Dry Ice in my Wort Chiller?

I have been toying with this idea as an alternative to freezing multiple bottles of water for my chiller ice compartment. Anyone ever try this?

I've never tried it. But I wonder what would happen if you just threw a chunk of dry ice into your hot wort. It just dissovles into CO2 so I don't think it would hurt anything. Just a thought.

Sanitation of the dry ice could be a concern?

Dry ice is so cold I don't think sanitation would be much of a concern. I'm no expert on it though. I would guess that you would get a lot of foaming as the CO2 tried to escape from the solution. How much I don't know. Maybe we should get Yuri to experiment with it. He did a dry ice carbonation experiment using a plastic bottle.

sounds like you will be wearing alot of wort once you throw a chunk of that stuff in.

I've heard that dry ice isn't really all that clean and can have machine oil residues and whatnot on it since it isn't really meant to directly touch anything for human consumption. I'd be wary of tossing it into my pristine wort.

To address the OP: Dry ice is freaking cold! -78.5°C is asking for frozen wort and shattered glass. I've done a few things with dry ice, including turning a large bowl of Halloween punch into an oddly shaped chunk of orange ice in a pile of glass fragments. The dry ice didn't break the bowl until the ice chunk attempted to launch itself. Exciting, but not what I had planned.

Mr. Mojo Rising said:

I have been toying with this idea as an alternative to freezing multiple bottles of water for my chiller ice compartment. Anyone ever try this?

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Is the question about cooling hot wort or maintaining fermentation temps?
Sounds like the OP wants to use it to keep a cabinet cool.

Buford said:

I've heard that dry ice isn't really all that clean and can have machine oil residues and whatnot on it since it isn't really meant to directly touch anything for human consumption. I'd be wary of tossing it into my pristine wort.

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True dat. In my late teens, I had a job in the beverage industry where there was always dry ice around. As a typical teenager, naturally I had to mess around and toss it into a wide variety of liquids. As the bubbles furiously rose and burst, they always left a greasy gray film on the surface. Not something I find appealing in a fine homebrew.

David_42 is also correct, the stuff is so damn cold it reacts with other materials in surprising and often unpleasant ways.

Having played a bit with dry ice, I don't really recommend it for any brewing purpose. It's great for shipping frozen food across the country, but it doesn't lend itself to brewing very well. I don't think you're asking for sanitation problems, but you would potentially introduce some other industrial contaminants that shouldn't really be in your beer. Also, you will likely freeze a good portion of your wort - I'm not sure if that's a good thing, but I kinda doubt it.

Long story short - dry ice is fun to play with, but it doesn't belong in your beer.

Also, be careful with it. Never put it in a closed container that may burst. Never touch it with bare hands. Just storing it can potentially be hazardous, as it introduces a large amount of CO2 gas into the environment. Without adequate ventilation, you could be creating an invisible layer of CO2 at floor level that may not be healthy for your pets or small children.

To clarify, what I would like to attempt is to put it in my wort chiller cabinet to help control the ambient temp inside my chiller. My chiller is composed of two separate compartments and connected by 1 1/2 PVC Pipe. The first is the standard extruded "pink" polystyrene square cabinet used for carboy storage. A fan resides in the return port at the top of the side. On the bottom side is my other return to the cooler portion. The cooler portion is just that, a cooler with two holes drilled in the side for the PVC.

I have seen people use dry ice in coolers before and based on my set up the dry ice will have no contact with my wort whatsoever. Is it still worth trying? I plan on leaving for a few days and would love to have a way to chill my next batch without being around.

I suppose that could work - potentially quite well. However, it's gonna be expensive to keep it stocked with dry ice vs just freezing some water jugs.

The confusion lies here:
A wort chiller is a device used to cool wort from a boil down to pitching temperatures.

A fermentation cabinet is a temperature controlled space designed to keep your beer at the proper temperature during fermentation.

he means fermentation cabinet i think. it seems it would be rather expensive to use dry ice for weeks to keep your brew cold when you can just use ice in containers that you can rotate in your freezer.

i suppose you could use it the same way as a temporary solution. put it in some containers in the chiller if you were going to leave and needed them to last more than just 1-2 days...but as a primary way to chill your cabinet, it doesn't seem reasonable.

Sorry for the confusion. I don't plan on using it for every batch. I just NEED to get a brew started for stockpile since I am doing an Oktoberfest party. I am leaving town for a few days and would like to cool my fermentation cabinet for several days. Thanks for the help!

To resurrect this thought of chilling wort with dry ice: I understand the issue with the industrial contaminants in the dry ice, but what if one was to have a container or long-ish plastic bag sanitized on the outside that one sticks the dry ice in and submerges in the wort. That would segregate the dry ice from the wort. No contamination, just a lot of cold all at once. My concern is will the sudden introduction of extreme cold screw up the flavor somehow?

Yuri_Rage said:

Without adequate ventilation, you could be creating an invisible layer of CO2 at floor level that may not be healthy for your pets or small children.

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And passed out drunks.

