Newbie Question

On cooling the wort...... I thought that this would work. Before starting my project I will freeze 2 gallons of water. After the boil I will sanitize the outside of the 2 gallons place them into the fermentation bucket and pour the wort over the still sealed frozen gallons. That should chill the wort very fast in my estimation. Do you experienced brewers think that this will work? Thanks for any info.

search is your friend.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=39544

Thank you for the link, but that's not what I was meaning. The link was talking about melting gallons of ice to add to the wort. I want to add unopened frozen gallons and pour the entire 5 gallons over the unopened gallons, using them as an ice wand of sorts.

I have a gut feeling that it will not cool as quickly as you think but I have no experience to back that up.
You can try it but I think I'd want the pot sat in an ice bath as well.
Others have tried this but I have never taken much notice.

It could work, the problem I see is being sure of proper sanitation of the outer surface of the jugs. Most plastic jugs in the grocery store (milk, juice, etc.) are undoubtedly scratched up and filthy. Lot's of little places for nasties to hide from the sanitizer.

If your going to do it, be darn thorough about scrubbing the jugs before using them.

Ramrod said:

Thank you for the link, but that's not what I was meaning. The link was talking about melting gallons of ice to add to the wort. I want to add unopened frozen gallons and pour the entire 5 gallons over the unopened gallons, using them as an ice wand of sorts.

Click to expand...

How big is your ferm bucket? if it is a normal 6.5 bucket, you may have some displacement issues with pouring 5 gallons on top of the 2 frozen gallon jugs in the bucket.

I sanitize and freeze a tupperware container and dump that right into the wort. That with an ice bath drops the temp very fast.

you don't want to pour hot wort. that causes hot side aeration, which destabilizes the beer long-term.
meaning, it'll go stale in the bottle sooner than if you didn't hot side aerate.

it'd be better to float several smaller bottles with ice inside, sealed and sanitized, and gently stir the brew pot to keep the wort moving, but not splashing at all. Gentle...is the key word here.

once its under 90F, you can splash it as much as you want.