chilling the wort

at the risk of getting blasted here, i wanted to post a technique i used to chill my wort. the brew shop that got me into this mess provides my malt in a tub - about 2 liters. i took said tub and cleaned it, sanitized it and filled with boiled water. then i froze the tub to create a "wortcicle". after the wort was off the boil, i inserted the large cube of ice and watched the temps fall. so, let the debate begin - did i ruin a batch or should we all be filling our kettles with ice - sanitized and boiled of course. what think ye?

That technique is great for partial boils. I've added ice before without any issues

Using a preboiled ice cube should be just fine. Better in fact than many of us who just add straight tap water to top off to 5 gallons.

I bet you're fine, but I wouldn't say that's the preferred method. How did you get the ice in there? Did you just plop it in and not have to touch it?

Easy way to chill is get gallon jugs of drinking water from the store. They have been through several methods of killing all of the bacteria inside. Chill a few of those in the fridge and add that to your hot wort to top off. Beyond that I would look into getting, or making, an immersion wort chiller.

To expand on my other post, I think the people who worry about using ice are mainly talking about ice that was bought from a store that could have anything in it (Think Mr. Burns frozen Teddy Bear) or that has been sitting open in the freezer for god knows how long.
Your way sounds just fine.

My practice is taking 4 gals of PUR filtered tap water and placing them in a freezer for 4-5 hours prior to brewing. I've been doing this for years.

Brewed yesterday and the batch was down to 61F within minutes.

i love you guys.

I usually do the 'wortcicle' with boiled water as ice buckets as well. I have two of those badboys waiting in the freezer for my next brew tomorrow along with some ice for an ice bath! I find that those fancy contrivances like immersion chillers are for thegentle fops and delicate, dandy brewers amongst us.













OK OK, it's really because SWMBO won't let me buy one yet.

The first batch we brewed we used a freezer bag full of water placed in a bread pan to contain it before we put it in the freezer. We probably should have boiled the water first but it worked great in our 2 gallon boil. Yesterday we cooled our second batch of wort by filling the sink with snow and water. We placed our kettle with a clean cover right in the middle of that. In the snow the kettle would spin very easly so we could move the liquid without stirring or opening the cover. After 10min. the wort was at 68deg. Man that worked slick!

When I was doing <5Gal boils, I would put my top off water (3 gals) in the freezer and keep it right at the freezing point and then pour it into the hot wort (2 gals)....works great at lowering the temp nice and quick.

Not wanting to risk contamination from fooling with ice packs and such, I just went to Home Depot and got a few coils of copper tube and made a chiller and a pre-chiller. The tap water is fairly warm here in Florida, so this setup has the first coil immersed in a bucket of ice and water, and the second coil used as a standard immersion chiller in the hot wort. Connected these with clear hose right over the copper ends. Less than the price of buying one commercially made chiller. Cleaned the whole rig in vinegar before the first use, and I made the coils so that they fit together decently for storage.

It cooled down a 4 gallon batch from boiling to 80 degrees in less than 15 minutes (approx but very fast) I was amazed. I then used it again to cool some boiled water down to top off the fermentor. Some poor pics can be seen at www.spearfishingspuc.org/Galleries/Kegerator/index.htm

Dean (beginner)