wort chilling alternative?

Trying to chill a full wort boil. Currently I bury the brewpot in snow, whirlpool it, and then pack in the snow (and repack, and repack....) This last batch took 35-40 minutes to get to pitching temp. It'd be nice to speed that up. (It's too cold here to mess with hoses, but I'll start using an immersion chiller in the spring.)

I was thinking of filling some 2L bottles with water, freezing them, and then dropping those into the wort. (I'd sanitize the outside of the bottles when the boil is nearly done.) This would be in addition to the snowpacking.

Is there a reason that this would not work?

Thanks

faber said:

Trying to chill a full wort boil. Currently I bury the brewpot in snow, whirlpool it, and then pack in the snow (and repack, and repack....) This last batch took 35-40 minutes to get to pitching temp. It'd be nice to speed that up. (It's too cold here to mess with hoses, but I'll start using an immersion chiller in the spring.)

I was thinking of filling some 2L bottles with water, freezing them, and then dropping those into the wort. (I'd sanitize the outside of the bottles when the boil is nearly done.) This would be in addition to the snowpacking.

Is there a reason that this would not work?

Thanks

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I just chilled my wort today in 15-20 minutes. Here is my process:

Night before, boil 2.5-3 gallons of water, cover with aluminum foil and a lid and bring it down to 33 degrees. I put mine in the garage since it got down to 10 degrees last night.

Morning of, buy a couple bags of ice, dump one bag into a preferably tall rubbermaid tub, and put 2-3 gallons of water in, sit it outside when it's cold out.

When the 60 minutes is up for the wort boil, I dumped the 2.5 gallons of cold water into the primary bucket. Then I dumped the wort in and took the bucket and put it into the rubbermaid bin with the ice/water mix. Then I dumped the rest of the bags of ice into the tub and filled the rest of the tub with cold water to bring it as high up the ferment bucket as possible. Then I whirpooled it pretty constantly and also shifted the icewater mix around some. No more than 20 minutes later, my wort was at 70 degrees. This method works perfectly when it's cold out, but probably not great when it's warm out.

The ice cost me about $4.

Are you going to drop the frozen bottles in the hot wort, or are you going to cool it off a bit first? If dropping into almost-boiling wort, you might get cracking of the bottles from the temperature shock, and additional water added to the wort from the cracks.

Better off getting the pot in a large tub of cold water to which you keep adding ice/packed snow. As you experienced, you keep getting an air gap between the snow and pot. Water takes that problem away. Are you doing full boils because you use all grain? If not, why?

MariaAZ said:

Are you going to drop the frozen bottles in the hot wort, or are you going to cool it off a bit first? If dropping into almost-boiling wort, you might get cracking of the bottles from the temperature shock, and additional water added to the wort from the cracks.

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Good point. Maybe I'll wait until the wort temp is down to around 150°F. It seems to go from boil to ~150°F fairly quickly, but from there to pitching temp takes a while.

Better off getting the pot in a large tub of cold water to which you keep adding ice/packed snow. As you experienced, you keep getting an air gap between the snow and pot. Water takes that problem away. Are you doing full boils because you use all grain? If not, why?

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Yes, I am transitioning from partial mash to AG. I thought that the balmy Montana nights this time of year would facilitate a quicker wort-chilling.

I understand the logic of the tub, but somehow keep thinking that I might not need it. The brewpot fairly quickly melts its way down to the ground, and the snow forms a wall of ice that backs off from the wall of the pot (kind of like the wall of a snow cave that hardens from your body heat/breath). Water starts to pool up a little, but I kept packing in fresh snow, thinking it might be more effective. Now I realize I may have been making more of an insulator. For my fourth "snow brew," I'll bring out a tub.

So...now I'm thinking of a combination of 1) tub w/snow, 2) bottles of ice added at the right time, and 3) scale back on the boil-off compensation in order to add, say, a gallon of ~33°F water.

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. I appreciate it.

Cheers

I brewed a batch of Pale Ale 2 nights ago. We had just gotten a fresh layer of about 6 inches of snow and decided to try the snow bank method. I put my pot (with 3 gal of wort) outside and packed all the snow I could around it. I also dropped a frozen one gallon sanitized jug of preboiled water in the pot. It took approx. 1 hour to get to 65 deg. It seems that it is faster to use the ice water bath for me. But it was nice to use the snow since it only comes down once or twice a year here in Seattle.

What's wrong with an immersion chiller inside?

I can't wait to get an immersion chiller. I am tired of dealing with the whole ice and water hassle. I just have not gotten around to buying one.

Once you make the commitment to AG, there really is no substitute for a good chiller. Cooling quickly and avoiding infection is too important to save the $50.

Bobby_M said:

Once you make the commitment to AG, there really is no substitute for a good chiller. Cooling quickly and avoiding infection is too important to save the $50.

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Agreed. And considering the $€£ I've already sunk into this over time, it's really nothing. That's not really the issue. In spring, I'll be using one, to be sure.

Thanks, Bobby_M, and everyone else.

All the best