New Cooling Idea? Will It Work?

New Cooling Idea

So being a native of the restaurant business, I began thinking. I'm starting a new brewery now that I have moved out of town from my brother and father (previous brewing partners). Money is a bit of an issue since I'm pursuing more of my education.

So I came up with a simple plan...

In the restaurants we sometimes use what we call "ice wands" to cool sauces, stocks, etc. before placing them in a cooler or freezer. Using this idea I have frozen 2 2L bottles of water to serve as ice wands. I plan on following my normal strategy of brewing, but when it comes to cooling I want to stir the boiling wort with the sanitized bottles of ice instead of the traditional methods.

1.) Will it work effectively?

2.) Do I risk Shocking the beer? any worse than an Ice Bath?

3.) Will 2 bottles be enough?

Thank you in advance for any responses

I'd be willing to bet those bottles may leech some off flavor in to your boiling hot wort, or maybe even melt.

Question, are you doing partial boils? If so why not boil and cool some water, put it in a sanitized zip lock, freeze it, and toss it in the wort to help cool it?

It will work effectively if you're making extract or partial extract batches. I used to dump ice in it instead of cooling and then topping off with tap water. You'd be a lot happier to just buy a wort chiller though. If you put your brew pot in an ice bath in the sink, it should cool plenty in 10 - 15 minutes. If you're making an all grain batch, you don't want to add any extra water.

wyzazz said:

I'd be willing to bet those bottles may leech some off flavor in to your boiling hot wort, or maybe even melt.

Question, are you doing partial boils? If so why not boil and cool some water, put it in a sanitized zip lock, freeze it, and toss it in the wort to help cool it?

Click to expand...

But wouldn't the same apply to the bags on the issues of flavor and melting point. plus the back side of ice should stomp the melting I would think.

BTW.. I am currently extract and partial mash due to cost restraints

Dunno about 2 liter bottles, but I saw the ice paddles at a restaurant supply place. I picked one up and tested it out. It worked, but about as good as cooling in my sink. I'm going to try doing sink cooling and using the ice paddle at the same time and see how fast that works. Just haven't had a chance.

What I decided was that an IC would be faster, but if you have warm ground water keeping that from working well then it might be an option.

Ziplock bags would melt much quicker than soda bottles no? Who the hell would throw ziplock bags into their wort?

Airborneguy said:

Ziplock bags would melt much quicker than soda bottles no? Who the hell would throw ziplock bags into their wort?

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OK, maybe I was a little unclear. Fill the sanitized ziplock bags with boiled/cooled water. Put them in the freezer. After they are frozen, open the bags and drop the sanitized ice cube in to the wort.

Really??!! Do I have to explain everything to you guys?

wyzazz said:

I'd be willing to bet those bottles may leech some off flavor in to your boiling hot wort, or maybe even melt.

Question, are you doing partial boils? If so why not boil and cool some water, put it in a sanitized zip lock, freeze it, and toss it in the wort to help cool it?

Click to expand...

jtupper said:

But wouldn't the same apply to the bags on the issues of flavor and melting point. plus the back side of ice should stomp the melting I would think.

BTW.. I am currently extract and partial mash due to cost restraints

Click to expand...

I think what he's talking about is to freeze some boiled water (to sanitize), and then dump the frozen water into the partial boil to help cool. I doubt that you'd get to pitching temps that way, but since essentially, you're adding water, you'll need less top off water. Then again, if you do half boils, and freeze the other half, you won't need additional water.

Hmm... Something I hadn't thought about. Could be a great way for those apartment dwellers to consider.

You should have! Because now I just went and threw three ziplock bags into my brewpot!

Is my beer ruined?

wyzazz said:

OK, maybe I was a little unclear. Fill the sanitized ziplock bags with boiled/cooled water. Put them in the freezer. After they are frozen, open the bags and drop the sanitized ice cube in to the wort.

Really??!! Do I have to explain everything to you guys?

Click to expand...

Ok, you beat me to it, but I knew what you meant.:rockin:

wyzazz said:

OK, maybe I was a little unclear. Fill the sanitized ziplock bags with boiled/cooled water. Put them in the freezer. After they are frozen, open the bags and drop the sanitized ice cube in to the wort.

Really??!! Do I have to explain everything to you guys?

Click to expand...

