Icy Beer: Newsletter Challenge (08/15/06)

That adding the lime diluted the beer enough to raise the freeze point?

Normally, the alcohol will suppress the freeze point. If the lime is added, I would bet there is a chemical reaction that consumes some of the alcohol and raises the freeze point of the beer.

Good beer should be served at 55 degrees or thereabouts. That is unless it is tasteless cheap beer, then freezing it is the only recourse! ;-)

Here in America, ideal serving temperature is closer to 30 deg f. Ah, I think I could use a COLD one now.

True, but that is an act of self defence because American Beer does not taste very good. :-)

I am forced to brew my own beer, American beer doesn't have any taste at all, it is like piss water, sadly I am American so my beer is American, but it has a more Irish taste, and more like an Ale than a beer. Naturally I drink it room temp. I am actually working a recipe right now using Irish Seaweed, it is rough now but it is promising. I am having perfect alcohol content but lacking in carbination, or perfect carbination, and lacking in alcohol content. Soon enough it will good...

Since beer is obviously a much more interesting subject for cerebral cogitation that the introduction of lime juice to the same, I should point out that beer should be consumed at a temperature that is close to the brewing temperature. That is why european brews are served warmer than most US product.

The recommended serving temperature of draught Guinness is 42-44 degrees. We kept the cooler in the bar I worked in at about 40 allowing the beer to warm a little as it made it's way from the basement to the taps. Remember there is no ideal temperature for beer like there is no ideal amount of time a toaster should toast bread. It's all in the individuals taste, be that toast with lime or ale with a warm coconut.

My guess is beer was supercooled. The particles of lime pulp in the juice provided a convenient nucleation site for the formation of ice crystals.

Since it says "ice crystals form and work their way down through the beer" it implies the ice formed on something heavier than the beer (like fruit pulp), whereas if it were water ice alone it should float.

The larger question is why would anyone of sane taste add lime to their beer?

The larger question is why would anyone of sane taste add lime to their beer? For some reason people here in midwest usa are adding lime to tecate beer. I've seen it served in taverns this way even! To me it tastes disgusting and ruins a barely passable beer.

Because the common Mexican beers (Corona, Tecate, Dos Equis) taste like urine.

There are many good Mexican beers, Negro Modelo is wonderful. I don't know why people don't drink a better beer, instead of flavoring a bad beer.

whoa a good cold Mexican brewski with Lime does taste good on a hot summer day. Perhaps your taster has gone snobbish.

Crikey. Just throw away the beer and drink Vodka. Why mess around. Drink to get Drunk. Remember it's better to burn out than to fade away.

Lime juice (ascorbic acid) is added to neutralize higher levels of sulfur that is in mexican beers. This is more or less the same rationale for using lime and salt with tequila...

Probably only someone who has never enjoyed, or heard of, a Sidecar?

Alcohol is a source of hydroxide and a lime is a source of citric acid. Both chemical soon formed a kind of salt. We already know that salt tend to raise freeze point (mean higher freezing temperature). It means that the beer temperature (after lime dilution) becoming lower than freezing point. No other choice for the beer then, except being formed as an ice - being solid is much better :)

Take a look on this website: http://www.myhomebrew.com/chemicals.htm

Two possible reasons: 1) The beer would instantly form bubbles since the new substance (lime juice) gives it nucleation points. The expansion of gas (which happens quickly) will lower the local temperature enough to go below the freezing point. (these particles would melt right after though, since it is a local phenomena). This does not satisfy the particles "working their way down through the beer"

2) The freezing tempurature of beer is lower than the lime juice (mainly due to carbonation). This means that it has to be even colder for beer to freeze (just to be clear).

The lime juice will freeze before it has a chance to mix with the beer, and once it is solid it will be in equilibrium - the solid ice particles cannot mix with the beer, and it is too cold for the particles to melt, but too warm for the beer to freeze. The puzzling part is why the particles would "work their way down through the beer". firstly, the bubbles would carry them to the top (look up floatation). Also Lime juice and beer are mainly water, and when they freeze the crystal structure formed is less dense than the liquid. (same reason ice floats).

By the way, salt would lower the freezing tempurature (not raise it) so it would have to be colder for it to freeze again. (the reason we salt the roads in the winter)

The only other explanation is that weird things happen when you mix things that should not be mixed. Frank Forte frank@bandmaking.com

I would guess that the beer was below freezing point, i.e., super-cooled. Any form of internal disturbance might then trigger a phase transition form liquid to ice.

You are right! Usually opening it will do the trick.

Dido. This is the solution. and you mostly see this phase transition when you disturb the liquid as you open it.

I need to know if the beer freezes solid. If so we have a problem, and need to find another beer. If not then who cares. Drink the beer and let someone who's sober figure out why it froze.

Well in England, I drink ale. Ale is best served at body temperature. 36ºC.

Ahhhhhhhhhh.

Last time I checked body temp was 37 deg. C, but for ale I completly concure.

Yes it does. I just did it this weekend, by forgetting a beer in the freezer until a few hours later. (don't ask why, it's a long boring tale.) Also, in my misbegotten youth in North Dakota as an under-age drinker, we would hid beer outside in odd places. It is not uncommon for winter temps to reach -40 (C or F), so often we would spend time trying to warm up our beverages to drinking temperature!

