How much Ice to cool 3.5Gal?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

BadBeagleBrew

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 10, 2011
Messages
282
Reaction score
42
Location
Berwick
I just started doing AG, I only got pots big enough to boil 3-4 Gal roughly. I top up the rest of the way with tap water. Just wondering from anyone who uses this method; how much ice do you need to throw directly in boiling wort to cool it to pitching temps?
 
The last time I used ice added directly to my wort for top up I used about 10 lbs of ice and it cooled it down to about 140F. Then I still had to use a tap water bath to cool it the rest of the way.
 
I've never added ice to the wort directly. Obviously you would want to boil this ice first then freeze it otherwise you're risking infection. I did a 3.5 batch and got it to 70 in about 30 minutes with a small bag if ice.
 
I know it takes 42 pounds of ice to cool 5 gallons via a heat exchanger.

In other words, WAY too much ice to only come up to 5 gallons would be my answer.

What does work well, though, is to cool your 3 gallons in an ice bath until it gets to under 100 degrees, and then top up with 60 degree water (or cooler) to get to 68 degrees.

The exact amount can be figured by doing some math, but there is no way to take 3-4 gallons of wort and cool it to pitching temperatures by adding ice and still only having 5 gallons. You'd then have 5 gallons of 160 degree wort.
 
Good to know ice bath plus ice it is than, ended up sticking the fermentor on some snow outside last time to get it down to where it needed to be. I don't bother boiling the water that I freeze do to the fact that I don't pre-boil my top off water either. I just sanitize the container and lid, fill, and freeze. Thanks for the help.
 
I haven't done it yet.. but, I'm going to make a large ice bath and a submersible pump and pump ice water thru my chiller while stirring the wort. That should be a lot better than tap water. I save all my 1/2 gallon paper milk containers, fill and freeze for cheap large blocks.
 
My cousin uses some cake pans to freeze water so he has a bunch of blocks of ice instead of spending money on cubed ice that will melt faster. That along with a sub pump to circulate the water through his chiller makes for a pretty fast wort chill.
 
4 x 1g bags of ice to cool 2.5g of beer to 60 degrees Fahrenheit, with some left over.

I've started by adding an 8x8" pie pan full of ice to the primary. To keep it down to 2 bags.
 
Back
Top