How much ice for icebath?

[zachary80]

Either tomorrow or Sunday we are brewing a Double IPA, and I want to make an extra effort to drop the temperature faster on this one. We normally fill the laundry sink up with water, add the (5 gallon) kettle, drain the water once it warms up then refill, then add a tray of ice (from an ice maker) and a few freezer packs and wait. I was thinking this time we could speed the cooling by purchasing some ice. How much should we add? 7lbs? 22lbs?

 

[madbird1977]

I dump what I have in my fridge which would be probably be 4 lbs. Cools pretty quick I check the water amd then drain. But don't add so much that the kettle tips. I do think adding a bunch of ice and just a bit of water, leveled to the wort level is best. My 2 cents.

 

[DoubleAught]

I've bought one of those "big" bags of ice from the gas station and it was more than enough. No water, just lined the bottom of the sink with ice, placed the kettle in, then filled the sides up with ice. I just replace it as it melts. Normally down to 80 within 20 minutes.

 

[kketterer]

I use ice for my topf off all the time. Approx, 8lbs per gallon. you could also make a couple filtered water ice bricks to drop in the brew kettle...

 

[Just1pepsi]

I end up using 2-3 bags it varies for some reason.
I cool to 100deg F, then top off with cold water that I put in the freezer pre-boil.

 

[brewd00d]

a 16lb works for me, in fact i always have a little left over for next time.

 

[brewd00d]

or if its snowy, a 5 gallon bucket full of snow works too.

 

[zachary80]

Also since we are partial boiling, we top off with 1.5 gallons of distilled which I normally put in the fridge the day before. I've never tried freezing it (no space) but it might be worth the effort

 

[Diaperload]

I used to do the ice bath. My first few batches I never had enough ice so I would buy a bag or 2.

I recently bought a wort chiller and it is fantastic. It was $50 but I hear you can make one yourself for cheaper.

The wort chiller drops it to 100° pretty quick. Drops it to 80° somewhat quick then it slows down a fair amount to get it to 70°.

So what I've been doing with the wort chiller is getting it to 80° then topping off with water that I put in the freezer at the start of boiling. Drops it down from 80-70° really fast.

 

[Captain Damage]

I put the kettle in a dry sink and completely pack ice around it - takes a 15 lb bag, but that's just my sink. Then I liberally sprinkle salt on the ice before filling with water. I spin the kettle wile it's cooling. I get down to pitching temperature in less than 15 minutes. (yes, I do time it)

I recently got a big plastic tub at Walmart for about $6. I'm using that instead of my sink. Works a little better because the walls are high enough that I can float the kettle slightly, so I get cooling from the bottom as well. Did my last two brew with that and got to pitching temp in 12 minutes. Also I got a bunch of cheap ice cube trays at the supermarket and sing those to stock up on ice the week before I brew rather than buying bags of ice at the supermarket. The cheap trays don;t last very long before they start cracking, but it still saves a few bucks.

 

[solbes]

5-10 lbs should do it. I would add it continually to a small amount of water. If you add it all at once it may be melted when you are trying to squeeze out that last 2-3 degrees F.

 

[TopherM]

I can get a full volume 5 gallons from boiling to 70 in 18 minutes with about 25 lbs of ice. You could probably do it with less ice if you wanted to wait longer, but that's about as efficient as it gets.

I fill up the SS kitched sink about 1/4 with water, put the pot in the water, through in all the ice from the freezer (about 5 lbs), hit 7/11 down the streen for two 10 lbs bags, then just keep it full of ice from there. Got the system down to 18 min flat, which is better than most immersion chillers.

 

[JonM]

On my second batch ever (partial boil) I used one 7-lb bag of ice. It did not cool the wort enough. Being a noob, I figured it was close enough and pitched into 90+ degree wort. That batch was an ester-Fest an totally undrinkable, even a year later.

After that, I always got a 20-lb bag. That was always plenty, and cheaper than 2 7-lb bags.

 

[sailrat]

I like using 2 frozen 2-liter botles of water in the wort. sanitize them and drop them in, after the wort cools in a water bath for 10 minutes. It does not dilute your wort and cools it at the same time.

 

[glmccready]

sailorat: I used 2 sanitized frozen 2-liter bottles my last batch too and thought it worked well.

 

[zachary80]

Added one 7lb bag to an ice tray full of ice, 2 large ice packs, 1 medium ice pack, and about 5 small icepacks. Didn't make a large difference. Next time we will try an additional 22lb. We got good volume on the batch - only needed to top off 1.25 gallons instead of 1.5 for a normal batch (plus we strained out an oxyclean tub full of hops)

 

[POAS]

I usually fill the sink with water and drain it after the water warms up at least twice before I finally put in ice. This takes advantage of the fact that the heat transfer rate is proportional to the difference in temperature. When the wort is somewhat cooled, I then add the ice to the sink (and some water) to get it to the final temperature. I don't end up using as much ice that way. Usually about a walmart bag full of ice that way (may be 1/2 bag of bought ice?). It takes me about 25 min. to bring the temperature down from boiling to about 80 degrees. Then I add the chilled water to top off and I'm pitching yeast in the mid sixties.