You’ve probably wrapped a can in a wet paper towel and shoved it in the freezer at some point, fully convinced it would chill in half the time. It’s all over social media as the ultimate summer hack. Bad news, though: a couple of physicists actually timed it with a stopwatch, and the wet towel barely does anything. The real way to chill a drink fast isn’t about soaking anything, it’s about putting it exactly where the cold air is blowing.
How to chill a drink fast
- Open the freezer and find the vent or grille where the cold air actually comes out (usually on the back wall or ceiling of the compartment, and in “no frost” fridges there’s sometimes a visible fan).
- Put the can or bottle as close to that air outlet as you can, not buried behind the bag of frozen peas.
- If you can, flip the drink every 3-4 minutes so the cold air hits the whole surface, not just one side.
- Wait 10 to 15 minutes. If you’re truly desperate, you can still add the classic wet paper towel as a small extra boost, but don’t expect it to work miracles on its own.
- Set a timer: a can forgotten for more than 45-60 minutes in the coldest spot of the freezer can actually freeze solid and burst.
Why it works (and why the wet towel isn’t the hero you thought it was)
In 2023, physicists David Butts and Michael Murillo, from Michigan State University, put the myth to the test under controlled conditions. They compared cans wrapped in wet paper towels against cans placed near the freezer’s fan, and against cans left to fend for themselves in a spot with no airflow. The result was unambiguous: the wet towel cut cooling time by only about 23%, while placing the drink directly in the path of moving air cut it by 60% to 70%.
The physics comes down to how heat actually moves. The wet towel does cool things a little through evaporation, since water needs to “steal” heat from the can to turn from liquid into vapor, but that effect is modest compared to what’s called air advection: the constant movement of cold air that carries heat away from the can’s surface far faster than still air does. It’s basically the same reason a cold, windy day feels much colder than a still one even at the exact same temperature, because moving air keeps replacing the thin layer of air touching your skin, or the can, instead of letting it form a sort of thermal “cushion” that slows heat loss down.
In other words, if your freezer has zero airflow anywhere, think old-school manual-defrost models with no fan, the wet towel probably does make a bigger relative difference, simply because it has nothing to compete with. But in most modern freezers with an internal fan, hunting down the breeziest spot is still the fastest way to chill a drink.
The study, posted as a preprint and later picked up by several food-focused outlets, doesn’t just embarrass the paper towel. It also kills the idea that “anywhere in the freezer” works equally well. Position matters, a lot. You can read a fuller breakdown of the experiment and its numbers in this write-up from The Daily Meal.
So next time you need to chill a drink and surprise guests show up with your fridge empty, skip the soggy paper towel and spend those ten seconds finding the spot in your freezer where the air is actually moving. Your beer, or your soda, no judgment here, will thank you a lot sooner. And while the freezer door is open, if you’ve ever wondered about other cold-storage myths, we also debunked the jeans-in-the-freezer trick.