Using ice to cool wort?

Back when the Sam Adams competition was going on, they had a video that showed how to homebrew, and I watched most of it just to see if I could pick up a few tips. The only thing I learned was that he used two frozen gallons of water in the primary to cool the hot wort from the brew pot, instead of just adding the wort to cool water. I did this last night when I made my pumpkin ale, and it cooled it down almost immediately (as in < 5 minutes). I pitched the yeast, but afterwards, I thought it just seemed too easy. Is using ice this way ok?

ayrton said:

Back when the Sam Adams competition was going on, they had a video that showed how to homebrew, and I watched most of it just to see if I could pick up a few tips. The only thing I learned was that he used two frozen gallons of water in the primary to cool the hot wort from the brew pot, instead of just adding the wort to cool water. I did this last night when I made my pumpkin ale, and it cooled it down almost immediately (as in < 5 minutes). I pitched the yeast, but afterwards, I thought it just seemed too easy. Is using ice this way ok?

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yes, this is fine. There are some concerns about sanitation when using store bought ice or ice from your freezer's ice maker, but if you take clean water in a clean container and freeze it, it makes a fantastic chiller (MUCH faster than an immersion chiller for partial volume boils.)

-walker

It dropped to 70 immediately! It almost makes me want to take my wort chiller back.

ayrton said:

It dropped to 70 immediately! It almost makes me want to take my wort chiller back.

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If you ever move to AG or get a bigger pot and do full volume boils with extract you'll need that chiller. You can't 5 gallons cooled with an ice bath very fast and you can't add ice to the wort.

But, I understand your thinking. If I had not had the gift certificate to use, I wouldn't even have the chiller at this point.

yep, it's super easy and super fast.

I just freeze a gallon of store bought. I usually take it after I get my boil going to make it a little softer. Then I just cut the bottom of jug off and tap the top and middle with a hammer. Well, maybe I do a little more than tap! Anyway, I make sure not to touch the ice with my hammer, plastic only.

Sometimes it cools a little too well and I end up with a softball size (or larger) ice cube floating in my wort. This makes topping off to 5 gal a little tricky so I usually just remove the ice cube and go from there.

I brewed last weekend and I used two gallons of bottled water that I put in the freezer. They weren't completely frozen, but it cooled the wort down to pitching temp in the time it took me to ladle it from the kettle to the fermenter.

I use three 1 gallon milk jugs in the freezer. I put them in late the night before brewday. In the morning I take them out and crush the ice that has formed by smacking and squeezing the jugs. I crush the ice and shake up the jugs ever 2 hours until brewtime late in the afternoon. It keeps the ice from freezing solid. That way I can reuse the jugs.

It also helps speed things up because the ice in not a great big chunk that you have to wait to melt. I usually start the siphon from the brewpot to the fermenter and pour the ice water into the brewpot (so the ice will melt) and let it siphon over to the fermenter.

After flameout, I have a few things to do to get ready, so when I am ready to add the ice water to the wort it is @ 140 degrees. I always end up with @ 75 degree wort after adding the ice water.

140+140+32+32+32=376/5=75.2 degrees.


The one key advantage to this instant cooling is the Cold Break. You get a great cold break and the beer tends to be clearer compared to slowly cooling the wort in other ways.

Wort Cooling
Formation of Cold Break
As the clear hot wort is cooled, the previously invisible coagulum
loses its solubility and precipitates. The precipitate is referred
to as the cold break and begins forming at about 60ºC (4). The cold
break mostly consists of protein-polyphenol (tannin) complexes,
whereas the hot break is mostly proteinaceous. The cold break also
has a higher level of carbohydrates (primarily beta-glucans) than
the hot break (7). Highly modified malts yield a higher percentage
of polyphenols in cold trub than do less-modified malts, while
under-modified malts yield more protein and beta-glucans and
relatively fewer polyphenols (1).
It is essential that the cold break be precipitated as much as
possible, which is done by a very rapid cooling. The wort must be
force-cooled to below 10ºC to secure a satisfactory break, and it
precipitates best at 0 to 5ºC. Complete precipitation of
polyphenol/proteins to achieve a brilliantly clear beer is achieved
by cooling the wort until it becomes slushy. Many brewers have found
that following this procedure greatly reduces the need for
clarification. A long, slow cooling does not give a good cold break
because more protein is trapped in suspension; this gives rise to a
finer trub, chill haze, and harsh, sulfur-like aftertastes in the
beer. Coarse trub is essential for good separation and good beer
stability. In addition, a rapid cooling will minimize the
development of dimethyl sulfide (DMS), which is more likely, to form
when using lager malt. If the wort is reheated, cold trub will go
back into solution, forming a chill haze.

