dry ice for cooling

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

metaltim

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 8, 2009
Messages
444
Reaction score
32
Location
Parker, CO
Can you use it to chill your wort post-boil? I'd think a big enough chunk could bring wort from boiling to cold in under a minute, and since the kettle isn't under pressure, I assume there is no risk of pressure build up.
only concern is sanitation.. but i don't know that much can live at -150 degrees.
and the packages at my local grocer are in sealed bags (just meaning, if it was clean when packaged, it's still clean)

any thoughts?
 
I would be worried about your whole kettle "boiling" over as the dry-ice melts instanly and is converted to gas that has to get out of the kettle. think of frozen turkey in hot oil phenomenon. i would advise against trying this.

I think at best you loose a ton of wort, at worst you get serious burns as the boiling hot wort spews all over you.
 
I have thought of this as well, but I am not sure if the dry ice would really chill the wort much or just evaporate away without cooling the liquid much. In a cooler it is the evaporation into the surrounding air that drops the temp and subsequently chills the food/contents.

Interesting thought though and I am interested to see what others think! I don't believe it would contaminate anything other than maybe impart additional CO2 into the wort which might not be a good thing.
 
This subject has come up several times and if I remember right someone did the math in one of the threads and to cool 5 gallons of liquid it would take an unfeasibly large amount of dry ice.
 
Back
Top