Is using ice to cool wort a bad thing?

I was told that using distilled ice in your wort to cool it is a bad thing, is this true? I somehow came up with the idea to "top up" 3-4 gallons of boiled wort with a frozen gallon or two of spring water. I would just freeze the water in its plastic bottle, cut it open and throuw it in the fermenter to cool the wort down and end up with 5 gallons at a quickly cooled usable temperature.

Is this bad practice? If so, why? It seems that wort chillers are the way to go, but it seems easier, faster and cheaper to do it this way. Why isn't this a more poular method? I've only tried it once, so I can't say if I had reliable results or not. Obviously, my goal is to use as little dilution as possible, but I'd appreciate anyone's thoughts on this. Thanks in advance,

Guinnessface

That's a really interesting idea. I've never heard of anyone doing that, but as long as you're using frozen distilled water, I can't imagine why it would be a problem. You say you've used this idea once before or only brewed once before? I've been brewing for about five years and am pretty firmly committed to my wort chiller, but if your method is quicker I would be willing to give it a try. Keep us posted!

Hoffmeister-
That's the thing that scares me, I've never heard of anyone doing that before either! I've brewed 7 or 8 times before, but only tried that method twice (once with good results, once without). The thing that has me scared, it I read on midwestsupplies that cooling wort with ice (inside) should only be done as a last resort.
If the point of cooling a wort quickly is to thwart bacteria growth, then what would be the donwside of my method? It seems to cool as fast as a chiiler does.

boil the water before freezing. sanitize the bottles before putting them in the wort.

while your idea will obviously work i would be concerned about it not working enough. say the ice gets it down to 92F before its completely melted. you still need to cool the wort at least another 15F to prevent oxidation during aeration. i think this idea of yours would be great to use in addition to a wort chiller. a wort chiller will cool the wort fairly quickly to a point then the cooling slows quite a bit. at that point i think it would be great to add the ice to get it rest of the way.

guinnessface said:

If the point of cooling a wort quickly is to thwart bacteria growth, then what would be the donwside of my method? It seems to cool as fast as a chiiler does.

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the point of chilling quickly is to have a cold break. some proteins in a wort need to be "shocked" out of suspension by rapid cooling. if you don't have a cold break you will end up with chill haze in your beer. chill haze causes a beer to be cloudy when cold but clear when warm. this is a cosmetic problem only you cant taste it.

once a wort gets to below about 130 or so it is prime for bacteria growth. thats why you do it quickly and want to sanitize the ice and containers before use.