So a flash freeze of the wort and then a quick heating back up to pitching temps would be the ideal way to cool the wort to get a perfect cold break.

HMMM! My ******* friend might have had a genius idea with his Fast Chiller that froze his wort almost instantly. Come to think of it, that beer was sparkling clear!

Did you ever wonder what the dark trub was that sticks to the top of your Krausen and to the side of the carboy when the krausen falls? Did you think it was hops? Grain residue? No, those things fall to the bottom. It is mostly the protein ,beta-glucans, tannins and polyphenols. In other words, it is the result of the Hot and Cold Breaks.

If you do not have a pretty solid ring that is about 2 inches wide and pretty thick, then you did not boil long enough or cool the wort fast enough, and the beer will most likely be hard to clarify.

myersn024 said:

I brewed last weekend and I used two gallons of bottled water that I put in the freezer. They weren't completely frozen, but it cooled the wort down to pitching temp in the time it took me to ladle it from the kettle to the fermenter.

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Is there a difference between ladling and just pouring? Seems like you'll super chill the the volume that you ladle until the ice melts, but then the remaining would get less of a rapid chill. Also, during the time it takes to ladle, some of the ice is lost to ambient heat. Pouring instead of ladling, would get all of the wort cooled to pitching temperature quickly, whereas ladling you start with ice cold wort and work your way up to pitching temp as you add more uncooled wort. Can anybody see the pros and cons of either method?

ayrton said:

It dropped to 70 immediately! It almost makes me want to take my wort chiller back.

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Are you doing full boils or just partials?

Schlenkerla said:

Are you doing full boils or just partials?

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Sorry, I should've mentioned that. Partial boils (3 gal.) from extracts and 2 frozen gal. in the fermenter.

antoniost said:

Sorry, I should've mentioned that. Partial boils (3 gal.) from extracts and 2 frozen gal. in the fermenter.

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Yah - I was gonna say. No need for a chiller on partials. You need it for full boils though.

On partials, I always chill the water add 1 gallon of ice cold bottled water to the fermentor, then add the boiled wort and top off with more ice cold water. 90% of the time its ready to pitch the yeast. If not I can pitch within 30 minutes.

I am always below 90F. All that matters is that you get past 140F fast for avoiding the DMS formation. Hitting 100F or less is easy if not certain if you chill your water!!

antoniost said:

Is there a difference between ladling and just pouring? Seems like you'll super chill the the volume that you ladle until the ice melts, but then the remaining would get less of a rapid chill. Also, during the time it takes to ladle, some of the ice is lost to ambient heat. Pouring instead of ladling, would get all of the wort cooled to pitching temperature quickly, whereas ladling you start with ice cold wort and work your way up to pitching temp as you add more uncooled wort. Can anybody see the pros and cons of either method?

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Ladling is better than pouring. You want to avoid hot side aeration which leads to oxidation. Once the wort is cooled you want to aerate it for better yeast reproduction, but not when it's still hot.

Barley-Davidson said:

Ladling is better than pouring. You want to avoid hot side aeration which leads to oxidation. Once the wort is cooled you want to aerate it for better yeast reproduction, but not when it's still hot.

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I know you are right about not aerating hot wort.

However I pour mine into the fermentor in as little as 20-30 seconds using a big a$$ red funnel. Then add cold water. It doesn't get splash much because I do so slowly and the fermenter has cold water inside waiting

I've never detected oxidation in my beer, ever.

I think in full boils that hot aeration bit is more critical.

I am about to brew my first batch, and I cant tell you all how happy I am to have found this thread. I have been worried about how to cool the wort quickly, and until now the only option I had was immersion cooling.

I've been dumping two 7# bags of ice into the brew kettle after the boil. The wort is already cooled when I splash it into my primary to aerate, thus avoiding hot side aeration.

After this I top off with bottled water to get 5 gallons.

so wanna sell me that imersion chiller then? i need one.

Rather than adding ice in the fermentor, how effective would immersing a frozen (sanitized of course) gallon of water into the brew pot after flameout be? It may require two or three for full boils, but how would this be different than immersing a sanitized copper coil to cool the wort?

I just haven't bought or built an immersion chiller yet and really want to do a full boil on my next batch. I've had a burner and keggle for over a year and have yet to use it.

Flyin' Lion said:

Rather than adding ice in the fermentor, how effective would immersing a frozen (sanitized of course) gallon of water into the brew pot after flameout be?

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If the brewpot is big enough to accommodate the extra volume, then that would create less of a risk of hot oxidation by ladling or pouring! Of course, assuming you gently place the 8 lb. ice cubes into the pot without splashing.

Does anyone have reusable containers that you freeze the water in? I dont want to have to buy 6 gallons of water everytime I brew. On my first batch, I distroyed the plastic gallon jugs trying to get the ice out.

