Beer is a flavorsome and versatile ingredient for cooking, however, merging it in recipes is easier said than done. For instance, a tiny part of beer required in a recipe might not validate opening a complete bottle if you’re not desiring an alcoholic drink. In this circumstance, a simple ice tray can come in handy to freeze the ideal serving of beer. All it needs is to fill each slot with a portion of your preferred brew and put it in the freezer. Whenever needed, as many cubes can be fetched and added to your cooking.

Beer is a wonderful ingredient for different types of recipes. It provides a rich, savory taste to the batter for fish or chicken, and adds a hint of brightness and acidity to soups and stews. Dark beers can even be utilized to enhance baked goods featuring rich chocolate. You might have a question about why you can’t just put a few bottles or cans into the freezer to conserve beer for recipes, and the answer is quite explosive.

Read more: 10 Of The Healthiest Beers You Can Drink

Preserving beer in your freezer might result in a massive mess and leave you with no brews for your cooking. The water in beer expands as it freezes, posing a significant risk with cans. The ever-expanding water will have no place to escape, thus likely causing the metal to burst and spill all over the freezer. Bottles display the same problem, implying that the cap could potentially pop off or the glass could break.

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.

Read the original article on Daily Meal.