[masraum]

Originally Posted by Steve Carlton

I’m sticking with my answer, but honestly don’t know. It’s an interesting question, and I don’t think I could have answered it when I studied thermodynamics many years ago in one class.

Your numbers say to me that the ice absorbs a lot of heat in changing phases, which means it’s keeping the water near 32 degrees. The water, in turn, can absorb more heat from the beer, since it’s contacting it much more completely than the ice would.

Question- do you think you’d get cold faster in a tub of chopped ice or water at/near 32 degrees with plenty of ice to keep it from warming up? (Or like the ocean where the Titanic sank).

It would be interesting if this has been evaluated scientifically.

I suspect it's got to do with the mass of the water and the ice and the ration between the two as well as the mass and temp of the stuff in the cooler.

my feeling is

If the cooler has more water than ice, then definitely ditch the water and fill with ice.

If the cooler is mostly full of ice, but with a little water, then don't worry about the water.

I guess it might also depend upon what your goal is. Are you putting a bunch of warm beer in the cooler to get cold? Or have you had a cooler full of beer and ice sitting around cold and a lot of the ice has melted?

Yes, phase changes take TONS of heat compared to just temp changes within the same phase.

Yeah, I remember a little of my thermodynamics class, but not enough for this sort of thing.