Ok, you beat me to it, but I knew what you meant.:rockin:

(damn this 30 second post timer...)

homebeerbrewer said:

Ok, you beat me to it, but I knew what you meant.:rockin:

Click to expand...

I'm glad someone else was pickin' up what I was throwin' down!

Airborneguy said:

You should have! Because now I just went and threw three ziplock bags into my brewpot!

Is my beer ruined?

Click to expand...

Yep, it's trashed. You'll need to ferment and bottle in the usual way and send these bottles to me for proper disposal.

Hmm well I think I might try it next time... cant really afford a IC right now and not enough room for a water bath

Can the flavors be any worse than my cheap 2 bucket fermentation?? I mean its the same plastic compounds?

jtupper, do you have a bath tub? You could fill that with water and store bought bags of ice and cool in that. Heck, go to wally world and buy a big plastic bucket that your brew pot will fit into, and cool with that. I started out by using a galvanized tub that I put two bags of ice, and a couple gallons of water in to cool my stovetop boiled wort in. It could take up to an hour or so to cool that way, but if you're freezing your top off water, it would probably be quicker than that.

jtupper said:

Can the flavors be any worse than my cheap 2 bucket fermentation?? I mean its the same plastic compounds?

Click to expand...

Yeah, but you're talking about boiling temps and not-boiling temps. Fermentation temps won't effect the plastic, but boiling temps will.

i guess we will see what happens. ill try it on a cheap beer first and see if i notice anything.... ice baths are just a pain in my opinion...i have to remember to buy ice and my bathroom is pretty small so

How cold is your tap water? I just do a water bath in my sink and I can cool it down pretty quick.

My sink is actually pretty small so i don't think it will work

Plus... Im pretty messy!

I've done the "big ice cube" trick before and it works ok. Just used some brew-quality water in a sanitized tupperware container in the freezer and then just popped it out of the container and into the cooling brew.

If you can fit the pot in the sink, you can cool in there. Of course you will have to wash dishes to make room in the sink, first.

edit: This was the cooling paddle I tried out a while back: http://www.webstaurantstore.com/san-jamar-rcu64-rapi-kool-2-liter-rapid-cooling-paddle/27112870.html

My sink is like 5" deep. 4 gal in the brew pot is way higher...doesn't seem efficient.

Do 2.5 gallon boils. Maybe that'll give you the room?

5" deep?!? Kitchen sink?

I'd go for the bathtub then.

<==== TupperWare

lol, never gets old!

ChshreCat said:

I've done the "big ice cube" trick before and it works ok. Just used some brew-quality water in a sanitized tupperware container in the freezer and then just popped it out of the container and into the cooling brew.

Click to expand...

I use an ice bath in the tub and three 2liter ice wands to cool six gallons off every time.

If you make more ice wands, you can rotate a fresh set in after a few minutes and cool even faster.

Obviously, you want to wash/rinse/sanitize the HELL out of the bottles before dropping them in your wort. =)

As long as the outside of the bottles are sanitized (although maybe the boiling hot wort would sanitize them?) they should be good to go. Not sure about how much ice would be necessary.

Why not just do a "no chill" batch? I do them all the time, never had a problem as long as my hops were adjusted to compensate.

Is it just me or do ice wands never work that well in the commercial kitchen world? They always thaw too fast on the inside and leave the stock still pretty warm, I've always had to put the stockpot into an ice-bath and THEN use the ice wand. It'd be easier to drain the wort into a bunch of 4 inch hotel pans and cool it on a speed-rack in the walk-in .

Right On! So many times a day I find myself thinking "If I Only Had A Walk-In Right Now!!, or Some Underpaid Employees!"

Cheers

homebeerbrewer said:

I think what he's talking about is to freeze some boiled water (to sanitize), and then dump the frozen water into the partial boil to help cool. I doubt that you'd get to pitching temps that way, but since essentially, you're adding water, you'll need less top off water. Then again, if you do half boils, and freeze the other half, you won't need additional water.

Hmm... Something I hadn't thought about. Could be a great way for those apartment dwellers to consider.

Click to expand...

Eh not really, freezer space is at a premium in apartments.

How about the no chill method? I mean, think about how much energy you're looking at moving around otherwise? Boil wort to 212. Take 60 water, boil it (212), put it in the freezer (-32), then back into the 212 wort. Two or three times of this surely has to cost the same as an IC.