Freeze Water in Tupperware to Cool Wort?

All -

Read in Palmers book about freezing water in airtight plastic container and using that giant ice cube to help cool the wort quicker. I am actually pretty decent with cooling in an ice bath - but always looking to get better.


Basically, I want to take some regular tap water that I have been brewing with - not boiling it as I just add it to the wort to top up to 5 gallons anyway with no problems - and freeze it is an airtight tupperware container in the freezer... Then add that to the wort right inside the pot.

Any tips, advice etc on this?

Or would 1 pint mason jars be better?

I've done it with plastic containers before and it worked alright. I used boiled water to make sure it was sanitary and I sanitized the container before I did it. Wouldn't use anything like mason jars because even if they didn't break when the water froze, it would be hard to get the big ice cube out. Something plastic is easier because you can flex it to release the ice.

I stopped doing it when I stopped worrying about cold break in my primary. Now I just do an ice bath and chill my top up water in the fridge overnight before I brew.

Cat -

Wasnt really as much about the cold break as trying to prevent those off flavors that develop while the wort is still hot/warm. When its boiling, they are carrying away by the boil but when its just warm/hot and not boiling they stay in the wort... so you gotta get the wort cool quick so not as many develop.

Forget exactly what the stuff is...

Cat -

Is the water that you put in the fridge the night before boiled first?

I've done it the opposite way, with the bottles outside the wort. I re-fill 20oz bottles with water and freeze them. I set my pot in the sink and fill it with ice and those bottles. I've seen people lager that way and figured it'd work well to chill wort also. I might try a batch the way you mentioned to see how well it works. Really I suppose so long as your bottles are clean you could just spray them real quick with starsan and let it sit shortly before submerging.

jalgayer said:

Cat -

Is the water that you put in the fridge the night before boiled first?

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No, but it's storebought water in gallon jugs.

i have to agree with teromous

I'm doing my first non-mr. beer brew saturday... i just filled up two big things of tupperware with water and threw in the freezer before even reading this thread... the thought was for my ice bath.... though an interesting concept to put the ice in the wort.... there is no reason why it shouldnt work from what I read...

I put a gallon of water in the freezer as I start my boil. By the time I'm ready to chill the wort it's not frozen, but very cold (there's usually some ice crystals forming on top). I pour that into the wort when the kettle goes into the ice bath. I get to pitching temperature in about 10 minutes.

Captain Damage said:

I put a gallon of water in the freezer as I start my boil. By the time I'm ready to chill the wort it's not frozen, but very cold (there's usually some ice crystals forming on top). I pour that into the wort when the kettle goes into the ice bath. I get to pitching temperature in about 10 minutes.

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I just read about this in Palmer's book and it may seem that pouring that water into the wort has a chance at some oxidation, while a slowing melting ice cube has a much lower chance

So just careful with this. The reason that I was saying to use big ol' Tupperware "ice cubes" is that when the wort is hot, it can become oxidized easily (hot side oxidation I believe its called]. The oxygen can chemically bind with some of the proteins in the wort when its hot, then later separate and oxidize the beer.

Still hoping to get some more input on this idea.

Freezing water in a clean/sanitized Tupperware container then adding the actual ice to the wort to aid in a faster chill. This is obviously for non-full boils as I boil in the 3.5-4 gallon range

jalgayer said:

Still hoping to get some more input on this idea.

Freezing water in a clean/sanitized Tupperware container then adding the actual ice to the wort to aid in a faster chill. This is obviously for non-full boils as I boil in the 3.5-4 gallon range

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That is how I always chilled when I brewed extract, before getting my CFC. While I can't isolate any off flavors actually occuring from this, I will say it is the only time I had bad batches - two. After those two batches I went all-grain (not because of the bad batches, I had just been planning on it) and have not had the same off flavors or infectious type aroma/flavor. I had made a bunch of extract brews before those two bad ones that had no problem whatsoever. So it could have been a fluke or something with some bad water, but it was bottled. I would like to think my brewing habits were impeccable back then, but I'm sure there were shortcuts taken. So, it may have been that.

