Crazy Idea

I was thinking of a way to chill my wort even quicker so can anyone think of any issues or problems that would arise from just dropping a small block of dry ice into the wort?

I dont think I would have to worry about saitizing it but the only problem that I could think of is this may cause too much co2 in the wort and from what I understand the more co2 in the wort the harder the yeast has to work. So if I were to use the dry ice but the aerate the hell out of the wort would this push the co2 out of solution or does co2 make a stonger bond than o2 would? Or can anyone else think of any issues that it may cause?

I dont think I'd do that just because dry ice is frozen Co2. I oxygenate with pure O2 and want to give my yeast the best possible enviroment for the given strain. I say run an experiment brew up a batch and put dry ice in one half and none in the other. Ferment with the same yeast under the same conditions and see how it turns out. Then post your results of course

Get a wort chiller...no sanitation problems, quicker and it won't water down the wort. You can use frozen plastic bottles because you can sanitize them and it won't melt into your wort, but it still takes longer than a immersion wort chiller.

The small surface area of the dry ice will make for slow cooling.
Tossing dry ice into boiling wort will probably result in flying wort.
I wouldn't worry about CO2 in the wort though. Most of the gas will bubble out.

I'm with David dropping something that cold into near boiling wort, it just sounds dangerous. Plus unless you have access to DRY ICE for free it's gonna be cost prohibitive.

Well I do have a chiller and even with that I cant get it below 80F and it usually take about 30 minutes just to get it to there lately with the hot weather and warm ground water. I could go with the recirulating pump for ice water but I really dont want to put the money out for that right now.

I was thinking of putting in the dry ice when it was around 80-90F just to get it to pitching temps. I guess I could just use sanitized frozen bottles like knarfks said.

BTW I can get dry ice about a mile from my house for 1.99/lb and I didnt think it would take much more than 1 or 2 pounds.

At my house, using my Counterflow Chiller, I can chill my boiling wort to 65 degrees in about 10 minutes. That's not even cold well water.

You know, this might be a cool experiment for you to undertake. Get a pound of the dry ice, and put it in a pan of boiling water. Of course take safety precautions and whatnot. After that, maybe try some boiling wort.

If nobody's ever done it, it might be worth trying?

I don't think it would taste good. Dry Ice leaves an oil like residue in my cooler.

I think I will give this a try! I'll let you know the results... I'll try it with water first just to see if it works then ill try it in wort... probably wont be til next weekend though.