Using laser light to cool chillers

So by adding energy to the system they can cause the system to lose even more energy? Interesting. It will be odd that the florescent light being emitted might mean the light doesn't go off when you close the door.

Could this be the genesis of a chilling "microwave"? It would be the engineering achievement of the century to be able to place a room temp beer in a box, push a button, and have 34 degree beverage in 45 seconds.

There are specialty wine chillers that do this. The link is to a commercial device, but I've seen industrial machines in large wine shops that can drop a bottle 30 degrees F in under two minutes. I imagine you could use the commercial chiller profiled above for beer.

Another variant of the electronic chiller that are proliferating in cars and on desktops. 30 degree drop from ambient is the physical limit of these devices, so room temp ambient will result in 40 degree beer. For us low-brow aficionados of the golden nectar of the gods, that's no where near the "ice cold brink of crystals" that is beer perfection.

Actually, chillers can drop a bottle to below freezing, but there's no practical purpose for it (unless you want to hide the fact that you've purchased a very poor quality wine). I just used 30 degrees F in two minutes as a benchmark.

MythBusters had a special on beer cooling (Episode 29: Cooling a Six-Pack for those who care). They found that a fire extinguisher worked the fastest. For more "real world" application they said that the real winner was a salt and Ice water bath.

Hmm, may be on to something here. How many beers can be chilled with a CO2 container the size of a Raid can? I'm thinking a 12oz paintball tank with a quick connector hose and valve to a cooling chamber. If I can chill a case of cans with a $5 CO2 fill, we could be in business.

Or you could just buy cold beer from the supermarket.