Cooling wort with ice?
 

Just wondering, since I don't have my wort chiller nearby, if it's recommended to add 2 gallons' worth of ice to 3 gallons of hot wort to bring it down fast? If I would be adding tap water anyway...

Thanks.

It's come up a time or two here. A couple of times in the past I've frozen gallon jugs of bottled water, sanitized the outside (Star San) and then cut away the plastic and added to the hot wort (in the brewpot). I didn't have any problem, but it probably adds a risk. I use a chiller now.

Rick

Could be dangerous, lord knows what's inside the ice.

Better option for that ice: make a water bath. Fill your sink halfway with water, then put your pot in, add ice in the water around the pot. Stir frequently and add more ice to cool in about 20/25 minutes. I just buy the small bag from my local 7-11 for like $1.50

That's what I do.... I pick up 2 bags of ice on brew day. I usually do 2 change overs of ice and water, and can get 4.5 gallons down in about 40 minutes...and 3 to 3.5 gallons down in a half hour.

On the food networks show GOOD EATS Alton makes beer from extract....boils 3 gallons.......has one 8 lb bag of ice in the primary plus one refrigerated gallon of water and adds the hot wort on top of it.

i just use an ice bath and with a 2 gallon boil got it down to 80 degree within 15 min then added more cool water and it came to 62 degrees

Yeah and he made a few other mistakes in that episode as well:D

Here's some thorough deconstructions of those episodes....Here's a couple from teh googlze.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/alton-brown-homebrew-you-tube-46677/

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/couple-questions-about-alton-browns-brewing-show-27212/

Alton is awesome I will hear nothing of this bashing........dang it


ok ...so he did make a lot of mistakes, and maybe his beer wasn't actually "good eats" but I still love the man. Not in the gay sense either (pervs) like a man loves a fine cigar......or a good brew :-)

It works fantastically if you make your own ice from boiled or bottled water - just be extra careful to sanitize everything. I wouldn't use store-bought ice or in-fridge ice makers for this. What I do is use a couple of ice baths to quickly drop the temperature into the mid-100s, then I add my blocks of ice to take it the rest of the way down into the low 70s.
This is a great option for places where wort chillers don't work well because of high groundwater temperatures.

Supermarket ice is all R/O. Fine for this application.