Well, I know that given enough time at a low enough temperature, anything will freeze. I was just curious about whether the ice crystal effect in the challenge scenario had caused the beer to freeze solid. By the way. In your misspent youth,did you ever have problems with bottles breaking when the beer froze?

We usually had AL cans, and yes the cans would swell and distort when frozen. I do not recall any glass bottles breaking though. (but it has been a lot of years, fog of war, etc.)

In college I put a beer in the freezer to cool it down and promptly forgot about it. Later on I was in bed with my gf and I heard the roommates coming home. Then about 20 minutes later I heard an explosion and a smell akin to toast drifted through the house. One of my roomies had taken the beer and put it in the oven to thaw it out, except he had fallen asleep on the sofa. Aaaah college days, when we didn't have to sign waivers for everthing we did.

No if it was still liquid when you opened it. It usually forms a slush that melts quickly. Kind of like putting it in a frozen mug and having it form ice. If it is cold enough to to be partly frozen before opening, when opened it will spray out and then foam up. Hey the unfrozen spray is a lot stronger kind of like appple jack. When it is over 100 f all drinks need to be cold and how are you supposed to get your vitamin c if you don't have a little lime? It is really an extra slice for the tequila shot that goes with the beer.

Come & live in Australia, ALL our beer is good, the only thing you need to do to it is pour it down your throat nice & cold !!

Love those Foster's TV commercials here in the US!

My favorite is the one where the announcer says something about an Australian "finding the perfect house", with a tight shot of a nice quaint cottage. Then the camera pulls back to a wider shot which reveals the cottage is right next door to a pub with several "Foster's" signs hanging outside or in the windows.

"Foster's.....Australian for BEER!"

My only taste of beer was yuk, I suggest you savor a good ol' LIMEade or Lemonade. You keep your wits about you and enjoy it fully and cognisantly to the very last drop.

Though a great commercial, and all Fosters are, no beer commercials will ever be better than Samuel Adams, there is more info about the beer which reasures me the beer is going to have a consistant taste. plus when you watch them George Thorogood & the Destroyers comes on, no better combination than beer and music.

Sam Adams commercials aren't bad, but *nothing* beats the old Rainier Beer commercials.

1. Imagine a sunset over a lake, calm, peaceful. Ah, the great outdoors. Softly, a bullfrog begins to croak, then another. Imagine the croaks sounding like "Rainier". Then, a bird joins in. But it's cry sounds like "Beer" (fading down in pitch). Soon there is a chorus of frogs and birds giving the logo.

2. Imagine a road out in the country. The camera is looking at a curve in the road. You hear a motorcycle coming towards you. As it revs up the sound is "Rrrraaaaaaaaaaa" "nnnneeeeeeeaaaaaar" "Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer". The camera follows the motorcycle as it heads off down the road, with a half case of Rainier on the back, and heading directly towards Mt. Rainier.

There was a series of these kind of understated, yet effective, commercials in the 70's & '80s.

The freezing point of lime juice is above that of the beer which is an alchohol. Therefore, Lime juice having more water content immediately freezes at around 4 deg C and below. The expansion of frozen water (also known as anomolous expansion), would appear as ice crystals. The density of ice being higher than that of alchohol the crystals sink.

This is what might happen with water - the concentration of impurities in the beer (alcohol, sugars, etc.) being reduced by the addition of water, which raises the freezing point. beer freezes. But ice still floats in beer (typically only 4% alcohol, and surely no-one chills strong ales that far). The only reason the ice might gradually form lower down would be that the additional water diffuses down the bottle. What about lime juice then - the following is pure guesswork: citric acid is 'freely soluble' in alcohol; at low temperature it may be expected to form a complex with the alcohol, so that it separates from the water - the purer water freezes. I suppose that the reason for the slow development of the crystals further down is that the lime juice is only added slowly, so the effect propagates through a combination of diffusion of the lime juice and residual unfrozen water.

lime has nothing to do with it. Beer is bottled under pressure. So, PV=nRT, V remains constant, T decreses in freezer so P has to follow but still greater than atmospheric pressure. When you open it, P decreases to atmospheric and therfore T has to follow therby freezing the liquid

i can't help myself... beer is not an ideal gas! (Professor Scott would be proud)

Well now you all are close but, since the beer is already at ~ freezing point, the introduction of a tubular fiber fruit, "which is at room temperature", this is the key factor to the crystals forming down into the beer, the fluids are rapidly being frozen as their weight is being propelled by capulary action of the tubular fibrous lime pulp. Thus, ice crystals are forming from the rapid freezing. Thermal dynamics in heat transfer at its best.

No sane man would put lime juice into a beer, unless about to serve that beer to his wife..... I prefer Guinness (40 deg F),Guinness doesn't need "Lime Juice"

Billy Kilmer doesn't care.

Beer is a solution of solids (e.g. sugars, starch, etc...) and gas: carbon dioxide. The gas reduces the freezing point of the solution just like salt would. In addition, the internal pressure reduces the freezing point because water EXPANDS when it freezes. Remember the Levoisier effect from college chemistry? So, when you open a very chilled BOTTLE of beer, the pressure does down, the CO2 come out of solution, and the freezing point goes UP. Water freezes. It freezes whether you add lime or not. The beer does not tend to freeze solid since the water give up its heat of solidification to the remaining liquid, although it could happen if it gets cold enough...

I think I shall drink several (without lime)... then I will consider whether, in the greater scheme of things, the lime precipitates the freezing, or the beer just freezes from revulsion... Prosit!