The Freezing Hack For Easily Adding Beer To Any Dish

Beer is a tasty and versatile ingredient when it comes to cooking, but incorporating it into recipes is a little easier said than done. For example, the small amount of beer called for in a recipe might not warrant opening a whole bottle if you're not in the mood for an alcoholic beverage. In this case, a simple ice tray is just the thing you need to freeze the perfect serving of beer. Simply fill each compartment with a slug of your favorite brew and place it in the freezer. When the time comes, you can take as many cubes as you need and add them to whatever you're cooking.

Beer is a wonderful addition to all sorts of recipes. It can imbue batter for fish or chicken with a rich, savory taste, while it adds a bit of brightness and acidity to soups and stews. Darker beers can even be used to enhance baked goods featuring decadent chocolate. You might be wondering why you can't just toss a few bottles or cans into the freezer to preserve beer for your recipes, and the reason is rather explosive.

Storing beer in your freezer could leave you saddled with a huge mess and no brews to use in your cooking. The water in beer will swell as it freezes, which is a major risk with cans. Because the expanding water will have nowhere to go, it's likely to bust through the metal and leak all over the freezer. Bottles experience the same issue, which means that the lid could potentially pop off or the glass could shatter.

Adding brews to ice cube trays is clearly the better option, as you won't need to worry about busted cans and broken glass and lids. The only potential downside is that freezing beer causes it to lose its bubbles, which will pose an issue with certain recipes. For instance, the carbonation in beer is key to making airy beer bread, so you may want to use a fresh can or bottle in place of frozen for those recipes. Otherwise, you can easily make beer cubes in your freezer with just a few simple steps.

When beer has an alcohol by volume percentage somewhere between 4% and 6%, it will most likely freeze at 28 degrees Fahrenheit. Fortunately, most home freezers are set to 0 degrees Fahrenheit, which means you should have no issue creating your beer cubes.

When choosing an ice cube tray to store your beer, keep in mind that most standard trays hold between ½ and 1 fluid ounce, so you may want to get a couple if you plan on making an abundance of cubes. You can also try making larger square beer cubes that hold four times the volume. When pouring, slow and steady is your best bet. If you slosh the beer into the trays too quickly, the cubes could foam up. Once they're filled evenly, it will take about six hours for them to fully freeze before you can remove them. You can also leave the cubes in the freezer overnight, but consider covering them if you plan on keeping them in there for an extended period so that they're less exposed to air and any circulating odors. With these tips, you can enjoy easy access to beer to boost your cooking.