Basic question..

[SEndorf]

For you extract brewers, a friend is brewing his 2nd batch and asked me a question. I've never done extract so I'm posting here...

The instructions say to cool the wort to 80, THEN add cold water to 5 gallons.
Wouldn't it be easier and more effective to add ice to cool the wort, accomplishing both?

 

[TheMadKing]

Not really IMO, adding cold water gets you to pitching temp from 80F instantly, so you don't have to wait for ice to melt.

When I brewed with extract, I just chilled the pot in the sink until it was comfortable to touch and then added my top-up water to 5 gallons then waited until it hit 70F or so to pitch. Adding that much cool water to it really gets it down quickly. I also like to go with minimal effort, and everyone does things a little differently.

EDIT: I think I misread your original post. Are you saying add ice directly to the hot wort freshly off the boil?

If so, then yes that would be much more efficient if you don't have a wort chiller, but harder to control the final volume.

 

[SEndorf]

Yes. He was questioning adding ice directly off the boil.
Seemed logical to me, but his instructions said to do it differently.
Thanks for your response!

 

[Rockn_M]

Like TheMadKing said, bring it down with an ice bath to 80-90 then top off with your cold water. This should get it pretty close to pitching temps. I'd be careful if you want to add ice to the wort to cool off and add volume. There's no guarantee that the ice is clean and won't cause infections.

 

[bernardsmith]

I wonder if the issue might be that the ice may be bacteria laden in a way that the water may not be. So by adding only water you will have minimized the wort's exposure to bacterial infection whereas if the instructions suggest you add ice the risk of infections may be far greater...

 

[SEndorf]

He used store bought ice in the bags with no hand contact.
Would you assume this ice is OK?
This is unfamiliar territory. Love my counterflow chiller.

 

[MarcGuay]

Palmer has a couple of points on this

"People often wonder about adding ice directly to the cooling wort. This idea works well if you remember a couple key points.

• Never use commercial ice. It can harbor dormant bacteria that could spoil your beer.
• Always boil the water before freezing it in an airtight container (like Tupperware). It must be airtight because most freezers also harbor dormant bacteria.
• If the ice will not directly contact the wort, (i.e. you are using a frozen plastic soda bottle or other container in the wort) make sure you sanitize the outside of the bottle first before you put it in the wort.

"

Source: http://howtobrew.com/book/section-1/boiling-and-cooling/cooling-the-wort.

 

[ncbrewer]

I guess the instructions are calling for cooling the water in the refrigerator until it's needed. If you have room in the fridge, that's ok. You should check on temperatures to make sure the final wort will be at the right temp. If you don't have room in the fridge, the kettle in an ice bath method works well. Check on your top-off water temperature. Then cool the wort to the temperature needed so the wort plus top-off water will be at pitching temp when combined.

 

[Morrey]

Fellow HBT members are giving your friend good advice. Contamination is always looming, and I agree this could be an issue that slips up and "gotcha". My initial reaction is that adding ice direct takes some pretty accurate calculations to hit your target temp AND volumes simultaneously. For me, I always adjusted my top off water's temp to match what my wort's target temp will be. When you top off, all remains constant w/o a roller coaster temp ride.

 

[Yooper]

I tried this once, about 10 or 11 years ago.

It sounded great in theory, so I made ice in advance and added it to my post-boil wort.

I then had nearly 5 gallons of 110 degree wort, and it took FOREVER in an ice bath to cool it. It didn't cool it as much as I thought it would. Someone did the math for me, and it was something like 25 pounds of ice would be needed to cool 3 gallons of 210 degree wort to 65 degrees, or close to that anyway. I'm no expert on thermodynamics but it made sense to me after I attempted it!

So the next time, I cooled the wort in an ice bath in the sink, stirring the ice bath gently to avoid hot spots, and gently stirred the wort, and it cooled to 80 degrees in about 10 minutes or less, and then I added it to my fermenter and topped up with cool water.

 

[MarcGuay]

I found this equation on stack exchange and hope it works (brewing sunday following the method):

Target temp to cool wort your wort to before adding ice = [(Target pitching temp * Target volume) – (Top-off water temp * Top-off water volume)]/ Post-boil volume

Example:

Target pitching temp = 68F
Target volume = 5gal
Top-off water temp = 1F
Top-off water volume = 2.5gal
Post-boil volume = 2.5gal

[(68*5)-(1*2.5)]/2.5 = 135F

So you would have to cool your wort to 135F before adding the 1F top-up ice, or if it's very cold like -20F, only 156F.

 

[IslandLizard]

Let me add, bringing water down 20-30 degrees is much easier from 200F than from 90F.

So use cold (tap) water for the first 100 degrees. Then use ice to bring it down the last 20-30 degrees. Otherwise you would be wasting a lot of good ice in the beginning of the chill, that could be much better used toward the end, with lots to spare for your next brew, the next, and the next...

 

[nebulabrewing]

I'm very new to home brewing (my first brew is fermenting now), so take my advice with a grain of salt. But, from my research up until this point, I've read that it's not a good idea to just throw ice into the wort unless it's ice from distilled water. Bagged ice could potentially harbor bacteria and contaminants.

I did an ice bath in a 5 gallon bucket with 10lbs of ice, placed my pot in the bucket and gave it a spin for about 5 minutes. Removed the pot, placed 10 more pounds of ice and continued the process. I managed to get my wort to 73 just over 20 minutes! Best of luck and happy brewing!

 

[violinguy]

Like TheMadKing said, bring it down with an ice bath to 80-90 then top off with your cold water. This should get it pretty close to pitching temps. I'd be careful if you want to add ice to the wort to cool off and add volume. There's no guarantee that the ice is clean and won't cause infections.

This

Store bought ice is probably even less clean than ice from your freezer. The only way to ensure clean ice is to boil water and make ice from it. It would be a pretty strenuous project IMO.