strange wort cooling

I stopped by a friends house tonight while he was in the middle of a homebrew batch. He left a little starsan in the fermenter after sterilizing. He then added a large bag of commercial ice to the fermenter, sloshed it around, and added a gallon of drinking water. When the wort finished boiling he just dumped it in the fermenter with the ice-water. The wort cooled almost immediately. Minutes later he topped it off and pitched the yeast. I was amazed...I never heard of anyone doing this before. He claims he has been doing this for years without a single infection or problem. Ever done this or heard of it?

Yes that is what I do. I buy 16# of ice which is 2 gal of water and use that to cool and top up. Obviously this method does not work for full boils, tho.

i've never heard of it happening, but they "say" that commercial ice can harbor infections and to only chill/dilute your wort with pre-boiled ice. it's a common practice though to chill wort with frozen water..

i believe that store bought ice is sterilized via gamma irradiation prior to transport. could be wrong, but I do only buy the bags that dont have gigantic tears in them.

Again, ive never had a problem yet with bacteria.

Also, i got the idea from Olde Burnside brewing co in CT, who use their ice (they are an ice company as well) to cool their wort.

I made frozen blocks of ice with bottled spring water for chilling and topping off when I used to brew extract. I never tried store bought ice, though..

mewithstewpid said:

I do only buy the bags that dont have gigantic tears in them.

Click to expand...

I have to know how you're pronouncing that word.

As for the original topic, why not? I don't do it, but mainly because I don't bother to stop at another store to get ice on the way home from the brew shop. If you're going to top off anyway, why not do it with ice and let phase change do your cooling for you?