Chilling question...

I am new to brewing and was wondering the following...I don't have a wort chiller and it seems to take a long time to cool the wort in an ice bath...so my question is, if I throw the wort into a freezer for a bit, would that work or is that, as I suspect, a bad idea?

as long as it is covered in a sanitized container I dont see a problem with this. However it will take your freezer quit a while to cool it down. You could use the no chill method, where you brew, put in the sanitized fermenter, let it set overnight, then pitch yeast in the morning.

Thanks...I'll try it.

I was able to get the ice bath method to work pretty well before I went to full boils. I would buy one of the large bags of ice from the gas station, put a little water in the bottom of the sink (just for good contact on the bottom), then put the pot in the sink and ice around the pot. I'd then lightly stir the wort every few minutes, and anytime the ice level went down, I'd top it off. With 3 gallon boils I was getting it down to 80 degrees in about 20-25 minutes.

Stirring is the key, I think.

Yeah with full boil you really need a wort chiller. Otherwise you won't get a good cold break.

I tried cooling a 3.5 gal batch outside once; it was -10°, with a breeze. It took 2.5 hrs to cool to 80°.
I now have a wort chiller.

Sorry but I don't think a freezer is going to be better than an ice bath. Air is a horrible conductor of heat and your freezer is not designed to pump out an incredible amount of heat.
Many times I will put a large container of food in the fridge/freezer and its still warm an hour later.

If you do not do a full boil, then pour ice cold water into your brew kettle. Actually, fill a plastic container full of ice and then put that chunk of ice into your kettle.


Science lesson for you guys:
To melt 1 gram of ice requires 80 calories
To increase the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree C, it requires only 1 calorie.

Always use ice to cool whenever you can.

Right, too much heat for a residential freezer. Ice bath is the way without a chiller.

Bobby_M said:

Right, too much heat for a residential freezer. Ice bath is the way without a chiller.

Click to expand...

*nod* I used to work in a bakery at a grocery store years ago when I was in my teens. I used to have to make cookies. I'd put several sheets of cookies on a six ft rack and bake them in the commercial ovens we had. After they came out I'd have to wait for them to cool before I could box them. In my effort to be more efficient, I decided "hey, I can get these to cool down way faster if I just put them in the freezer". So I rolled the rack into the big, walk in, commercial freezer. Bad idea. The temp jumped up a lot and it took a while to get the temp back down.

If one 6ft rack of cookies could do that to a large commercial freezer 4 times its size, imagine what several gallons of boiling water would do to your own freezer.

This will not be an efficient way.
The best way to solve this problem is to plan ahead. So I agree with the making sure you bag plenty of ice before hand to cool in the sink.

In addition you if you are doing a partial boil then it is to your advantage to get your top up water as cool as possible. So by planning ahead and boiling the amount you think you need + insurance the night/day ahead and cooling it. Make sure you put a lid on at the end of the boil and leave it on. But then with this you can cool it in the fridge probably down to 40 - 45 and even put it in your freezer at the start of your brewing to get close to freezing.

Then with your wort do some math to figure out how cold you will need cool it. Probably somewhere around 90 - 100 which can be done pretty quickly (10 - 15 min)