Hello guys i'm a noobie brewer. First batch was out of a can only needed hot water and yeast. I purchased one of those kits that comes with steeping grains and LME, I don't want to purchase a wort chiller, but I was wondering if this would work. Filling water bottles full of water freezing them and sanatizing them just before putting them in my hot wort to well...chill it. I would do this in unisen with a ice bath. Another question couldn't i just add cold water right into the hot wort to chill it? My last question what is a recommended chilling time like a 10 or 15min window? This is a big change for me, going from can to using grains so I'd rather be over prepared than under, thank you.
Would this chill my wort fast enough?
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Justibone
Well-Known Member
As for adding cold water:
Other people have said that they have used spring water from Wal-Mart or the supermarket directly out of the jugs, though that would have a relatively small chance of causing infection, the chance is there. Tap water is the same thing but moreso -- higher chance of infection.
As for freezing a water bottle, sanitizing it, and bobbing it around in the wort, I don't see why that wouldn't work, although you'd best be danged sure the bottle won't give off chemicals at wort-type temperatures... etc.
Basically, anything that goes into your wort causes a chance, whether slight (like that bottled spring water) or great (like licking your fingers and dipping them in), of infecting and thereby ruining or partially ruining your beer.
It's your call, really.
Other people have said that they have used spring water from Wal-Mart or the supermarket directly out of the jugs, though that would have a relatively small chance of causing infection, the chance is there. Tap water is the same thing but moreso -- higher chance of infection.
As for freezing a water bottle, sanitizing it, and bobbing it around in the wort, I don't see why that wouldn't work, although you'd best be danged sure the bottle won't give off chemicals at wort-type temperatures... etc.
Basically, anything that goes into your wort causes a chance, whether slight (like that bottled spring water) or great (like licking your fingers and dipping them in), of infecting and thereby ruining or partially ruining your beer.
It's your call, really.
businesstime
Well-Known Member
I would be concerned with adding plastic (sanitized or unsanitized) into 200+ degree wort.
Mirage
Well-Known Member
For 5 gal batches, we just used to buy a few bags of ice and mix the ice, cold water and salt together and add more ice as the ice melted. It chilled plenty fast and as long as your gently stir, should give you no problem.
b33risGOOD
Well-Known Member
For what its worth, I did the frozen bottle thing with great success and no infection. Just let your wort naturally chill with the help of the ice bath for a few minutes give it a stir to help disipait some heat then drop in ur bottles.
Should be fine jus make sure ur bottles are sealed well so you dont get any water leaking out of it into your wort.
Should be fine jus make sure ur bottles are sealed well so you dont get any water leaking out of it into your wort.
BrookdaleBrew
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I've used a sanitized frozen water bottle in the wort to no ill affect. I also chill my top off water in my freezer during the boil and this helps greatly as well.
Grimm
Well-Known Member
Ice bath works great. usually chills the wort in about 30 mins. I made my own immersion chiller from $25 worth of homedepot parts. (an ice maker hook up kit and 2 compression hose connections) That got my time down to less than 20 mins.
withak
Well-Known Member
I cool about 3.5 gallons from boiling to about 100F in 20-25 minutes with an ice bath. Stirring (the ice bath and the wort) regularly helps a lot. Just make sure to stir the wort gently and with a sanitized spoon.
Grinder12000
Well-Known Member
Don't be real concerned with fast chilling - just do it as best you can. For half batches I used to just have an ice bath and get the temp to 100. Then add the COLD dilute water to the rest of the carboy.
Not sure why you would want to be gentile stirring - actually BRISK and bubbly is best as it will add O2. Heck I have a special attachment on my power drill and I whip up a froth!! Now is not the time to be gentle. Get as much O2 in that wort as you can!
Not sure why you would want to be gentile stirring - actually BRISK and bubbly is best as it will add O2. Heck I have a special attachment on my power drill and I whip up a froth!! Now is not the time to be gentle. Get as much O2 in that wort as you can!
