A New Way To Chill Wort?

Hey guys i have been doing alot of reading about chilling wort. However i used to work in a kitchen and we would have to chill about 4 gallons of soup all at once. We would put the pot in a ice path (in the sink), then we would have a big emply tequilla bottle, that we filled up with water half way and then froze. We would then stick this into the pot of soup. The ice water in the sink chilled it as did the cold bottle of ice inside the soup.

My question is obvious, is it okay to stick the frozen bottle inside the pot containing the wort if it is sterilized. I guess acting like a cheep wort chiller?

best regards
Albert...

Yes, you can do that. Make sure the bottle is sterilized thoroughly, and it should work just fine.

I would not want to do that save up for a chiller. Remember you are trying to get your wort under 140F (DMS) as fast as you can.

Yeah dude, that should totally work. I used to get 3 gallons down to around 80* in 20 minutes when I did extract using just the ice bath. The booze bottle sounds like a solid idea though, just make sure to sanitize. It would also work to just toss in clean ice if you need to make up some volume with water.

Good luck!

I've often thought about getting a Rapid Chill Paddle for that little extra cooling. Don't see why a bottle (plastic I hope) wouldn't do the same thing. Sanitized properly of course.

thanks for the speedy response guys, i think i will make do with that until i have enough for a wort chiller...

Not having done this myself, you may know better, but I see two problems:

You say it's half-filled. If it sinks so that the wort level comes up too far above the water (ice) line in the bottle, you're putting stress from differential thermal expansion on that glass and it could crack or shatter.

Glass is a poor heat conductor. Add that to the small amount of ice that is in the bottle compared to the water ice bath in the sink, and I don't think you'll be improving much over the ice bath alone.

But give it a shot, and prove me wrong!

2bluewagons said:

You say it's half-filled.If it sinks so that the wort level comes up too far above the water (ice) line in the bottle, you're putting stress from differential thermal expansion on that glass and it could crack or shatter.

Click to expand...

I'd use a plastic bottle to avoid any possibility of glass breakage.

For durability, max heat transfer, and safety... I would use large aluminum bottles. Like the kind you get at the convenience stores. Aluminum has a high heat transfer rate, and will not shatter/melt like glass or plastic.

like these guys :
http://media.courierpress.com/media/img/photos/2008/04/19/20080419-172009-pic-657622947.jpg

Brew-boy said:

I would not want to do that save up for a chiller. Remember you are trying to get your wort under 140F (DMS) as fast as you can.

Click to expand...

DMS shouldnt be an issue, even with a lid on AFTER the boil.

Most of the precursors are gone, and DMS is only produced at very high temps. A couple minutes after flamout, it isnt being produced anyway.

A vigorous 60 minute boil is good, 75 minutes is better and 90 miuntes is awesome for making DMS a non issue. Half life.

I have NO CHILLED wort after the boil, and placed in a sealed container, yup... still no sign of DMS.

This is also a nice secondary chilling method even with an IC or CFC to get down to pitching temp in summer when the tap water is warm.

2bluewagons said:

Not having done this myself, you may know better, but I see two problems:

You say it's half-filled. If it sinks so that the wort level comes up too far above the water (ice) line in the bottle, you're putting stress from differential thermal expansion on that glass and it could crack or shatter.

Glass is a poor heat conductor. Add that to the small amount of ice that is in the bottle compared to the water ice bath in the sink, and I don't think you'll be improving much over the ice bath alone.

But give it a shot, and prove me wrong!

Click to expand...

well actually it is half filled with water, but when you freeze the bottle the ice goes all the way up to the top and then slowly melts it never returns back half full of water... as for the breakage. We did it a lot at the kitchen i worked at and it never shattered... i dont know ill see if i do it, and relay how it turned out to you guys...

digdan said:

For durability, max heat transfer, and safety... I would use large aluminum bottles. Like the kind you get at the convenience stores. Aluminum has a high heat transfer rate, and will not shatter/melt like glass or plastic.

like these guys :
http://media.courierpress.com/media/img/photos/2008/04/19/20080419-172009-pic-657622947.jpg

Click to expand...

yeah i do not think sterilizing the caps, or where the caps meet the aluminum will really work. The reason i like the big tequila bottle is because the cap stays out of the water, and only the cold "THICK" glass is submerged...

Plastic, not glass, as others have said. Also, sanitize after freezing. Sterile, then freezer equals not sterile. I like to dump in ice cubes that have been sterilized by boiling them first .

BTW, restaurant supply stores sell a piece of plastic intended to be used for this purpose. It's not the cheapest, but works.

As an aside, I think the Health Department would frown upon a commercial restaurant using a tequila bottle for such purposes.

I used to use this method when I first started, except with plastic bottles. I had multiple one gallon juice jugs filled and would just swap them in until I got down to pitching temps. So yes, as your experience with soup tells you, this works and is okay with wort.

My .02 however... SAVE up to build your own chiller. Copper is CHEAP right now and my Immersion Chiller makes the brew day TONS better. Honestly, best brew day tool I have.



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