For instance, I make myself some hot coffee and I want to turn it to iced coffee. Stirring it seems to cool it down much faster than letting the ice just sit in the coffee, however, from what I have read, stirring the ice melts the ice faster and more even though it cools it down faster. Why? Is this even correct?
Also, would the ice just sitting in the hot coffee melt roughly the same amount as the stirred once the coffees reaches the desired cold temperatures? Idk we can make one up, coffee from 160°f to 40°f, I guess. I also generally fill my coffee cup completely with ice as I’m sure the amount of ice changes this.
I hope this makes sense and I tagged the question correctly. Thank you,
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For one thing, the ice melting is the main reason the coffee is cooling off to begin with. Ice melting is called an “endothermic reaction” which basically just means that when ice melts, it absorbs heat from its surroundings, cooling them down.
Consider two scenarios, one where you just leave ice sitting in a cup of hot coffee, and another where we are stirring our ice into the hot coffee. In the first situation, the ice starts to melt and cool off the coffee *immediately surrounding* it. Once that coffee has cooled off though, it has less heat for the ice to absorb for melting. That small amount of coffee in direct contact with the ice will slowly take heat from the rest of the drink in the mug and deliver it to the ice, but it will take a bit. However, if we stir our coffee, we’re constantly averaging out the temperature across our entire drink, keeping hotter coffee in contact with the ice constantly. This means the ice can melt faster and therefore the drink overall can cool at a faster temperature.
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