8:00 Minute Cold Break

Fun experiment:

Brewed a half batch of Amber Ale for my Pops visit. 3 Gallons with 2 gallons of wort at end of boil.

I used 1 Gallon ice block to top it back up and cool.

To my surprise, between the 33% ice and the ice bath it was sitting in, I hit 60f from boiling in 8:00 minutes. EIGHT MINUTES.

To say it produced a clear beer is an understatement. This iPhone pic does no justice.

(Sorry, I forgot to take a pic until I was almost finished with the last bottle ...Hic....... BURP)

If I understand correctly, you are saying you got a very clear beer by topping up with ice rather than with water? That sounds worth an experiment... I was considering getting some 3 gallon and 1 gallon carboys so I can split up batches and start experimenting. This sounds like an easy experiment.

Yep, the better the cold break, the clearer the beer.

Did you make your own ice from boiled water in sanitized containers? If not, there is a concern for contamination, especially if you used bagged ice.

I used to do this when I was extract. I had a huge gallon rubbermaid container. The day before I'd boil some water, sanitize the container, then cool and freeze it. Of course, I did all this 24+ hours before brewing. When it came time, I'd just drop this giant cube into the fermentor. Worked well.

I have no good cooling system as of yet, so this idea is attractive to me. But is there a danger of cooling it TOO much?

Here's what I mean. In the next week I'll be doing a partial boil extract bitter in my big 10 gallon kettle. If I start with 3 gallons in the boil, end up with 2.5 gallons due to boiloff, I *could* plop 3 gallons of ice in there (prepared with attention to sanitation, of course) to reach the 5.5 gallons needed for my recipe before pouring into my carboy. But in doing so, would I cool my wort to below my yeast's temp range of 57 - 70? Should I use only one or two gallons of ice?

This will be only my third batch, so forgive my noob question.

ajwillys said:

Did you make your own ice from boiled water in sanitized containers?

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Yes. I lost my 3rd ever batch to infection and have become a total sanitation-zealot ever since.

My LHBS sells LME in little 1 gallon food safe buckets ("tiny fermenter buckets"). I Starsan the buckets and fill with pre-boiled, Britta-filtered tap water (same as the rest of my brew). I freeze those guys 2 days before brew day.

During the brew process (about 2-2:30 hours for a mini mash), I leave them out on my sanitized counter top so the ice melts away from the sides and begins to loosens itself.

Right before I add the ice to the wort, I dunk the buckets in my Starsan bucket to clean off any nasties from the outside of the bucket that may transfer into my wort.

tonyolympia said:

I have no good cooling system as of yet, so this idea is attractive to me. But is there a danger of cooling it TOO much?

Here's what I mean. In the next week I'll be doing a partial boil extract bitter in my big 10 gallon kettle. If I start with 3 gallons in the boil, end up with 2.5 gallons due to boiloff, I *could* plop 3 gallons of ice in there (prepared with attention to sanitation, of course) to reach the 5.5 gallons needed for my recipe before pouring into my carboy. But in doing so, would I cool my wort to below my yeast's temp range of 57 - 70? Should I use only one or two gallons of ice?

This will be only my third batch, so forgive my noob question.

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Are you already doing an ice bath? I do an ice bath and stir the wort (ice and all) with a sanitized stainless steel slotted spoon. I think keeping the wort moving is key...similar to a whirlpool. You keep the cooled wort circulating and moving across the ice and ice bath as much as possible.

From my limited experience, that may be a bit much ice. You don't want to get too cold or else you'll just be waiting around for it to free-rise to pitching temps.

Two weeks ago, I did a 6 gallon batch (3.5 wort) with 2 gal of ice, an ice bath in my sink and some room-temp, pre-boiled water.

That put me at 66f in < 22:00 min. I rocked the bucket for 5:00 and pitched a 2L starter. The whole thing took off in 4-6 hours like a beast (I was sleeping).

Still waiting to see how clean that beer is...but I'll tell ya, I liked shortening my brew night by 15-20 min.

joetothemo said:

Are you already doing an ice bath?

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An ice bath is impractical for me due to the layout of my house, the dimensions of my sink, and other reasons. My place was built in 1895, so it's different in lots of ways from the typical dwelling.

I would like to give the ice trick a try. It recently occurred to me to try an improvised immersion chiller made out of a cleaned and sanitized stock pot, filled with water and re-freezable picnic ice. I thought I could dunk that into my brew kettle and stir the wort around it.

Maybe I could try 1 gallon of frozen ice in the wort, and have my improvised IC on hand as a fallback in case the temp stabilizes too high after the ice has melted?

