cooling AG with ice?

So I've been searching and couldn't find the answer I was looking for. Maybe I wasn't using the right search criteria. Here's my question.

Is it feasible to boil your wort down to 4.5 to 5 gallons, from 7 to 9 gallons, before doing your hop additions? This way i could cool it off with ice instead of other methods. Would or could this scorch the wort? Would this just take way too long? Or is there something else?

And yes for the time being I'm being cheap and don't want to buy/make a chiller. If this isn't something with pursuing I'll settle on an bath and time.

In theory it could, but it will take a long time and alot of ice. If you submerge in an ice bath, make sure you stir regularly with a sterized spoon. Yo might better off eventually saving up for a wort chiller. You can make your own or buy one. I bought mine from beverage factory shipped for under $60.

We cooled all grain 5.5 gallon batches with ice bath for a while. Takes 50 to 60 lbs of ice to cool it down in a reasonable amount of time

tx-brewer said:

We cooled all grain 5.5 gallon batches with ice bath for a while. Takes 50 to 60 lbs of ice to cool it down in a reasonable amount of time

Click to expand...

Omg....., that's alot.

So basically frozen top off water?

JoeSpartaNJ said:

Omg....., that's alot.

Click to expand...

Well we got by with 40 lbs, but the place right by the house sells 20 lb bags for $1.50 so it was worth it just to get a little extra

tx-brewer said:

Well we got by with 40 lbs, but the place right by the house sells 20 lb bags for $1.50 so it was worth it just to get a little extra

Click to expand...

That's alot cheaper than NJ I suppose. We would have spent at least triple for that amount of ice. Frozen water does not come cheap in the garden state, actually nothing does.

A Wort Chiller is a real time saver, and in the end, a lot less money than constantly buying ice. We went the ice bath at first but we moved to the IC Type Wort Chiller fairly quickly because of all the money we were spending on ice. Even worse, we would not get enough and have to run to the store mid brew. We have since moved to bigger batches (22 gallons normally) and have a Plate Chiller and Pumps. Going form ICE Bath to IC was a great step, but we do like the plate chiller as it is fast and we can normally have the Wort in our Stout Conical in less than 30 minutes (incluing Whirlpooling) at about 65 degrees. We do use some ice to chill some water in the summer to get to 65, but in the winter we do not need any ice.

I do extract right now. At the end of my boil I have about 3 gallons. I can cool it fast enough for me with just 1 gallon ice, cold water bath (no ice) and top off with cold tap water.

About how long does it take to boil off about 2 gallons? Just curious. Not about accuracy right now.

Why would you boil any extra off to start ? You could just start with 2 less gallons and then add your frozen top off just like you do with extract.

You could always no-chill in the kettle.

I do a partial no-chill with my stovetop BIAB. After flame out, I sit it in the sink (no ice) for a few minutes. Once the water gets hot, I drain and refill the sink. After 3 or 4 drain/fill cycles, the kettle is cool enough to carry outside. I let it cool overnight on wet concrete with the lid on.

Meanwhile, I have a real wort starter (RWS) on the stir plate. If the wort is not to pitching temperature by the next afternoon, I pour into a bucket fermenter and throw it in a swamp cooler. I pitch my RWS when cool enough (usually 12-18 hours total cooling time).

Some people advocate a modified hop schedule (look for The Pol's chart on this forum) to account for longer times at higher temps. Some say no change in hop schedule required. I usually follow The Pol's schedule (unless I screw it up).

No ice, no chiller, no problem. The only reason I do a couple of cold baths in the sink is to get it cool enough to carry outside. If I was boiling outside already, I'd just leave it to cool until the next day.

JoeSpartaNJ, that is a reasonable price for a wort chiller.

In my experience, a chiller will take 20 minutes or more to cool from boiling to 75 - 80 F. The drop to 105F goes fairly quickly The closer you get to tap water temperature, the longer it takes to cool off. Our cold water temperature in Massachusetts is right around 65. In Florida they have to be more creative. If I chill it to 80, I just cap it and let it cool further overnight in the basement to 65 or so. I have not had an infected batch but it is a possibility with this method. (I let it cool in a rigid fermenting bucket which must draw in air as it cools. If you use a flexible container, then slow-chill has no risk of contamination.)

If you get it down under 80F I guess you could throw a block of ice in the wort to bring it down the last 15 degrees. I would need help to calculate how much ice to use.

--- edit ---
Meh, I got bored and figured it out. It should take about 1 1/2 quarts of ice (at 0F, the temp of most freezers) to drop 5 gallons from 80F to 65F.

Ice as top up? In all grain there should be no top up. Cooling a 5 gallon batch fast will take a lot of ice. I use a 10ft IC in the wort and another in a bucket of ice water. At this time of year it takes a 2 liter bottle and a tray of cubes (automatic not twist out manual) and 20 -30+ this time of year. You could let it cool for an hour or so then ice the rest.

IC (or other mechanical chilling) is the best route and you should still be able to make an IC for less than $40.

JoeSpartaNJ said:

That's alot cheaper than NJ I suppose. We would have spent at least triple for that amount of ice. Frozen water does not come cheap in the garden state, actually nothing does.

Click to expand...

Well I got ya beat in ice cost, but you probably have me beat in tap water temp. I get.about 80 degrees here which means even with my cool new wort chiller, I still need ice to get it down where I want

jrodskreet said:

...
Is it feasible to boil your wort down to 4.5 to 5 gallons, from 7 to 9 gallons, before doing your hop additions?

Click to expand...

????

You want hops in the boil for bitterness, flavor, and aroma.

He's talking about boiling down for a while prior to starting the regular hop schedule in order to make room for the volume of ice later on. The real comparison here is how much gas are you willing to pay for before it would have bought a chiller?

Bobby_M said:

He's talking about boiling down for a while prior to starting the regular hop schedule in order to make room for the volume of ice later on. The real comparison here is how much gas are you willing to pay for before it would have bought a chiller?

Click to expand...

You're right that is what I want to do. IF it doesn't take too long to boil down to this amount and would not hurry the wort in any way.

I figure I lose about 16% wort volume to evaporation per hour of boil. At that rate, it would take me 3 hours to boil 9 gallons to 5.3 gallons. That would shrink further after chilling.

6.3 gallons to 5 gallons is what I get with a 90 minute boil.

My question is if you can mash and collect 9 gallons of wort and boil it all at once, why aren't you doing 7 - 8 gallon batches? You can split it into two buckes with 3.5 - 4 gallons in each.

Is this just about upping the OG? Or are you combining 2 mashes?

I've started thinking about a pre-chiller, basically a copper coil before the immersion chiller that I'd stick in a bucket of ice water to cool the tap water before it goes to the immersion chiller to cool the wort.

The 30 - 40 minutes it takes to cool 5 gallons isn't bad right now, but I'd like to increase my batches to 8 - 10 gallons in the near future.

Good question. Why so much starting volume? You may be over sparging. More is not better in that case. We do larger batches, but I check SG and Volume at Certain phases of the boil.

1. Start: at Mash Out.
2. After Hot Break:
3. One Hour
4. One Hour and Fifteen.
5. Flame Off

We do boil for 90 minutes. We use Brew Math to calculate our final volume need for the desired OG. We are generally very close to our predicted volume (What brew size volume we mashed for). We think that the O.G. is the major thing to strive for. By topping off with small amounts of Boiling water along the way (We try to add the boil off water at Hot Break), we do a good job of controlling OG and Volume. I do not have it in front of me but there are calculations for boil off. But you have to do some trial and error with your own system because a lot of variables are there (Surface area, BTUs supplied, Altitude for just a few).