make more dirty dishes.

- - - Updated - - -

2- Put the bowl on water.

Another old trick is to have two bowl or containers, you drop the soup to one bowl, then from that bowl to the first, you repeat that process 5 or 7 times, and your soup is already cold.

This does work, but makes two dirty dishes. I'm not convinced the second idea would work though... maybe i need to try it...

- - - Updated - - -

Pour it out on a big pan. Extra surface for cooling.

creates more dirty dishes

- - - Updated - - -

Really?

Allow the pot to cool in a gamma irradiator 3.3, no problem. http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/food/irradiation/irradiation-facts/how-do-irradiators-work/

Take several strong black lights and place it in the fridge with the pot before the pot cools.

Take a 0.25 micron filter and wrap the lid pot interface sealing any holes or gaps.

What do you call a prfoundly high tech solution that is overkill for a commonly solved household problem, like using a hydrogen bomb to kill a housefly?

We could create a fantastic cryogenic cooler that radiates heat at 5000 meters elevation, over a 100 sq mile area, and a giant vacuum pump that compresses the air to 500 PSI and then cools it to -50K. Then you could store the air in a giant under ground container extracting any moistue from it, in about a 1000 years you would have removed enough of eaths atmoshere that microbes could no longer live. Those pesky oceans would have to be cryogenically frozen, of course, so you would need a million mile wide disk at ESL1, and it would take some time for the radiant heat inside the earth to dissipate.

Or, you could use common sense, put it in a tupperware or microwavable plastic container with a snap lid and microwave it until the lid swells a little, then refridgerate it, sterile for about three weeks.

Wow.

And your actual solution misses the point and doesnt resolve the issue. If i wanted to divy up the soup into 100 tupperware containers, i would just do that.

[Kerbart]

True, perhaps i should have specified: i am looking for passive ways. I am lazy and dont want to have to sit there doing anything

In that case: read a good book. Or watch Manley videos. While it may objectively not be the fastest way, it will perceptably shorten the time considerably, and it takes the least amount of effort.

[AngelLestat]

This does work, but makes two dirty dishes. I'm not convinced the second idea would work though... maybe i need to try it...

The second idea to put the bowl in water, only works fine if the bowl is metal.. remember that.

[tater]

Dirty dishes is what a dishwasher is for. I have a huge sink, and I put cold water and ice in there, and simply move the stockpot to the sink. Wasting the ice (we have an ice maker) is actually good, because we don't use it fast enough anyway, and it evaporates and takes on flavors from the freezer if it sits, so I look at it as a fresh start on ice (a good excuse for a cocktail party).

[Sampa]

I just pour some milk into it until it reaches edible level

[PB666]

- - - Updated - - -

Wow.

And your actual solution misses the point and doesnt resolve the issue. If i wanted to divy up the soup into 100 tupperware containers, i would just do that.

uh, no, they have large containers, they remain sterile, and I have actually placed the tupperware in the ice storage of the ice maker and they will cool down in about 30 min. BTW, this is not theory, i have acute tyramine synsitivity, I cannot handle any contamination in the food. I can Make a soup sterile and cool it 30 minutes.

1. Take a whole chicken remove the skin cut off any cut points on the chicken, clean the visceral surfaces, on a sterilzed cutting board cut the pieces, remove as much visceral surface as possible. Never use precut chicken, They don't monitor bacteria on parts, this is where most of the salmonella is, and the ammonia used to sterilize can actually increase monoamines on the surface.

2. Place a limited amount of water in a small pressure cooker, sea salt, and the cut parts. lower volume means faster max pressure

3. Cook 15 at optimal pressure. Place a cold wet cloth on the lid to cool rapidly.

4. At P = STP remove the parts, place fluid in a tupperware and briefly microwave. Small puffy lid and its sterile.

5. Cool in icewater, place in the Ice makers ice storage for a few minutes, crack the lid slightly to reduce vacuum, done, sterile for months.

[tater]

What if your soup is not cream based? The Pho I made a few weeks ago would be pretty awful with milk in it

[RainDreamer]

Uh...do it like people in the old time do I guess: place the pot on the window still, or near it and let the draft cool it. If you are not going to eat it straight from the pot, then pour out your portion and cool that smaller amount first, which will get cooled faster.