As the dry ice sublimated, the sealed bag would expand until it popped. The spray of hot wort would be pretty dangerous. Plus, the dry ice would now be floating freely in your wort.

Even if the bag was sized correctly not to pop, I still don't think it would work. The CO2 gas would not be a good conductor for temp exchange. Similar to how cold air is not a good method of cooling wort.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhXA9ON6igk\

This guy got in the hot tub with that huge chunk of dry ice, so apparently it does not work as well as you think.

BasementAle said:

To resurrect this thought of chilling wort with dry ice: I understand the issue with the industrial contaminants in the dry ice, but what if one was to have a container or long-ish plastic bag sanitized on the outside that one sticks the dry ice in and submerges in the wort. That would segregate the dry ice from the wort. No contamination, just a lot of cold all at once. My concern is will the sudden introduction of extreme cold screw up the flavor somehow?

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I work with dry ice and liquid nitrogen almost daily.As well I have used it to cool my wort. The problem with just sticking it into the wort is that, like has been noted will sublimate (change from a solid directly to a gas) quickly as cause a lot of wort to be splashes out of the kettle. as well when it is submerged in water it quickly forms a layer of ice that insulates it.

The way I did it and It worked really well, Is half way filled a cooler with water and dropped a chunk of dry ice into it. I recirculated the water from the cooler through my Immersion chiller. The Dry ice was able to keep the recirculated water cool till I got the wort cooled down to pitching temps.

as for sanitation though, I would not be too concerned about any thing living on it.

also by adding directly to the wort, you might be dissolving a lot of CO2 into the wort and lowering the pH.

To clarify, my thought was not to have a sealed, but an open bag where the opening was above the top of the wort to allow the sublimating CO2 to escape (visualize a sanitized bread bag with a block of dry ice in it, weighted if need be). The insulating ice that forms may decrease the efficiency, but we are still talking about something in the -70's, right? Maybe I'm trying too hard to make a marginal idea feasible. I just like the idea of cool wort FAST.

I have sold/worked with dry ice for many years...If you are trying to cool ambient air, I dont see any problems. Wouldnt recommend using it directly in the wort however. But for chilling ambient air, it will work, maybe too well even

I work with dry ice on a daily basis to make cooling baths to control the temperature for various organic reactions. I wouldn't put it into my wort, since it isn't generated under sanitary conditions. You can reach almost any temperature with the correct mixture of dry ice or liquid nitrogen and the correct organic solvent. However, the average Joe can't buy most of the following solvents. Acetone would be the safest bet, but I won't be trying it or ANY of these solvents(and I don't recommend anyone else try it either).

Cooling Baths
Temperature Composition
13 p-Xylene/CO2(s)
12 Dioxane/CO2(s)
6 Cyclohexane/CO2(s)
5 Benzene/CO2(s)
2 Formamide/CO2(s)
0 Crushed Ice
-5 -> -20 Ice/Salt
-10.5 Ethylene Glycol/CO2(s)
-12 Cycloheptane/CO2(s)
-15 Benzyl alcohol/CO2(s)
-22 Tetrachloroethylene/CO2(s)
-22.8 Carbon Tetrachloride/CO2(s)
-25 1,3-Dichlorobenezene/CO2(s)
-29 o-Xylene/CO2(s)
-32 m-Toluidine/CO2(s)
-41 Acetonitrile/CO2(s)
-42 Pyridine/CO2(s)
-47 m-Xylene/CO2(s)
-56 n-Octane/CO2(s)
-60 Isopropyl Ether/CO2(s)
-77 Acetone/CO2(s)
-77 Butyl Acetate/CO2(s)
-83 Propyl Amine/CO2(s)
-83.6 Ethyl Acetate/Liq N2
-89 n-Butanol/Liq N2
-94 Hexane/Liq N2
-94.6 Acetone/Liq N2
-95.1 Toluene/Liq N2
-98 Methanol/Liq N2
-100 Ethyl Ether/CO2(s)
-104 Cyclohexane/Liq N2
-116 Ethanol/Liq N2
-116 Ethyl Ether/Liq N2
-131 n-Pentane/LiqN2
-160 Isopentane/Liq N2
-196 Liq N2

Why can't you put it into a couple sealed plastic bags with a tube attached for the co2 to escape?

ok i am very new to brewing (never done it) but could you maybe put your boiler into a tub of dry ice as an alternative to a wort chiller? i dont really think it would be cost effective though. i dont see it as a concerne for contamination at all considering the very extreme temps and that it is C2O2 which should kill off any organisims not allowed to go dormant 1st

Maybe 4"or 6" copper pipe if you can find a 8-10" piece(not practical)weld a cap to one end.. on the other end have a removable cap with vent tube and fill it with broken up dry ice and put it in the kettle with the regular immersion. Might speed up the process...might ruin your day...but if i ever used dry ice to chill i would do it this way with indirect contact with the wort in a highly conductive material (copper) but im not a expert in thermodynamics. that copper pipe might split open from the thermal shock,explode,who knows Cheers