ChshreCat
Well-Known Member
Cold water bath in the sink here, plus fridge cold top off water. I can be in the fermenter and 65F in 30 minutes or less (or your pizza's free).
OP
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tenchu_11
Well-Known Member
I just heard people say "Chill your wort fast to avoid a haze" so I wanted to know what is considered fast? I'm making an American Style hefenweizen so assume haze shouldn't matter since its a cloudy beer. But might help to know incase i ever decide to make a pilsner.
Mirage
Well-Known Member
Chilling it fast will result in a better cold break which reduces the haze. As you said, with the hefe it doesn't matter. If you want the beer as clear as possible, then you could try the water bottles. We are just lazy and buying bags of ice works for us. Adding cold top off water is good though and should bring your beer down the last few degrees.
withak
Well-Known Member
Maybe it's just bad internet knowledge, but doesn't adding O2 when the wort is still hot cause oxidization right away? I've read that you don't want to aerate it until it is below 100F or so. I shake the hell out of the partially filled carboy to oxygenate after it is cool.
withak
Well-Known Member
Around 3-3.5 gallons of 100F wort topped off to 5 gallons with cold tap water usually puts me right around 75F in the carboy.
Here's an idea for you: the night before you start your brew, boil up a few gallons of water. Take some 1 gallon jugs, clean em, swirl some sanitizer around in them ( probably soak the caps in some sanitizer). Leave the water in your pot (covered) to cool down to a reasonable temp, then dump it into those jugs, and put 'em in the fridge.
Now when you do your brew, you've got your pot sitting in an ice bath, you can go ahead and add your water to bring it up to 5 gallons (or whatever you can safely put in your pot!) and you're temp will be nice and low.
If you want to really fancy, instead a milk jug, you could use some tupperware containers, and then instead of a fridge, you could use a freezer.
Or just go to your local hardware store, buy a roll of soft copper tubing, a replacement dryer hose/utility hose, and a hunk of vinyl tubing, and you'll have yourself an immersion chiller for right about $20.
Now when you do your brew, you've got your pot sitting in an ice bath, you can go ahead and add your water to bring it up to 5 gallons (or whatever you can safely put in your pot!) and you're temp will be nice and low.
If you want to really fancy, instead a milk jug, you could use some tupperware containers, and then instead of a fridge, you could use a freezer.
Or just go to your local hardware store, buy a roll of soft copper tubing, a replacement dryer hose/utility hose, and a hunk of vinyl tubing, and you'll have yourself an immersion chiller for right about $20.
Grinder12000
Well-Known Member
True true! I agree with that!
As for the clear beer thing . . . I've never understood the need for super clear beer. My brews are always clean (Whirlfloc) and if not . .well . . .it's in my tummy in a very short time anyway.
Mischief_Brewing
Well-Known Member
No chill works great for me. Brew in the evening one day and pour into fermenter, aerate and pitch the yeast the next morning. No infections since I've been doing this method (knock on wood!)...
Grasslands
Well-Known Member
I posted this in another wort chilling thread and would love to get some comments/suggestions.
I've been running an idea through my head over the past few weeks. Currently, I put a 1/4" x 25' copper IC in my 7g kettle (while simultaneously giving a salted ice bath), which cooled down my wort to pitchable temps in 20 minutes (in the Florida heat - as recent as August 10).
However, I just recently purchased a 15.5g Keggle and I'm itching to use it, but I'm fairly certain my old IC won't get the job done - even with an ice bath - in less than 20 minutes. I'm also considering that my hose water doesn't exactly get "cold" (temp is something close to 70ish, by my estimation).
I've investigaged a couple other IC options as I'm not really interested in the CFC route at the moment. One of them is to purchase and/or build a 50'x1/2"(or 3/8") IC and attach it to my old 25'x1/4" IC (which will be submerged in a salty ice bath) - which is subsequently hooked to my garden hose. So essentially, it'd look like this:
Garden hose -->25'x1/4" IC (in a salty ice bath) -->50'x1/2"(or 3/8") IC submerged in wort.
