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- Dec 19, 2015
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I was reading a thread from several years back and Yooper said this:
"What I always did when I did smaller boils was put cold water in the sink, adding ice from the freezer to the ice bath. Then, when it was less than 100 degrees (and it only took about 15 minutes, if your stir the ice bath and add cold water as needed while draining the warmer water or sticking it in the other sink if you have a double and running more cold water into that sink), I added to my bucket with cold tap water. Gave me a perfect 70 degrees in about 20-25 minutes.
Some people boil and cool two gallons of water (like in sanitized ice cream pails) and then freeze that and use that as their top off water in the bucket. I've never tried that- but if you do, try to ensure the wort doesn't get too cold."
This is almost exactly what I have been doing, with pretty good success. I make extract beers with a three gallon boil. I then place the brewpot in the kitchen sink in an ice-water bath, and throw a big gallon ice cube I previously boiled, cooled and put in the freezer in a sanitized gallon pitcher, into the brewpot. I stir every 5-10 minutes, re-sanitizing the spoon in between. I am down to ale pitching temperature in no time, and then top up the carboy with a gallon of previously boiled, cooled, but NOT frozen water in a sanitized gallon pitcher.
Now for the fun part, as Yooper alludes to in paragraph 2. Just tried my first lager, using the same technique, but both pitchers of water were frozen. Magic! Took a little longer but got the temp right down to 50 degrees on the freaking NOSE. Only problem was the second block of ice didn't finish thawing. Being a cheapskate I didn't want to end up with a pint less beer, so I just let the wort sit in a bottling bucket (my pot only holds 4 gallons) with an airlock attached while I went about my business. A few hours later the pint of ice was still not melted and the wort was up to 64. Cut my losses and pitched anyway. Live and learn!
Not a terribly elegant way of going about things, but I'm in California, I live in a condo with no yard I have to water, and I do not want to waste water with a wort chiller. (I also can't fit a larger pot under my range hood.) I am strongly considering using freezer gel packs in the ice water bath instead of the 20 lb. bag of ice I've been getting (several gallons of water in there plus warming the globe whilst running to the store to get the ice), and a cooling paddle like this one: http://www.zesco.com/San-Jamar-RCU128-128-Oz-Rapi-Kool-Cold-Paddle-Polycarbonate-pz369D008.htm
Anybody done this?
"What I always did when I did smaller boils was put cold water in the sink, adding ice from the freezer to the ice bath. Then, when it was less than 100 degrees (and it only took about 15 minutes, if your stir the ice bath and add cold water as needed while draining the warmer water or sticking it in the other sink if you have a double and running more cold water into that sink), I added to my bucket with cold tap water. Gave me a perfect 70 degrees in about 20-25 minutes.
Some people boil and cool two gallons of water (like in sanitized ice cream pails) and then freeze that and use that as their top off water in the bucket. I've never tried that- but if you do, try to ensure the wort doesn't get too cold."
This is almost exactly what I have been doing, with pretty good success. I make extract beers with a three gallon boil. I then place the brewpot in the kitchen sink in an ice-water bath, and throw a big gallon ice cube I previously boiled, cooled and put in the freezer in a sanitized gallon pitcher, into the brewpot. I stir every 5-10 minutes, re-sanitizing the spoon in between. I am down to ale pitching temperature in no time, and then top up the carboy with a gallon of previously boiled, cooled, but NOT frozen water in a sanitized gallon pitcher.
Now for the fun part, as Yooper alludes to in paragraph 2. Just tried my first lager, using the same technique, but both pitchers of water were frozen. Magic! Took a little longer but got the temp right down to 50 degrees on the freaking NOSE. Only problem was the second block of ice didn't finish thawing. Being a cheapskate I didn't want to end up with a pint less beer, so I just let the wort sit in a bottling bucket (my pot only holds 4 gallons) with an airlock attached while I went about my business. A few hours later the pint of ice was still not melted and the wort was up to 64. Cut my losses and pitched anyway. Live and learn!
Not a terribly elegant way of going about things, but I'm in California, I live in a condo with no yard I have to water, and I do not want to waste water with a wort chiller. (I also can't fit a larger pot under my range hood.) I am strongly considering using freezer gel packs in the ice water bath instead of the 20 lb. bag of ice I've been getting (several gallons of water in there plus warming the globe whilst running to the store to get the ice), and a cooling paddle like this one: http://www.zesco.com/San-Jamar-RCU128-128-Oz-Rapi-Kool-Cold-Paddle-Polycarbonate-pz369D008.htm
Anybody done this?
