Cooling wort in a freezer/fridge?

[LumberjackJohn]

Hey everyone, I did a search and I couldn't find a post that addressed this. Would it work if you took your brew kettle full of wort and put it into a freezer or fridge as a way of cooling it to pitching temperature? I guess I should phrase that differently, because I know that yes, a freezer or fridge will cool liquid, lol. What I'm really interested in is whether or not this is a bad idea. Thoughts?

 

[FishinDave07]

hmm, i'd be very concerned about taking a kettle right off the burner and putting it on a fridge rack. assuming you cooled it a little and then put the kettle in, it would take a LONG time because of the kettle is probably tall and wide reducing the surface area exposed to the cold temperature.

I personally just run a immersion chiller for about 15 minutes while stirring in the opposite direction. Once im down to 100*F or so i will toss in a sanitized frozen jug of water and drop my pond pump into an ice bath and then use the ice bath as my IC water source.

 

[patrck17]

I don't think you will get the wort cool very fast this way, but it can be done. Without a convection source (like stirring), I think the cooling would be slow. I think you'd have better luck buying a few big bags of ice and using the tub.

 

[The Pol]

It will work.

It will not be FAST

It doesnt have to be FAST though

You MAY want to consider the "no chill" option (search)

It will be very hard on your fridge/freezer compressor

 

[LumberjackJohn]

Yeah this wasn't so much of a practical questions as a theoretical one. Thanks, guys, you brought up some points I didn't consider, such as the surface area actually receiving cooling. I personally do just use the ice bag/bathtub method, but for some reason this idea popped into my mind. Maybe I had one too many homebrews!

 

[Mischief_Brewing]

I've been too cheap to buy (or build) an immersion chiller, so I do the bathtub with ice technique. It works pretty quick but uses a lot of water.

I tried using a pile of snow on New Year's day but realized that it was actually worse than letting it sit out in the open air. Once the initial melting happened, I ended up with the igloo effect. The ice was a few millimeters off the pot and acting as insulation.

I've done the no-chill method many times with no ill consequences. Just aerate/pour and pitch the next morning. The only problem I have with that technique is that the brewpot clean-up isn't part of the brew day. There's nothing worse than forgetting that you have a brewpot to clean until the following weekend... "Wild ale" is an understatement...

 

[MikeScott]

I think Papazian brought up a point about how much bacteria is floating around your average fridge, that would be one concern.

+1 on needing a convection / agitation source.

When I worked in the food industry, we always had to break down pots of food into much smaller containers before putting it in the fridge, otherwise it would stay warm for days.