This would work similar to using a pump submerged in a salty icebath pumping cold water through the IC, with the benefit being that I wouldn't have to refill the ice bath from time to time.
My thought is that I would get extremely chilled hose water running through the 50' IC. Even without putting the keggle in an ice bath, I'd assume that I'd get pitchable temps within 15 minutes or so.
Thoughts? I'm wondering if that's a better option than hooking up a $15 pump from Harbor Freight. Don't forget that I need to get a 50' IC anyways due to the larger kettle. I'm just thinking outside the box.
I've been running an idea through my head over the past few weeks. Currently, I put a 1/4" x 25' copper IC in my 7g kettle (while simultaneously giving a salted ice bath), which cooled down my wort to pitchable temps in 20 minutes (in the Florida heat - as recent as August 10).
However, I just recently purchased a 15.5g Keggle and I'm itching to use it, but I'm fairly certain my old IC won't get the job done - even with an ice bath - in less than 20 minutes. I'm also considering that my hose water doesn't exactly get "cold" (temp is something close to 70ish, by my estimation).
I've investigaged a couple other IC options as I'm not really interested in the CFC route at the moment. One of them is to purchase and/or build a 50'x1/2"(or 3/8") IC and attach it to my old 25'x1/4" IC (which will be submerged in a salty ice bath) - which is subsequently hooked to my garden hose. So essentially, it'd look like this:
Garden hose -->25'x1/4" IC (in a salty ice bath) -->50'x1/2"(or 3/8") IC submerged in wort.
This would work similar to using a pump submerged in a salty icebath pumping cold water through the IC, with the benefit being that I wouldn't have to refill the ice bath from time to time.
My thought is that I would get extremely chilled hose water running through the 50' IC. Even without putting the keggle in an ice bath, I'd assume that I'd get pitchable temps within 15 minutes or so.
Thoughts? I'm wondering if that's a better option than hooking up a $15 pump from Harbor Freight. Don't forget that I need to get a 50' IC anyways due to the larger kettle. I'm just thinking outside the box.
fatmoose
Well-Known Member
The value that using a pump to recirculate the water would provide would be that it wold decrease that amount of water used in your chilling process, which is good from a couple perspectives. Other than that i think your approach to pre-chilling sounds very practical, I've seen other folks who stated they were using the same process so I don't think the idea is so unique as to be impractical.
Grasslands
Well-Known Member
Thanks.
I suppose that in water saving efficiency, I could do it this hybrid way first to see how much water would actually be required to sufficiently cool my wort to pitchable temps - via the exhaust hose into a 5g bucket or two. I'd just be concerned about killing my pump by not monitoring the water level in the ice bath closely enough.
Subsequently, I don't know if running salt water through a pump is bad news or not. I'd assume it was, so a salt/ice bath combo wouldn't be in the cards if going the pump scenario. I'm obsessed with the idea after watching a Myth Busters episode where they effectively lowered the temperature of an ice bath about 8 degrees after adding salt.
Basically, I'm trying to take into consideration total chill (i.e. salt/ice bath combo vs. regular ice bath) vs. chilling time vs. expenses (pump, ice, water usage, etc.)
You don't have to purchase a wort chiller. You can build it. And it can be VERY easy: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/very-simple-immersion-wort-chiller-185670/
Justibone
Well-Known Member
Adding alcohol would also lower the freezing point of the water, but it's a bit more expensive, I believe. Even 14 oz of rubbing alcohol would make a difference -- but if a catastrophe happened I would much rather have salt water in my beer than rubbing alcohol!
(Insert SWMBO joke about not being able to tell the difference between my homebrew and rubbing alcohol.)
Just throwing that out there for gearheads who want to make a totally badarse chiller, or for NZ brewers who can legally distill their own booze.
