"Cold crashing" as a method for Wort cooling.

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Endovelico

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Just curious if something like this could possibly work? Would this cool off the wort faster than the ice bath method for instance? Or is it just a stupid idea?

EDIT: Obviously this would have to be done in a freezer.
 
It will cool off.... eventually....

Water absorbs much more heat than air, this is why we use ice baths. If we look at thermal conductivity:
Air 0.0243 W/m K
Water 0.58 W/m K
Ice 2.18 W/m K

Where W= watts, or heat trasfer per unit time
m = meters, or thickness of material
K = kelvin, a measurment of temperature

With these values and Fourier's Law, you can show that pretty much water and ice will transfer much more heat from your hot wort than the cool air of your freezer.

Application: Stick with the ice bath or some other type of immersion/cfc chiller method:mug:
 
It will cool off.... eventually....

Water absorbs much more heat than air, this is why we use ice baths. If we look at thermal conductivity:
Air 0.0243 W/m K
Water 0.58 W/m K
Ice 2.18 W/m K

Where W= watts, or heat trasfer per unit time
m = meters, or thickness of material
K = kelvin, a measurment of temperature

With these values and Fourier's Law, you can show that pretty much water and ice will transfer much more heat from your hot wort than the cool air of your freezer.

Application: Stick with the ice bath or some other type of immersion/cfc chiller method:mug:

Ah, thank you for that, just trying to think outside the box.
Also, thanks for the numbers.
 
You also don't want to put something that hot into a freezer with food in it - the food will assist in cooling the beer and warm up in the process, which is a bad thing.

ps - that goes for other food too, not just beer.
 
ever make a bowl of soup thats WAY to hot to eat ?? what do you do ? stick the whole bowl in the freezer? or use a single icecube to cool it off? What works faster ?? ....same principle :)
 
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