Wort cooling idea, will this work?

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GreenDragon

GreenDragon

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So I don't have a wort chiller (yet!) and I'm brewing a wheat beer St. Patrick's Day morning. Usually for me chilling the wort is painfully slow so I have a few ideas.

1) I stuck 2 gallons of the Ozarka bottled water in the fidge. I'll do my 3 gallon wort like normal, then do one or two rounds in the ice bath and then dump it in my ale pale. I'll then add the 2 gallons of chilled water to this. Hopefully this will bring me to within pitching temps because if it doesn't I don't have a way to chill the ale pale.

2) I'll do my 3 gallon wort like normal, then do one or two rounds in the ice bath and then stick then entire pot into the freezer (I have a spare empty freezer). Then add in the extra 2 gallons of water like normal. I'm worried about the word closest to the sides freezing and the wort in the middle staying warm though.

How do other non-wort chiller brewers do it?
 
While I think either of those options would work I personally would look into the "No Chill" method. I've heard very encouraging things about it.
 
Before I got a wort chiller, and when I was still doing partial boils, what I did was similar to your method.

Basically I would freeze 2 gallons of sanitized water in smaller sealed & sanitized containers and when I got to flameout, I would just dump in my big ice cubes and gently stir. I'd also put the pot in an ice bath in the sink and run the water on the outside such that it was constantly recirculating. That would usually do the trick pretty fast.
 
I think adding cold water is your best idea. Try not to move the pot with the semi warm wort too much.
 
weirdboy said:
Before I got a wort chiller, and when I was still doing partial boils, what I did was similar to your method.

Basically I would freeze 2 gallons of sanitized water in smaller sealed & sanitized containers and when I got to flameout, I would just dump in my big ice cubes and gently stir. I'd also put the pot in an ice bath in the sink and run the water on the outside such that it was constantly recirculating. That would usually do the trick pretty fast.
Click to expand...

I do this, but I don't freeze my top off water, I just get it to about 33 F. Than, I put ice, water and isopropyl alcohol (about a cup - works way better than salt to bring tamps down) in the bath tub for my ice bath. I'm at temp in about 5 minutes.
 
I put my top up water in the fridge the night before I brew. Then, I use my sink to cool the wort down under 90F which takes 15-20 minutes. At that point I pour it into the fermenter and top up with the 35 degree water from the fridge. Takes it right down to 60.

I have a double sink so I can switch back and forth quickly and my tap water runs about 40F. Not sure what your water temps are like there so YMMV.
 
ongreystreet said:
Do not put it in the freezer. Waste of time.
Click to expand...

+1 on this too. Without stirring, it will take a LONG time to cool in the freezer. First the wort would heat up the air inside the freezer faster than the compressor can cool it, plus without stirring the wort won't cool very fast anyway.
 
I'm in the same boat. Thinking along the same lines. The "top off" method in the instruction's just isn't cuttin it. I thought,do the ice bath,have 2-3 gallons of spring water in the fridge,then maybe 1 gallon of it at room temp,just in case.?...:drunk:
 
I use my inground pool from October-April. Once summer temps warm up the pool I have to use a water bath in my kitchen sink.
 
I boil water, cover and let it cool, sanitize several (5-6) ziplock bags, fill with water, and freeze a day before I brew. A quick dunk in sanitizer and the bags can be removed then drop the large iceburgs into the hot wort. If you know you will need at least 2g of topup then freeze that much and use water for the remainder.

I go from boiling to 70 with that and an ice bath in a few minutes.

Remember from your highschool chem days that due to the state change ice at 0C contains far less energy than water at 0C, thus making a much more efficient chiller.
 
Ice bath in a large cooler with the lid taken off (which conveniently doubles as my swamp cooler) and two gallons of water thrown in the fridge. I'm from boil to pitching in 10 minutes. It helps to spin the kettle in the ice bath, as that will gently stir the wort inside the kettle and help circulate the cold water along the outside. I like the idea of sanitized ice bags though, that would probably shave another minute or two off of my current set up!

By the way, my buddy and I who brew together tried out a wort chiller for the first time on a 5 gallon partial mash stout and it still took almost 30 minutes to get down to pitching temp. Wort chillers can be great, but that they are not THAT much more convenient than your plain old ice bath.
 
I used an ice bath and then bags of ice as my top off water. I never had any problems BUT you can see the concern for contamination.
 
I use a large tupperware that I drilled a bunch of hole in ( all at the same hieght. I then run a garden hose inside the tupperware. The warmed up water just drains out the holes as cold water in coming in through the hose. U can even throw snow into the water. I put my full keggle in this, and do a full cool down in 10-15 minutes.
 
GreenDragon said:
So I don't have a wort chiller (yet!) and I'm brewing a wheat beer St. Patrick's Day morning. Usually for me chilling the wort is painfully slow so I have a few ideas.

1) I stuck 2 gallons of the Ozarka bottled water in the fidge. I'll do my 3 gallon wort like normal, then do one or two rounds in the ice bath and then dump it in my ale pale. I'll then add the 2 gallons of chilled water to this. Hopefully this will bring me to within pitching temps because if it doesn't I don't have a way to chill the ale pale.

2) I'll do my 3 gallon wort like normal, then do one or two rounds in the ice bath and then stick then entire pot into the freezer (I have a spare empty freezer). Then add in the extra 2 gallons of water like normal. I'm worried about the word closest to the sides freezing and the wort in the middle staying warm though.

How do other non-wort chiller brewers do it?
Click to expand...


you will have to leave your wort in the freezer for a LONG time for it to start freezing.

before i bought a chiller, i would put my pot in an ice bath and change out the water a few times while stirring. then when it was no longer steaming, i would take a gallon of spring water that i had previously frozen, cut off the plastic jug and plop the whole ice chunk into my wort and stir until it melted to top off.

using this method i was able to get down to pitching temp relatively quickly but i would definitely reccommend purchasing (or making) a chiller when you are able...sooooo much easier. :mug:
 
TTB-J said:
Ice bath in a large cooler with the lid taken off (which conveniently doubles as my swamp cooler) and two gallons of water thrown in the fridge. I'm from boil to pitching in 10 minutes. It helps to spin the kettle in the ice bath, as that will gently stir the wort inside the kettle and help circulate the cold water along the outside. I like the idea of sanitized ice bags though, that would probably shave another minute or two off of my current set up!

By the way, my buddy and I who brew together tried out a wort chiller for the first time on a 5 gallon partial mash stout and it still took almost 30 minutes to get down to pitching temp. Wort chillers can be great, but that they are not THAT much more convenient than your plain old ice bath.
Click to expand...


I actually agree with this. If the volume of you bath is sufficient it can be an efficient way to cool. But where the IC shines is when doing full boils of large volumes. It is simply too heavy and too dangerous to be lugging around 6-10 gallons of near boiling wort to get it in an icebath.
 
Can I add my two cents by way of a question ? Adding ice sounds good as you have to add water to bring it up to 5 gallons or so anyway . ( wish I would have done that instead of the ice in a bag thing I did )
My question to who ever is why worry about sanitized water for freezing when you were just going to add in 3 or so gallons of tap or bottled water in the first place ?
I have never used sanitized water for anything not even the yeast for rehydrating . beer is always good. I do use spring water for brewing sometimes as I think it tastes better than this Wichita tap crap as it is nasty.
 

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