Fastest Way to Cool a Hot Pot of Soup

[Dman979]

So, I gather that you're actually looking for a solution, not a high-tech science discussion, right?

And your parameters are:

1. No more dirty dishes

2. No wasting water

3. No extra money

4. Lazy method

And here is your method:

Take some clean empty disposable water bottles (or, if you will be cooling soup a lot, a Nalgene- but that costs money, and you'll need to wash it) and fill them with water. Put them in the freezer a day before you make the soup and freeze the bottles.

Make your soup.

When it is done, let it cool on its own to 140^o Fahrenheit.

While the soup is cooling, tie the bottles together with a piece of clean string.

Once the soup is at 140^o, drop the bottles in the soup. Make sure a length of string stays out of the pot!

Stir the soup occasionally: once every few minutes or so.

Once you have it to ~40^o, remove the bottles and throw them in the trash. If you're using Nalgenes, wash them thoroughly and let them air dry.

Put the pot in the fridge, covered.

Your other option is to purchase an Ice Wand, used in commercial kitchens to cool food quickly. However, that costs money.

[magnemoe]

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 has pathetic heat capacity compared to water, so no.

You could freeze down some heavy metal object, think cooking stone but for cooling, unlike cryogenic gas it has huge heat capacity and is not consumed.

Yes has the same problem as liquid nitrogen in that it is likely to freeze the soup close to the metal.

[sal_vager]

Just a note, a glass bottle can shatter when the ice expands, even if the lid is left off, it can also shatter when plunged into hot soup.

Plastic bottles are safer, but you have to have them ready ahead of time and some can taint foods when heated.

Think, you need to conduct that heat out of the soup, so put things into the soup that conduct heat and can conduct and radiate that heat to the surrounding air.

You already have drawers full of highly conductive and shatter-proof metal cutlery, these are already food-safe, easily cleaned and you likely already used some when preparing the soup.

Stick them in and leave the handles poking out over the lip of the pot, the larger the cutlery the better, or use more items to increase the conductive area.

They will become hot to the touch, when the cutlery has cooled off you're soup will have as well.

Edit:

I should have googled earlier, this looks to be a pretty good guide.

You would really need to put in the effort and stir the food to make sure it cools down fast enough before putting it in the freezer.

Edited September 4, 2015 by sal_vager

[Dman979]

Just a note, a glass bottle can shatter when the ice expands, even if the lid is left off, it can also shatter when plunged into hot soup.

Plastic bottles are safer, but you have to have them ready ahead of time and some can taint foods when heated.

Think, you need to conduct that heat out of the soup, so put things into the soup that conduct heat and can conduct and radiate that heat to the surrounding air.

You already have drawers full of highly conductive and shatter-proof metal cutlery, these are already food-safe, easily cleaned and you likely already used some when preparing the soup.

Stick them in and leave the handles poking out over the lip of the pot, the larger the cutlery the better, or use more items to increase the conductive area.

They will become hot to the touch, when the cutlery has cooled off you're soup will have as well.

I agree, plastic bottles can be dangerous when heated. Nalgenes, less so, and the Ice Wand is probably very safe, considering that commercial kitchens use it.

I'm not so sure it's about conducting heat out as it is about lowering the average energy of the soup. Just like how you can combine Skim and Whole milk to make 1%, you can combine cold and hot to make cool. It just depends on what your start temps are.

If you let the soup cool to 140, bacteria only start growing rapidly below there. So the point is to get it through the 100 degree "danger zone" as quickly as possible, not to cool it to 40 degrees as fast as possible. This lower starting point is similar to using less Whole milk, and the same amount of Skim.

You can speed it up even more by using more Skim and less Whole milk (more cold, less hot). Since we already have less hot, we need more cold. That's why ice in a container is good: it won't dilute the soup, but it will also absorb a lot of heat for a small amount of ice.

[Pixel of Life]

Just put the lid on (if you have one, otherwise cover it with plastic wrap so bugs can't get in) and leave it outside for a few hours.

[PB666]

Just put the lid on (if you have one, otherwise cover it with plastic wrap so bugs can't get in) and leave it outside for a few hours.

He wanted fast. If you want cool use a gamma irradiator in a plastic container, it would not heat the food significantly.

[0111narwhalz]

...use a gamma irradiator in a plastic container, it would not heat the food significantly.

But then your food would taste and feel raw. Irradiation doesn't denature proteins and do the other things that cooking does, I don't think. And some foods are very different between cooked and raw. Cooking isn't just sterilisation.

[PB666]

You can't have your cake and eat it also. the new rule was to keep it sterile witgout having to waste the effort to cool it.

The setting is 3.3 millirad/sec for more than 3 minutes. Lifeless. Cold.

[gamowin]

Hmm, if you poked holes in the bottom or used a similar filter or something you could transfer it from your current pot to a new one, but in many individual droplets, each of which would have a lot more surface area to cool in the air.