A couple of questions

Well its pretty much just one question, will it work. I plan on brewing a Brewers Best Holiday Ale this weekend so I will have it ready in time for the holidays. I got a new tirkey fryer and I plan on using that for the first time. Even though the pot will accomodate 7 1/2 gallons, I only plan on boiling 2 gallons of wort and then diluting it with three gallons of water as usual. My first three batches were chilled in an ice bath in the kitchen sink. Since I dont have an immersion chiller, I plan on boiling the 2 gallons as usual and then add 3 gallons of cold water from my freezer. I am going to put a 3 gallon bottle of water in the freezer before I start brewing. I think that will be cold enough. So do you think this will work or am I missing something?

Yes, you can use near freezing top off water to chill your wort to pitching temps in seconds.

I feel pretty strongly that full boils produce better beer.

if you can use a bathtub for an ice/water bath, you can still cool 5 gallons in a reasonable time frame.

otherwise your proposed method will work, but you may still need an ice bath. fluid thermodynamics don't work how you might think. 3 gallons of 50 degree water and 2 gallons of 200+ degree wort will likely still have you at 100F...too hot to pitch yeast.

malkore said:

otherwise your proposed method will work, but you may still need an ice bath. fluid thermodynamics don't work how you might think. 3 gallons of 50 degree water and 2 gallons of 200+ degree wort will likely still have you at 100F...too hot to pitch yeast.

Click to expand...

Actually it works really well.

I used to do it with my partial boils...1.5 - 2 gallons in the kettle and the rest in the freezer. The top off water would be near freezing and you get pitching temps instantly, no other chilling necessary.