Cooling Wort

I am brewing tonight, and I had an idea about cooling my wort. I have not yet invested in any wort chiller, and still use the ice bath. My idea, is that (since it will be a wind chill of 18 tonight and I brew outside) that I take my Brewers Best bucket, stick it in ice and pour the wort from my stainless pot into this. My concern is that the wort will be too hot, and possible release unwanted flavor from the bucket. Then once chilled, I can transfer to glass carboy where it will ferment. Any one have any ideas?

I tried that last night and didn't work very well it took forever and ended with an ice bath anyway

I think your real risk is cracking the plastic more thank anything from the rapid temp change. I think it would be better to just stick your pot in the snow, being careful to not get snow in the top, and stir. The cold entering the pot and the wort moving past that will cool it quick. Living in Maine this was my first "wort" chiller.

Ive tried that and it did t work at all. Actually, I stuck my whole kettle in the snow during a windy, cold December day in Wisconsin. The temp barely budged. Something about how being in water cools the wort faster than being in cold air, or even in snow.

What you could do is take a bunch of ziploc containers, fill them with water, and put them outside for a couple days. That way you get free ice for your ice bath.

JonM said:

Something about how being in water cools the wort faster than being in cold air, or even in snow.

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Air is a good insulator. Air trapped in snow? Even better, as it doesn't budge. The best thing for insulation is vacuum, but that's not always achievable

MC

Metal transfers heat MUCH better than plastic! So your wort would cool much faster in the kettle with the lid taped on then in a bucket. Also snow actually will insulate your pot from heat exchange! The pot would actually cool faster sitting on a table in the cold wind than in a nest of snow.

Nothing is better than a copper wort chiller but a good ice bath works well on smaller kettles.

Anything above 140F in a plastic container runs the risk of releasing unwanteds into your beer. I agree that you should just chill in your brew pot in the snow.

Thank you everyone! I will continue with my ice bath method, and allow the wind chill to aid in cooling! Snow is a non factor, as we haven't really had much in central PA this year.

Just to tag onto the conversation. I tried the ice baths, sticking my wort pot in snow etc with little luck. I recently built a wort chiller and I'm amazed at how effective it cools. It's the way to go. From boiling to pitch temp in 10 min.

I strongly suggest a wort chiller to avoid getting wild critters in your wort while it is cooling. I get from a boil to pitching temp in about 15 minutes and the temp crashing so quickly seems to make the funal product a little smoother and keep a head a bit better. I dont have any evidence to support that with empirical data, but it does seem to yeild a better batch when I use my chiller coil and get the temp down quicjly. Hope this helps and New York Brew Supply had a super deal on a 25 foot stainless coil chiller. They ship fast and the product is very good quality so far.
Wheelchair Bob

Leaving the wort to cool in cold weather only works if the only hops were bittering hops. Otherwise all hops convert to a bitter flavor. That being said, HDPE which is what buckets are made from, is good past boiling without leaching flavor or chemicals into your wort.

I'm still doing kit brews and recipes that have at most 3 gallons of wort to chill. I use a ice and water bath with rock salt added. I have done this with my last two brews and it has worked very well. The last time I filled my sink with cold water and placed kettle in the water. Added one beer pale worth of ice and rock salt. Once this ice started to melt, I added a second pale. I'm guessing the cool down time to be 15 minutes. I did not stir the wort, just swirled the cold water around the kettle. I don't have any empirical proof the rock salt helps me, but if it helps to freeze ice cream it should depress the water temp to help cool the wort faster.