Why anti-ice?

Aloha all!

I see people regularly recommend against using ice to cool wort. Saw a new post just today that said "Just don't do something stupid like dump ice into it"

Why the discrimination against icing hot wort? Is it purely a fear of contamination? Or is there some other insidious, complex chemical process at work?

I do this regularly, and I've gotta tell ya, no wort chiller made can cool faster than a few pounds of cubed ice! I can go from full boil to pitching yeast in about 15 minutes. And, to date, no batch-wide infections (a few bottle-specific problems, but one can't blame that on the ice, just the bottle washer!)

So what's the story?

yea, its the contamination issue. I have personally been in an ice warehouse and it was far from the cleanest place I have been in (lots of dirt and dust all over the place). If you make your own ice with boiled water and frozen in a sanitized environment you would be fine.

but what ever works for you go with it.

Many people here freeze plastic bottles full of tap water, sanitize the outside of the bottles and dump that in the wort.

Laughing_Gnome_Invisible said:

Many people here freeze plastic bottles full of tap water, sanitize the outside of the bottles and dump that in the wort.

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Wow. Somehow I've never heard of that one. It is fairly ingenious. I suppose it is much easier to scratch the outside of a bottle and create an area where bacteria could live than it is to scratch the inside of a plastic corboy, but it's still a pretty creative idea. Not like creative surprises me in this place anymore.

For the OP, yeah I think it's a contamination issue. You can't make ice in a vaccum (well I guess you could maybe) and you never know what's dormant in there waiting to wake up when it thaws.

Have you actually looked in the ice storage bins at many local gas stations or convenience stores? I recently bought about 70 pounds of it from a gas station for coolers at a vintage baseball tournney. I pretty much cleaned out the last bags in an ice bin at a gas station. If you saw the litter frozen in the bottom, you too would understand. Especially since many commercial bags often have slits or holes in the bags, either put there as drains or from just being carelessly dumped into the bins by delivery people.

HawaiianHippie said:

I can go from full boil to pitching yeast in about 15 minutes. \

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So can most Wort Chillers. And they don't risk contamination.


you go through all the trouble to sanitize everything, then you dump ice in thats been sitting in a supermarket for weeks.

Here we go again...

Ice from the store is made with RO water. If your bag has no holes you are good to go.

There are many people on this board who have been using this cooling method for years with absolutely no problems.

Ive seen people sanatize a gallon jug- freeze it. Just the jug off and dump the giant icecube in the bucket. 1 gallon of additional water added!

arturo7 said:

Here we go again...

Ice from the store is made with RO water. If your bag has no holes you are good to go.

There are many people on this board who have been using this cooling method for years with absolutely no problems.

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At least up here in Michigan the blue diamond ice (I think that is the company) has holes in the bag. And and a string tie on the top, with a nice gap up there. And I've also found many bags that have been peirced or split at the seams.

If I were icing I would do like Mike Flynn mentioned and freeze my own in sanitized milk jugs. But honestly I feel more comfortable with the ice in an ice bath rather than in my wort.

But since I can use my wort chiller both inside off my sink and outside, the point is really moot for me.

Well, my CFC here in MI can chill a 5 gallon batch in just about 10 minutes. Plus a lot of us don't want the extra volume of water added in as it's just another calculation to make when figuring the recipe. (if you are that anal about your recipe that is).

Homercidal said:

Well, my CFC here in MI can chill a 5 gallon batch in just about 10 minutes. Plus a lot of us don't want the extra volume of water added in as it's just another calculation to make when figuring the recipe. (if you are that anal about your recipe that is).

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Personally I have a bigger problem with the dilution than contamination. If your shooting for a specific gravity then you would have to take into account the fact that your adding a half a gallon to a gallon post boil. This also changes your hop utilization. But if your just trying to make a good beer then I guess it doesn't really matter.

i suspect that is for an extract or partial grain where you start with 3 gallons in the boil and top up to 5 afterward.

jcarson83 said:

Personally I have a bigger problem with the dilution than contamination. If your shooting for a specific gravity then you would have to take into account the fact that your adding a half a gallon to a gallon post boil. This also changes your hop utilization. But if your just trying to make a good beer then I guess it doesn't really matter.

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This is probably a more useful technique in partial boils.

sharpstick said:

i suspect that is for an extract or partial grain where you start with 3 gallons in the boil and top up to 5 afterward.

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True. I have added chilled water to my extract batches before, but it was bottled water and I'm not sure there is significant difference between ice and bottled water. The best thing in that case is to boil the water before chilling, but I never did.

I wonder if you could sanitize a tupperware container and freeze a block of water in it and use that, instead of trusting the local ice company.

sharpstick said:

i suspect that is for an extract or partial grain where you start with 3 gallons in the boil and top up to 5 afterward.

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Yeah I'm sure the OP is talking about extract batches. Even Alton Brown shows it in his episode. You do factor the amount of ice into your final volume.

I used ice on my first batch, and had no issues. However, after reading the concerns here I decided to just build a chiller. It cost me about $25 in parts and took all of 10 minutes to assemble. Now I don't have to worry about buying ice before I brew nor do I have to worry about contamination from unsterile ice.

I use my IC which is fed from an IC frozen inside of a dish tub. I run tap water through the first IC into the IC immersed in the wort. Works pretty well. Before the ice is totally melted, the wort is chilled to pitching temperature.

