BostonJ
Well-Known Member
I was over a friends while they were brewing. Once complete, they dumped a bag of ice in the fermenter and poured the wort in next. Has anyone done this or seen it done with good results?
Dangerous, especially with commercial ice. That sh** is loaded with bacteria.
jwalk4 said:"People often wonder about adding ice directly to the cooling wort. This idea works well if you remember a couple key points.
Never use commercial ice. It can harbor dormant bacteria that could spoil your beer.
Always boil the water before freezing it in an airtight container (like Tupperware). It must be airtight because most freezers also harbor dormant bacteria.
If the ice will not directly contact the wort, (i.e. you are using a frozen plastic soda bottle or other container in the wort) make sure you sanitize the outside of the bottle first before you put it in the wort."
Palmer, J. "How to Brew" 1999.
Where do you get this data from? I would think that an ice company would pay some attention to using clean water in their ice. It's assumed that commercial ice is edible.
That's the way I do every batch. Our refrigerator has a water filter and an automatic ice maker which draws from the filtered water. After I finish boiling a pot of wort I add an entire tub of ice (about 1 gallon of equivalent water) and then stir the cubes. It cools from boiling down to 100 in about 60 seconds. Then I put 2 gallons of cold (50 deg) tap water into the primary and pour the cooled wort on top. The mixture goes to 75 degrees. Then I put it in the basement and let it sit overnight to become 65 degrees, then add the yeast in the morning.
I've done over 30 batches like this and it works great.
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