5 min cold break...

I just brewed my first HB last weekend, and I was not satisfied with the time it took to bring the wort to pitching temp.

So, I got out the calculator and used a little chemistry..

1 cal will raise 1 g of water by 1° C (Specific Heat)
while 80 cal will melt 1 g of ice at 0° C to water at 0° C (Energy of Transformation)

If my stoichiometry is correct:

1 gal of 0° C ice added to 1 gal of 100° C water => 2 gal of 10° C water
2 gal of 0° C ice added to 3 gal of 100° C water => 5 gal of 28° C water

Assuming that wort will have approximately the same Cp as water..
I attempted to boil a 3 gal wort and add 2 gal of ice, to achieve a 5 min cold break.

...problem...
I froze 2 gal of store bought water (for sanitary reasons) with out opening the jugs. The expanding ice burst the jugs. Not wishing to risk contamination I threw 2 new gal jugs in the freezer a couple hours before brewing and used the resultant ice water to partially cool my wort, while placing it in an ice bath.

...Question...

Has anyone else used a similar method?
Any ideas how to prevent the jugs from breaking in the freezer?
Should I even be concerned about contamination in such a scenario?

I would appreciate feedback.

thanks,
Pip

Ice will expand as it freezes. You'll need to leave some headspace in the jugs for the ice to expand. So the only way to freeze exactly one gallon of water would be to put it in a container larger than one gallon.

Yeah, but I didn't want to open up the water and risk contamination...

If you can brew without contamination then you can sanitize a container and transfer water. Or use cold packs and freeze them. sanitize before you put them in the wort and you are good to go.

Buy three gallon bottles of water. Use one in your brew water. Pour some out of the other two into the empty one. Freeze all three.

I put the whole unopened jugs in the freezer 4-5 hours before brewing, and check on them periodically. I'll pull them out when ice just starts to form in them, or when I'm ready to cool my wort.

Once my 2.5-3 gal boil is finished, I'll water bath the kettle in the sink (with some ice) and then start pouring some of the water from the cold jugs into the fermenter. After I get about 1/2 of the cold water out of each jug I shake them vigorously (for aeration) then pour the rest of the water in through a strainer. Then my wort goes in through the strainer, top off with a little more water if necessary and I'm usually down to 75 degrees or less. Total time is not much more than 5-7 minutes from the end of boil to aerated, pitchable wort.

I say buy disposable 'rubbermaid' resealable containers, sanitize them, boil and cool some water, fill containers, freeze. Bam, you got sanitized ice.

ajwillys said:

I say buy disposable 'rubbermaid' resealable containers, sanitize them, boil and cool some water, fill containers, freeze. Bam, you got sanitized ice.

Click to expand...

I do the same thing. Something I would recomend is getting 3 or 4 of the sandwich sized rubbermaid containers for freezing the water. I have found that several smaller ice chunks cool the wort faste then one big chunk. These are the kind that I use, just make sure whatever you get is food grade and freezer safe.