Chilling wort

I have been brewing for about 2 years... I just got a few buddies started. When I was explaining what we do they had a few questions I couldn't answer.

I was explaining the importance of quickly chilling the wort... They asked:
Why cantwe just add ice cubes to quickly chill the wort (they aren't doubt full boils)

 

Bacteria. The ice cubes haven't been boiled like the wort has to remove anything nasty.

 

You can add ice, but you need to be sure that it is sanitary and doesn't have odd flavors. Most store bought ice is not sanitary. Also, most ice from your freezer picks up smells and tastes from your freezer.

I use almost frozen spring water (~33ºF) to top off (and cool down) my wort prior to pitching.

 

Yeah...sanitation. The only way I would add ice is if I had sanitized some ice cube trays that have covers (and sanitize those, too), boil some water, pour it into the trays once cooled some, cover it, and put it in the freezer. But then it would probably take a lot of ice trays to make enough ice to put a significant dent in the temperature!

 

You actually can, but if you're doing full volume boils, adding ice to the wort will give you more volume than you wanted.

For me, I chill the wort fast so I can wrap up my brew day, or start on the second batch quickly after the first finishes (or the third, if we're feeling productive).

 

I used to use ice in my partial boils. You can see the obvious area for concern with contamination but I never had any problems. Take this for what it's worth.

 

When I did partial boils I would put 2-3 gallons of bottled spring water in the freezer at the start of the brew process and then when it was time to top off I santized the bottles with a starsan sponge and then cut them open and dumped the frozen / slushy contents into the hot wort in the fermentor. It would get the right volume and cool the wort to pitch temp in one fell swoop. No issues with contamination doing it this way for three years.

 

That's what I do too. Works great.

2.5 gallons @ 212F + 2.5 gallons @ 33F = 5 gallons @ ~130F in 10 seconds. Then an ice bath for the next 5min and I'm at temp.

 

I boil filtered water and freeze in a sanitized 1-gallon food safe bucket that my LHBS uses for packaging LME. It's like a 1-gallon fermenter bucket w/ airtight lid.

Last 3 gallon boil I did, I employed this method with an ice bath and had my wort @ pitching temps in 8:30 min. I had to fish out a baseball-sized chunk of ice with a sanitized spoon because I was ready to pitch before it finished melting.

BOO-YA!

 

Good answers...thanks.
When I was asked, I mentioned santitzation
(but we typically just use tap water to top off to 5 gal-which ins't sanatized either).

Then I said, "well, we could boil and freeze... I don't know, ask on the forum"
So here we are.

 

If you want to use ice and you don't want to worry about boiling, you could always freeze some gatorade bottles full of water. When it comes time to drop your wort temp, sanitize the exterior of the bottles and then drop them directly into the wort.

OR

GET A WORT CHILLER! I used to use ice...I spent a few bucks on a brand spanking new wort chiller and I can now get 5 gallons of boiling wort down to less than 70 degrees in less than 15 mins.