Ice to chill the wort after boiling?

Hi, total noob question:

I've been reading Randy Mosher's Mastering Homebrew to learn about the hobby and I've stumbled into the part where the wort has to be cooled quickly after boiling. Standard practices include using a snow bank a counterflow heat exchanger or the usual copper cooling coils.

Since the wort have to be diluted with water to the final volume inside the fermenter, a question that came out quickly is why couldn't the cooling be made by simply tossing some ice cubes or rolls into the boiling wort to bring it to ambient temperature. Wasn't mentioned on the book. Since it is not mentioned I guess there must be reason not to use ice cubes but I would like to know the chemistry behind it.

I'd be worried about the temp differential and maybe getting spattered with hot wort if the ice shattered. Ouch.

It sounds like a good idea, but I use an icebath in the sink immediately after the boil. Nothing that isn't sanitized first goes into my kettle after the boil.

You can absolutely use ice cubes directly in the wort to cool but you must remember the first rule in brewing...sanitation.

The ice cubes must be sanitary, so if you make your own ice using pre-boiled water or distilled water and make sure the ice is covered so it remains sanitary you are good to go.

DO NOT use pre-packaged ice or the ice from an ice maker, as it is not sanitary.

Does the wort need to be cooled quickly after the boil? No it doesn't. Pretty much a bye gone myth from the old days. No chill brewers are producing good beer without quick chilling.

A large tub with ice water will chill the pot of wort.
If you are in a cold climate, winter is great for chilling, put the lid on the pot and place it out in the snow/cold air.
A wort chiller is a good investment, but not absolutely necessary.

Or just add cold sanitized water.

flars said:

Does the wort need to be cooled quickly after the boil? No it doesn't. Pretty much a bye gone myth from the old days. No chill brewers are producing good beer without quick chilling.

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You are neglecting cold break, which is not a myth. Yes, you can make great beer without quick chilling, but that's not what was asked. This isn't a thread about refining agents or cold crashing. He's trying to cool his wort as quickly as possible to precipitate proteins. There are many ways to skin a cat.

Edit: That came off a bit harsh. I apologize. I just feel like too many people push their agenda on HBT. I think most would agree that if a quick chill is possible then do it.

One possible downside of this method is that it would decrease your OG. If that isn't an issue then it would work fine. I put my pot in an ice bath that includes frozen water bottles. I guess you could put frozen sanitized water bottles directly into the wort if you wanted to. That would not change your OG.

BeerAddikt said:

You are neglecting cold break, which is not a myth. .

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Yeah but, no chill produces cold break... Just not as as quickly... Once the temp is reached, the proteins coagulate.

The slower cooling *may* result in finer cold break textures, but it still forms.

At least in my experience.

jtratcliff said:

Yeah but, no chill produces cold break... Just not as as quickly... Once the temp is reached, the proteins coagulate.

The slower cooling *may* result in finer cold break textures, but it still forms.

At least in my experience.

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I can dig. I wouldn't recommend a new brewer let their wort cool over a long period of time, but I'm not going to argue the method.

flars said:

Does the wort need to be cooled quickly after the boil? No it doesn't. Pretty much a bye gone myth from the old days. No chill brewers are producing good beer without quick chilling.

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This is generally not a good thing to tell to beginner brewers. Wort laying around uncooled and not fermenting is a perfect atmosphere for bacterial contamination. As a beginner the best procedure after the boil is to chill as soon as possible down to 75 F or so and pitch whatever yeast you are planning to use. The copper coil immersion chillers are the easiest to make... just wrap some copper around the outside of a cornelius keg, remove and hose clamp a clothes washer hose to each end. Be sure to immerse your immersion chiller in a bucket of sanitizer for ten minutes or so before immersing it in the wort. Hook one end to the garden hose and run off the other hose to wherever you need some watering done.

No, I'm not some newbe, I have been brewing for 21 years and actually spent three of those years as the brewer for a microbrewery in Seattle.

Cheers! -Kev

kev7555 said:

Be sure to immerse your immersion chiller in a bucket of sanitizer for ten minutes or so before immersing it in the wort.

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Why not just drop it in the boiling wort in the last 20 minutes?

flars said:

Does the wort need to be cooled quickly after the boil? No it doesn't. Pretty much a bye gone myth from the old days. No chill brewers are producing good beer without quick chilling.

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Not exactly. You can make decent beer with no-chill, but you need to take into a account that the wort is in isomerization range for a longer period, which will affect your bittering and flavor hops.

While it works, it is a practice that developed in areas where water is under heavy conservation. It's still a better practice to cool the wort to at least 100 degrees as quickly as feasible. Producing a good cold break will help prevent chill haze and make for a more stable end product.

After the boil you can place your kettle, with the lid on, in a larger tub or container with cold water. Since the temperature difference is large, the wort will chill down quickly to around 120-140F. If you're concerned about water conservation, use the hot water for cleanup or save for other purposes, and replace with more cold water. That will take it down to around 20-30 degrees above your groundwater temperature, but likely still too warm to pitch yeast. You can replace the water again with cold, and/or add ice packs or ice cubes to bring it down to pitching temps.

Adding ice right after the boil is a waste of ice, but using it later gets it down those extra 20-30 degrees quickly, where it counts. I would not toss ice cubes into the (cooled) wort unless you know the ice is sanitary.

If you need to add top up water, add it to your kettle, if large enough, or to your fermentor. You could prechill a gallon or more of (sanitary) top-up water in jugs and add some of that to your wort when it is around 100-120F. That will reduce the need for ice cubes in the last step of chilling.

Just be careful to keep everything sanitary and when you add top up water, don't add too much. It is about impossible to bring your gravity back up if you undershoot it. Use a calculator to figure out how much top-up water you need to get to your desired gravity

Gravity in either °Brix, °Plato, or points (e.g., 1.056 = 56 points, lop off the "1.").