I was thinking about using the bucket my extract came in from my first brew, but I am afraid that the odor from the IPA will leech into the ice and end up in my hefe. Plus thats only half a gallon.

Also want to make sure its ok to use the water from my fridge dispenser, it has a filter on it.

ArroganceFan said:

Does anyone have reusable containers that you freeze the water in?

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I just bought a Rubbermaid Durable 1.1 gal. container that is freezer safe. I plan on boiling the water first, cooling it to room temp., then in the fridge, and finally put it in the deep freezer.

antoniost said:

I just bought a Rubbermaid Durable 1.1 gal. container that is freezer safe. I plan on boiling the water first, cooling it to room temp., then in the fridge, and finally put it in the deep freezer.

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I got a rubbermade roughneck 3 gallon container. Is it a good idea to use that, or do scratches etc. pose too much of a bacteria risk? I use starsan to sanitize.

ArroganceFan said:

I got a rubbermade roughneck 3 gallon container. Is it a good idea to use that, or do scratches etc. pose too much of a bacteria risk? I use starsan to sanitize.

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The Roughneck line of containers are not meant for food storage. The plastic might give an off-taste to the water.

Dang...I guess SWMBO gets it for organization, she will be happy to hear this

Maybe some Ziplock bags? They are cheap(very important), easy to cut open, sanitary(assumed).

oh good idea

And easy to handle so the ice can be slipped into the hot wort without much splashing, thus avoiding hot side aeration.

ArroganceFan said:

oh good idea

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I second that. I will try both methods on brew day, and report back here.

KYBrew said:

Maybe some Ziplock bags? They are cheap(very important), easy to cut open, sanitary(assumed).

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I have used cubed (standard bags of) ice before to cool my wort. Once, mostly for entertainment, I purchased a large, single block of ice to cool with - same volume of ice as a bag, just one giant piece. We noticed that with a bag of cubed ice, the larger surface area dramatically increased the speed of cooling and how quickly the ice melted. The one time we used the block, we waited for nearly 45 minutes for the whole thing to melt, as opposed to the usual 10 minutes or less.

We never had an issue with contamination with our 10 or 15 batches cooled that way, even though it is of course possible... I think you'll find that if you can freeze larger pieces and then crack them into chunks, you'll have a faster, more effective temperature drop....

That's my $.02, anyway.

kvh

In lieu of fully frozen top off, I would reserve about 2.5 gallons for top off that I would keep in the freezer and get right up to the point of freezing so that it could be poured right into the fermenter and then the wort mixed in.

I just fill up the sink with lots of ice, water and salt. Yes salt. It lowers the freezing temp of the water so it will get colder than just a plain ice and water bath. This cools the pot of wort down pretty fast. Basically get enough ice to fill up your sink.

I used two bags of ice on my hefe. Store bought. I had no infection problems whatsoever. I am curious if the rapid drop in temperature inhibits bacteria from taking hold?

So, I did a test run today on some ziplocks and all I am going to say is that every single one that I tried leaked. Back to the drawing board.

ArroganceFan said:

So, I did a test run today on some ziplocks and all I am going to say is that every single one that I tried leaked. Back to the drawing board.

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try placing your top off water in the freezer enough time before use that it goes right up to the point of starting to freeze but not solid enough that you can not pour it right out of the container. That way you have the benefit of storage while cooling in a sanitized enviro and convenience of use since it can be poured into your fermenter.

Mr. Mojo Rising said:

I used two bags of ice on my hefe. Store bought. I had no infection problems whatsoever. I am curious if the rapid drop in temperature inhibits bacteria from taking hold?

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Do the bags say how many gallons they hold? Just curious how you judge how much you are putting in?

ArroganceFan said:

Do the bags say how many gallons they hold? Just curious how you judge how much you are putting in?

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I have found that two 8lb bags are enough to cool the wort to 70-ish. I start with a 3 gallon boil and need to top off to reach 5 gallons after cooling.

Is there any ill effects from having the cold break happen in the primary as opposed to the brew pot where you can pour the wort off the sediment?

In other words, could the cold break material go back into solution during fermentation?

antoniost said:

I just bought a Rubbermaid Durable 1.1 gal. container that is freezer safe. I plan on boiling the water first, cooling it to room temp., then in the fridge, and finally put it in the deep freezer.

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Picked some up at target this morning for todays brew, thanks for the info!

Driftless Brewer said:

Is there any ill effects from having the cold break happen in the primary as opposed to the brew pot where you can pour the wort off the sediment?

In other words, could the cold break material go back into solution during fermentation?

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I don't know the direct answer to your question but, just add the ice into your brew pot. Try to avoid splashing. Slowly dumping the cooled wort into your primary provides aeration, and not the hot kind!