But to answer your original question before going on and on. It works. But there have been reports of shattering/exploding ice, although I've never seen it.

I used to use this method before I got an immersion chiller, and will probably use it again once the tap water temperatures get to the point where I can't get my beer cold enough in a reasonable amount of time. Just use pre-boiled waters, and sanitize the containers and blocks of ice before adding them to the wort.

jalgayer said:

I just read about this in Palmer's book and it may seem that pouring that water into the wort has a chance at some oxidation, while a slowing melting ice cube has a much lower chance

So just careful with this. The reason that I was saying to use big ol' Tupperware "ice cubes" is that when the wort is hot, it can become oxidized easily (hot side oxidation I believe its called]. The oxygen can chemically bind with some of the proteins in the wort when its hot, then later separate and oxidize the beer.

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Hot side aeration is not something we as homebrewers need to be concerned about. Even Palmer has changed his opinion on this.

Sanitize your tupperware container first of course, otherwise there's no problem with the idea.

ArcaneXor said:

I used to use this method before I got an immersion chiller, and will probably use it again once the tap water temperatures get to the point where I can't get my beer cold enough in a reasonable amount of time. Just use pre-boiled waters, and sanitize the containers and blocks of ice before adding them to the wort.




Hot side aeration is not something we as homebrewers need to be concerned about. Even Palmer has changed his opinion on this.

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Thanks for the tip on hotside aeration - one less thing for me to worry about.

So...what do you mean by sanitize the ice block? You mean star san the block of ice itself? So sanitize the tupperware then add boiled water...then sani the ice....

jalgayer said:

Thanks for the tip on hotside aeration - one less thing for me to worry about.

So...what do you mean by sanitize the ice block? You mean star san the block of ice itself? So sanitize the tupperware then add boiled water...then sani the ice....

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Well, I am probably a bit paranoid, but I figure that dipping the ice blocks into StarSan for a couple of seconds before adding them into the wort is just a bit of extra insurance in case the containers aren't completely airtight.

I stumbled across this method over the winter when I forgot to bring a couple gallon jugs of storebought water in from the breezeway.

One jug I just kept outside until I was ready to cool my wort. The I sanitized a nice sharp knife and cut the ice out of the jug.

I put the whole block in at around 160-170 degrees, and it was about 10-15 minutes to pitching time.

I even got to thinking that I had it TOO cold as it took forever for the block to fully melt.

I decided then that I dont really need a wort chiller at the moment

BBKing said:

One jug I just kept outside until I was ready to cool my wort. The I sanitized a nice sharp knife and cut the ice out of the jug.

I put the whole block in at around 160-170 degrees, and it was about 10-15 minutes to pitching time.

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This may be something. The water is good as its sealed. Sterilized the knife and the outside of the bottle. A 1-gallon ice cube. Throw some ice and H20 around the outside... Ill find out on Sunday.

Bobby_M said:

Sanitize your tupperware container first of course, otherwise there's no problem with the idea.

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Thanks, Bobby. Good to hear that this is a viable idea. I eventually will likely get a wort chiller...

Its really not even the price that is stopping me... Its just one more thing to stort, clean, etc.

A frozen block of ice and cold water/ice on the outside and a 10-15 minute chill time seems not just good enough - but really good in my newbie-opinion

I've used ice to chill wort before with no negative effects. Make sure to smash up the ice before you add it to the wort though. One big block of ice won't melt or cool the wort very fast, but if you break into flakes or smaller pieces then it works nicely.

On the oxidation issue, most of my stuff doesn't sit around long enough, but I did recently have a 1-year old bottle of Irish Red that I chilled partially with blocks of ice, and it didn't have any oxidation character at all.

Just did it with a stout. Tupperware with 1.5qt of ice (big block) then in sink with ice bath. a 4.25 gallon boil. Cooled to 90F in ~15min.