I've done your "improvised IC" with a stainless steel mixing bowl full of ice in the past. As long as everything is pre-boiled and sanitized, you should be ok.

If you can't get the sink to be your ice bath, there are other options out there. Picnic cooler, biga$$ bucket, bath tub. I wouldn't give up on that yet, if I were you. It really is a huge help!

ajwillys said:

Did you make your own ice from boiled water in sanitized containers? If not, there is a concern for contamination, especially if you used bagged ice.

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I thought the issue was from the contaminants in the freezer? Or do you mean using a sanitized and sealed container?

I used to do this when I was extract. I had a huge gallon rubbermaid container. The day before I'd boil some water, sanitize the container, then cool and freeze it. Of course, I did all this 24+ hours before brewing. When it came time, I'd just drop this giant cube into the fermentor. Worked well.

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So do you seal the rubber maid? I like the idea of one giant cube. Seems like a milk jug or other container with a small opening would be a pain...

Deuce said:

Yep, the better the cold break, the clearer the beer.

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Folks that do no chill and wind up with crystal clear beer would debate the effect of cold break on clear beer...

AZ_IPA said:

Folks that do no chill and wind up with crystal clear beer would debate the effect of cold break on clear beer...

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I'm one of those guys...lol.. But seriously, when I started brewing and doing 2 extract batches a night I did this every time with normal ice and water from the fridge... I've even done it lately with the first runnings from a party-gyle I did... I do chill and no-chill depending on how the day goes for me.. My no-chill comes out just as clear as when I use my heat exchanger... I even remember a youtube video of jim koch of samuel addams using a soup ladle moving the hot wort over a block of ice...lol

I have been planning on using this method for my upcoming batch and have been brainstorming about the best and safest way to freeze the water. What does everyone think about getting some good gallon size zip lock bags, sanitizing them with Star San and while still wet, filling them with spring water straight from the jug? It should hold a gallon and then when you freeze it is locked from contamination in the freezer and then when you want to use, you simply pull out and cut the bag off with your sanitized scissors. Any comments?

ettbeer said:

i can't believe there's people who don't chill the wort! i try to get it below 140 ASAP. and to pitching temp ASAP after that..

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I'm a total noob, but I agree -- isn't that a big no-no? I thought not cooling the wort quickly opens it up to the possibility of infection, particularly since you then have to wait so much longer to pitch. Clearly, I'm missing something (terrible pun intended).

ettbeer said:

i can't believe there's people who don't chill the wort! i try to get it below 140 ASAP. and to pitching temp ASAP after that..

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grace1760 said:

I'm a total noob, but I agree -- isn't that a big no-no? I thought not cooling the wort quickly opens it up to the possibility of infection, particularly since you then have to wait so much longer to pitch. Clearly, I'm missing something (terrible pun intended).

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Lots of threads on here about it, but here's a really comprehensive thread:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/exploring-no-chill-brewing-117111/

ettbeer said:

so they're making beer that's not ruined? i'm trying to make the best beer i can every time..i want to make a B.O.S. worthy beer every single time i brew. not just make non-ruined/spoiled beer.. maybe i don't get it, why you wouldn't want to make the best beer you're capable of making? i think there's plenty of people who have written books on brewing and that have done scientific research that would disagree with the non-chill method..regardless of what some people "claim" they get for results.

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So the fact we make awesome beer using the no chill method is just a claim while what you believe somehow has more weight then just our claims?

Have you ever tried no chill? No, then you have no weight to argue the point.

Try learning something for yourself for once rather than what you have been spoonfed from books filled with outdated information like autolysis and HSA.

boomtown25 said:

I have been planning on using this method for my upcoming batch and have been brainstorming about the best and safest way to freeze the water. What does everyone think about getting some good gallon size zip lock bags, sanitizing them with Star San and while still wet, filling them with spring water straight from the jug? It should hold a gallon and then when you freeze it is locked from contamination in the freezer and then when you want to use, you simply pull out and cut the bag off with your sanitized scissors. Any comments?

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Yeah...tried this and it was a bust. Maybe I put too much water in the bags, but they expanded beyond their break point and burst. Luckily I was doing this to make ice blocks for my IC setup that I place in a cooler of water with ice. The bags were in Tupperware containers, so there was no mess.

I would suggest going with the ice in Tupperware mode as it has a lot more give when it comes to the expansion from freezing.

ettbeer said:

i never did NO chilling, BUT I sure used to do SLOW chilling, for certain.. the 2 biggest improvements i made to my process was to speed chilling up and control fermentation.. so to answer your biased question.. YES i have done it both ways.. and i did notice a huge improvement..

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How is it a biased question? You have no experience with and obviously can't find any published information on something you are claiming is inferior...thus have no reason for us to respect your opinion.

