Ice?

[BillyVegas]

Silly question perhaps- but while Im reading what seems to be the quintessential document on brewing form John Palmer, I see lots of mentions of Ice, even outside of here.

Now, with the knowledge I have of clenliness and sterilization being #1- How can one guarantee the ice being used is... well... clean? Bagged Ice I'd assume is the best/most consistant, but how can you be sure it's not going to ruin your batch?

I've seen some recipes where the warm wort is poured onto ice to chill it- is this a logical idea? Perhaps make 2.5 gallons of wort and add to equivelant of 2.5 gallons if ice to insta-chill? Where have I read/seen this before.. I coudlnt have made that up...

Sorry if this is a ridiculous question- but in the name of cleanliness- I think it has merit.

 

[boo boo]

Most people who use ice to chill, use it externally, and don't add it directly to the wort.

 

[RCCOLA]

There is so much bacteria in ice and your fridge/freezer I would NEVER do this.The only way you could be marginally safe doing this is to 1. Boil the water.2.Put it in an airtight pre-sanitized container.3. spray sanitizer on the outside of said container 10mins. before you open it.
Personally i put my covered pot in an icewater bath to cool it -at least until I can raise funds for a wort chiller.

 

[ChshreCat]

Or they use water that they would brew with and freeze it themselves. Either bottled water or pre-boiled. If you're dong partial boils and are going to top up with water anyway, it's an easy way to cool things down quick.

 

[BillyVegas]

Perhaps freezing with the ice surrounding sounds best...
The Frozen water gallons (same wter used for making the wort) would work well, If you could keep the environment it freezes in clean... Putting the gallon jug in the freezer woudl cause it to pop, opening it to take some out to compensate for expansion would cause possible contamination.

Interesting.

 

[nosmatt]

several ways...

what i did at first, buy all gallon sized bottles of water. throw two in the freezer, and do a three gallon boil. when the water bottles were "crunchy" but not frozen, take em out and put em on the counter.

put boil pot in sink with cold water, stir to take some of the heat out. drop one gallon in my bucket that has star san in it, then pour into bucket. pour wort into bucket, then add second cold ass water bottle. fill water bottle with star san, and submerge. empty, add wort to bottle, about half way, and shake the **** out of it, and pour back into bucket. after about three times, there was mad foam in bucket...well airated i hope.


next idea that works better, and since i do a full boil, only thing i do now... sanitize 2 1 gallon jugs outside. freeze em 3/4 full of water.
do first sink of water and have both frozen bottles soaking in star san (i keep a full bucket of star san water on brew day)
remove pot from sink, add cold water to sink, stir wort, add 1 of the sanitized gallon jugs....when it melts, add the other.

this is the only way for me to cool wort in less than 1.5 hours.



maybe i have infected beer, i dont know yet.

use at your own risk.

 

[BillyVegas]

Using Ice Baths in the past for some cooking experiments... I would think the best way to cool this would be literally FILL your sink with Ice, Water, and salt. The salt would drop the temperature faster and make this "basin" as cold as possible. Once this is ready, put the hot pot in ther ice, and stir.

Now, with my lack of brewing knowledge- perhaps this is obvious- but I would put the hot wort in the fermenter- then ther fermenter into this ice basin to chill.

I would think this would be optimal. Sure, you spend some more on Ice-- but if you fill yoru sink with ice and salt and H20- It should be able to chill it down in a reasonable time frame.

 

[Christian]

If you do partial boils and top off off your wort with water. Then just take the same water that you would use to top off with and put in a clean covered container and put it into the freezer. If the water is good enough for your beer then the same water in it's frozen form is no different.

I have done this dozens of times with no problems at all. I have a big tupperware container that i sanatize put tap water in (my tap water is beer ready right out of the tap) the night before, put a lid on it, freeze it, then just drop right in my wort at flameout and put my stock pot in an ice bath. I bring 3 to 4 gallons down to around 70 degrees in 20 to 30 minutes.

 

[Unkle Danky]

I bought some freez-pops from walmart and have used them in a sink full of water to cool my wort. I just brewed yesterday and used the same freez-pops I have had for 2 months. I throw the freez-pops in the bottom of the sink filled with water, then I drop the pot of wort in there, then put ice cubes around the pot. The freez-pops are nice for the bottom because the pot doesnt tip, it just rests on top of them. I can cool 3gal of wort in about 12 minutes like this without refilling the sink with more water.

 

[capcrnch]

I freeze water-filled 20oz bottles and use those in my ice bath.
Works great.