Cooling the wort

[YOOOEE]

Instead of immersing my brew pot of 2 gallons of hot wort into a sink full of ice to cool, can I instead poor 3 gallons of refrigerated bottled water into my primary fermentor and add the hot wort to cool? Will this bring my wort down to a cool enough temperature to pitch my yeast?

It would be 2 gallons of near boiling wort added to 3 gallons of cold water...

Thanks in advance

 

[arturo7]

You can do this as long as the water is sanitary. Most bottled water should be OK. Not sure if this will get you all the way to boiling temps, but it will be close.

In the past, I used bagged ice bought from the market instead of bottled water. I never had a problem with it, but many feel this presents a risk of infection. Others freeze the bottled water.

There are many, many threads and discussions on this topic here at HBT.

BTW, welcome to HBT.

 

[bcryan]

get a wort chiller. seriously. ice bath and all the other ideas are a pain in the ass.

 

[charlesmartin]

i freeze a gallon in a big sanitized bowl. on my last brew day, it took less than 20 minutes to get my temp to 70.

 

[seabass07]

If you were going to add 3 gallons anyway, then why not just freeze 3 gallons of boiled water? You could cut the tops off several 2L soda bottles, fill them with water and put into the freezer covering them with plastic wrap. That way you could reuse them several times. Although 3 gallons of ice might be too much for 2 gallons of wort.

 

[mewithstewpid]

i dont use ice bath anymore b/c it is a pain, as stated previously. now i do this method you described; i add 2.5 gal cold water to the wort. it doesnt get it to pitching temp for me, so i usually let it sit a couple hours, or overnight if its late.

 

[bottlebomber]

+1 to bcryans idea. All these other ideas sound suspiciously like pains in the arse. For the price of 2 beer kits you could have a nice shiny new immersion chiller

 

[unionrdr]

IC's to me seem like just one more thing to clean later. But if it floats yer boat,it's cool. I think the ice bath is just fine. 15-20 minutes,& I'm down to 67-70F. Not very long at all.
Anyway,the faster you get it down to 70F,the faster you get to pitch,of course. But,I've also found that the faster you get the wort down to pitch temp,the longer the bottles take to chill haze when in the fridge. If they do at all. Your results may vary.

 

[Yooper]

Instead of immersing my brew pot of 2 gallons of hot wort into a sink full of ice to cool, can I instead poor 3 gallons of refrigerated bottled water into my primary fermentor and add the hot wort to cool? Will this bring my wort down to a cool enough temperature to pitch my yeast?

It would be 2 gallons of near boiling wort added to 3 gallons of cold water...

Thanks in advance

Adding 3 gallons of very cold water won't chill 2 gallons of near boiling wort. You'll just end up with 5 gallons off too-warm wort (probably around 100 or so) that will take three times as long to cool.

The easiest thing to do is chill the 2 gallons in the sink in a water bath, gently stirring with a sanitized spoon. Stir the water/ice bath, too. That may chill the wort to 100 degrees or so in 15-20 minutes. THEN you can add cold water to get to the low 60s. That will work just fine.

 

[spyder2723]

Just wanted to comment, I used my home made wort chiller yesterday and I was able to go from boiling to 75 in about 6 minutes for 2.5 gallons. Cleaning wasn't bad at all. And since I am posting after Yooper, thanks for the DFH 60 min recipe, it is looking good!

 

[philjohnwilliams]

The easiest thing to do is chill the 2 gallons in the sink in a water bath, gently stirring with a sanitized spoon. Stir the water/ice bath, too. That may chill the wort to 100 degrees or so in 15-20 minutes. THEN you can add cold water to get to the low 60s. That will work just fine.

This is exactly what I do, and I can get a batch down to pitching temps in as little as 10 minutes. Lately I have been doing larger boils so I have been using longer ice baths, but i can still get 3.5 - 4 gallons down to temp in 20 min.

 

[Yooper]

Just wanted to comment, I used my home made wort chiller yesterday and I was able to go from boiling to 75 in about 6 minutes for 2.5 gallons. Cleaning wasn't bad at all. And since I am posting after Yooper, thanks for the DFH 60 min recipe, it is looking good!

Oh, I'm glad you've made it. Let me know how you like it.

Chilling the wort is really crucial to getting a good cold break and to reach pitching temperatures quickly. (Unless you're doing no-chill brewing, which is a whole 'nother ballgame!). I like to chill the wort to 60, and let the fermentation gradually rise up to the mid 60s. But I'm lucky- I have cold tap water all year round, so chilling is easy.

 

[boomtown25]

I have done two batches now and on my first batch, I bought gallon jugs of spring water. I soaked a gallon size zip lock in Star San and then filled with one gallon of spring water and froze it. When it came time to chill my wort, I used an ice bath, cut the top off the bag of frozen ice (my scissors were sanitized) and dumped the ice block into the wort which was in the ice bath. I went from boil to 65 in 12 minutes. It happened so fast, I thought I had done something wrong.

 

[YOOOEE]

Wow, I am amazed at the response my post has received. Glad to see this forum is active with so many helpful members!

Thank you all for your responses. We ended up doing a standard ice bath for the batch we made on Sunday, but I've thought about picking up an immersion wort chiller. Because of its size, how does one go about sanitizing the wort chiller? I have a few items (funnel) that are too large to submerge completely, which results in me flipping the item from time to time to ensure both ends get sanitized... Would it be the same process with the chiller?

Thanks again

 

[Naggs]

Put the chiller in for the last 10-15 minutes of the boil and that will cook any uglies off of it

 

[william_shakes_beer]

Put the chiller in for the last 10-15 minutes of the boil and that will cook any uglies off of it

+1

The chilled water never touches the wart, so sanitizing it inside is not a problem. The biggest issue is getting the water out after you're finished for the day.

 

[bottlebomber]

Wow, I am amazed at the response my post has received. Glad to see this forum is active with so many helpful members

Thanks again

Yep, its an amazing place. You should consider supporting it monetarily as a sign of your appreciation.

 

[YOOOEE]

Naggs - Very interesting idea of boiling the wort chiller along with the beer... I would have never thought of that.

william_shakes_beer - Interesting point about getting the remaining water out of the chiller... Something else I had not thought of... how would one achieve such a feat?

bottlebomber - Well played.

 

[ChshreCat]

+1

The chilled water never touches the wart,

eew

 

[medusa1066]

Naggs - Very interesting idea of boiling the wort chiller along with the beer... I would have never thought of that.

william_shakes_beer - Interesting point about getting the remaining water out of the chiller... Something else I had not thought of... how would one achieve such a feat?

bottlebomber - Well played.

+1 to using an immersion chiller (IC) AND boiling it. Afterwards, I wash mine with soap in the sink. Then I turn it upside down and tilt and rotate (think of a coin that has stopped spinning) to chase the water down and out.