If you havn't noticed, homebrewing is a constantly evolving hobby. In many many cases, forums are a source of better and more up to date information than published books. Many scholars and faces of homebrewing, John Palmer to name one, has aknowledged this. Just because it isn't in a book doesn't mean it isn't true and for you to say a method is inferior because of this shows your lack of understanding of the many aspects of homebrewing.

I for one put much more merit behind something I have experimented with myself. It is how advancements are made in any field...

ajwillys said:

Did you make your own ice from boiled water in sanitized containers? If not, there is a concern for contamination, especially if you used bagged ice.

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Obviously you want a sanitary container, but why boil the water, unless you are one to boil your top off water anyway? I just use tap water or filtered water to top off and have never had any problems, so what's the difference if I freeze that same water in a sanitary bucket first?

bbriscoe said:

Obviously you want a sanitary container, but why boil the water, unless you are one to boil your top off water anyway? I just use tap water or filtered water to top off and have never had any problems, so what's the difference if I freeze that same water in a sanitary bucket first?

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Must... sanitize...everything

ettbeer said:

i have done no chilling basically.. in the form of really slow chilling which is the same principal..

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Noooo it's not. Sit back and read a bit before you post, Junior. You may learn something.

I almost always use an immersion chiller... however the no-chill I've done (and what I've read on here) is when you dump straight from the kettle into a fermentation bucket. Then you let it sit for a while until it's pitching temps... usually overnight for me but then again it gets cold in the mountains.

Really slow chilling, at least to me, sounds like cooling it slowly in the kettle and then transfering and pitching in a relatively short amount of time (i.e. 2-5 hours.)

Sounds like pretty different procedures to me.


Now it also seems as though your only argument is, "You have no proof, therefore I'm right even though I have no proof." From my experience, I have found clarity and well-balanced flavors in both rapidy chilled (<15min) and no-chill. Why don't you try no-chill and prove us all wrong?

but filtered water (or chlorinated tap water in this part of the country) is already sanitary, so why boil it?

ettbeer said:

i have done no chilling basically.. in the form of really slow chilling which is the same principal.. and i did notice better results with the fast chill times.. so i don't understand what you're even talking about at this point, i'm asking where anyone in the world besides the people who can't chill (for whatever reason) faster can prove it? i never said it was inferior i said i had better results with quick chilling.. i was asking YOU how you figure you can make the same quality beer from not chilling the wort faster.....NOW you're making no sense and just filibusterer-ing this thread just to read your own words..

so basically how do YOU personally figure you're making better beer by not chilling wort fast? please explain to me your thoughts behind that theory...thanks

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Wow, you really fail to make any sense or any kind of constructive points in this and the other thread you decided to troll. For the sake of this thread not spiralling out of control I am dropping this until you have something useful to contribute.

E-Mursed said:

Yeah...tried this and it was a bust. Maybe I put too much water in the bags, but they expanded beyond their break point and burst. Luckily I was doing this to make ice blocks for my IC setup that I place in a cooler of water with ice. The bags were in Tupperware containers, so there was no mess.

I would suggest going with the ice in Tupperware mode as it has a lot more give when it comes to the expansion from freezing.

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I have done this method several times since posting and using the quality zip lock bags, worked like a charm. I probably got the wort down to 60 or even below within 15 minutes.

I've bought an IC since because I have moved on to AG full boil batches.

ettbeer said:

you think no chill brewing is something new? they've been doing it in England for hundreds of years.. also the steam beer in SF was no chilled.. that's why they used those cool ships.. they basically flooded a sealed floor to make the wort as spread out and shallow as possible so it would chill sooner..

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Um... that's chilling it. Spreading it out so the beer becomes a very thin layer, usually over metal, causes heat to be stripped off it super fast (at least compared to sitting in a big vat.) No-chill, as I said before, is simply dumping wort from your kettle into your fermentation vessel with no extra effort in between.

ettbeer said:

i don't understand why everything ever documented in brewing says to chill your wort (besides internet threads), yet you say that everyone who's been brewing for thousands of years is wasting their time chilling..

you're entire argument is completely frivolous..

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You're adorable. Are you sure you're old enough to be on HBT?

Either way the only real issue with no chill brewing is the conditions become a better environment for infection(and longer latency period). So if you have a process where you can keep it sanitary and alleviate the condition then there is no difference.

I have never done no chill brewing, just because I want to pitch and its part of my brew day. But I'm sure if I did and an infection wasn't present then the beer would turn out the same. Many people do it with just fine results, it may be new to you but its been around and used. Make a batch and try it out. Just do a SMaSH as a test, split, and chill one and no chill the other.