The only drawback is remembering to place the tub with the IC into the freezer the night before. Also means I have to have a shelf dedicated for space to put the tub onto. Oh yeah.... make sure the IC being frozen is completely dry inside or the water will not flow.

Other than that, I have no difficulty getting my wort chilled down in quick order.

Salute!

I use ice all the time, the local company is brand new and i've seen the inside of the place where it's made and everything is new and they sanitize their equipment and filter their water. The store where i buy it sells it fast so it's never sitting in there too long. So as long as the bag has no holes in it, i use it.

I remember checking out the Sam Adams website not too long ago and it had some home brewing videos and Jim Koch ladled his wort over the ice to cool his wort.

I can see why the OP is using this method. In Hawaii much of the tap water is still pretty damn warm and an IC can take a long time.

Laughing_Gnome_Invisible said:

Many people here freeze plastic bottles full of tap water, sanitize the outside of the bottles and dump that in the wort.

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I would be more concerned with compounds coming off the plastic bottles that were never meant to be in heat like that than I would about sanitation.

carnevoodoo said:

I would be more concerned with compounds coming off the plastic bottles that were never meant to be in heat like that than I would about sanitation.

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Yeah I was gonna say... are these the same plastic water bottles they tell you not to leave in your car because they release carcinogens when heated up?

bah - make a chiller for 30 bucks and be done with it. 10 bags of ice cost you that. I've done 30 batches with my chiller so far...

Yeah I was gonna say... are these the same plastic water bottles they tell you not to leave in your car because they release carcinogens when heated up?

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Who is they??? All the internet hoaxers??? That is an internet rumor and there is no evidence to support that rumor.

Plastic bottles are regulated by the FDA as "food contact substances," which means they are held to the same safety standards as other packaging materials. This means that the FDA has reviewed data on how safe the plastic is that is used in water bottles, including the potential for harmful chemicals "bleeding" into liquids because of heating or freezing. Dioxins are not produced below temps of 700F.

We use plastic containers to cook food in the microwave everyday. Even John Hopkins Center has debunked this.

I used ice that I made myself on a batch and it worked great. I also chill a portion of my top-up water in the fridge the night before I brew. That way I only have to cool my wort to within 20 degrees of pitching or so before I move it to my fermenter and add my water. One batch, I actually had to scramble to find some good, room temp water to finish my top up because I hit 60 degrees and still have a gallon to go and all I had left was what was in the fridge!

Just want to add my 2 cents as one that boils and freezes a couple of sizeable ice blocks in plastic containers (I use a 12 cup and an 8 cup). I figure these into the recipe, and top-up with distilled if needed (my water is fairly hard). Last time, I chilled (boil to 78F) in about 13 minutes.

I used to use ice before I made my wort chiller. I used ice from the ice maker in my fridge, and just dumped it in. I never had an infection in those ten brews.

However.....Sooner or later you will get an infection. By dumping ice in the wort you are taking a guesstimated risk. When the infection eventually occurs, then the ice you used is one possibility that has to be included into the equation. If you can eliminate that possibility by using a more sanitary method, then that leaves you free to concentrate on faults in other parts of your method.

Just my 2 cents.

I used to put a carboy in an ice bath to cool the wort down to pitching temp once it came down to ~80* with an immersion chiller.

Going to be running garden hose through ice bath on it's way to IC from now on to get temps down to ~68*

brrman said:

bah - make a chiller for 30 bucks and be done with it. 10 bags of ice cost you that. I've done 30 batches with my chiller so far...




Who is they??? All the internet hoaxers??? That is an internet rumor and there is no evidence to support that rumor.

Plastic bottles are regulated by the FDA as "food contact substances," which means they are held to the same safety standards as other packaging materials. This means that the FDA has reviewed data on how safe the plastic is that is used in water bottles, including the potential for harmful chemicals "bleeding" into liquids because of heating or freezing. Dioxins are not produced below temps of 700F.

We use plastic containers to cook food in the microwave everyday. Even John Hopkins Center has debunked this.

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The below is taken from a link on the same page of the supposed debunking link you posted above. It is only a small portion that warns against heating plastics especially plastic water bottles and how chemicals can leach from the plastics when not used for it's intended purpose and i would say placing a bottle that was intended to carry cold liquid into boiling hot wort would not be an intended use.

Also an FDA ruling can easily be bought and paid for, they allow BPA's like the ones used in plastic number 7's while many other countries have outlawed it's use in anything!!

Question: Water bottles aside, are plastic products for daily use a potential concern?

Goldman: We use plastics for many purposes. They are everywhere in our environment. If you are concerned about exposure to chemicals in plastics, a common sense approach would be to use alternatives when it is practical and safe. For instance, when cooking you may wish to use products made from inert materials like stainless steel or glass instead of plastic. It is also good advice to follow directions and to only use plastic products as they were intended by the manufacturer, particularly when cooking. Metal items and many plastic containers are not safe to use in a microwave oven. For microwaving, use glass or plastic containers that are labeled “microwave safe”.

Question: Are there concerns about cooking with plastics?

Schwab: Whenever you heat something you increase the likelihood of pulling chemicals out. This is the same process we use in the lab to extract chemicals from materials we want to analyze. Chemicals can be released from plastic packaging materials like the kinds used in some microwave meals. The same can occur with the use of polycarbonate plastic eating utensils.

Again, the best thing to do is to follow the directions and only use plastics that are specifically meant for cooking.