Wort Cooling with Ice?

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Slappy5555

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I know that I read it somewhere, but why is it a bad thing to use ice IN my wort to cool it quickly? I feel that I could add ice directly to my hot wort to cool it quickly, add extra water so I have a 5 gallon batch, then pitch the yeast faster. Thoughts? Concerns?

I'm thinking of trying this before I hook up my a heat exchanger with a water pump to pump ice cold water in the exchanger, then pour my hot wort in the other side.

Thanks!

Slappy
 
Well Slappy,
If you have a heat exchanger you shouldn't need to drop ice in your brew.
I do use ice, but it is because I don't have a wort chiller. If you use clean ice you will be okay. I boil water, cover it, cool it and freeze it all in the one pot. I haven't suffered from contamination yet. But I really want a chiller, it would be much faster.
 
just buy a 1 gallon jug of water from the store, throw it in the freezer and when it's time, cut off the jug and throw the ice in the bucket, then pour the wort on top of it and top off.
 
The concern is most store ice isn't very clean or sanitary. If you make it yourself, no problem.
 
I wasn't talking about bagged store ice, I was talking about a jug of Poland Spring. Is Poland Spring-type of bottled water not good to use?
 
If it is bottled water, then it's probably fine. You just don't want to put bagged ice or ice from the ice maker in the wort.
 
I made my batch, ended up with a boil of about 3 1/2 gallons. I'm doing an experiment batch, added a gallon of apple cider to the last five minutes of the boil when I added my finishing hops. That dropped the temp to about 160 degrees, where I left it. That temp is ample to pasturize the cider. I then put my pot in the sink, cooled the pot with cold tap water. I added about a gallon of ice that I had froze up in a few tupperware containers. Then with a 1/2 gallon or so of ice water that wasn't froze yet, I had my temp down to 75 degrees in about 6 easy minutes.

I'd cool my wort with ice again for sure.
 
I always place 4 - 1 gal jugs of PUR filtered water in my freezer for 4-5 hours prior to brewing.

I pour in 2 gals then add my wort then top off to 5.25 gals and stir. The temp is always around 70F within seconds.:D
 
I cool mine just to where I can pick it up w/out being too hot to the touch (approx 100 F). I add a gallon of cool water to the carboy, add the wort, then top it off with more room temp water. Usually ends up being around 75 degrees or so.
 
I should say I cool it to 100 degrees by putting the entire pot w/ wort into my sink which is filled w/ cold water and ice cubes. Takes about 15-20 minutes to get the wort down to approx 100 degrees.
 
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