Just Thought of a Brilliant Cooling Method

[Aristotelian]

I am a 2.5 gallon brewer, so far just using the ice bath method. No real issues with this but was thinking about ways to speed this up without investing in a chiller.

I thought about throwing plastic ice packs straight into the wort, but worried they might leach if not food grade. Same thing with freezer bags loaded with frozen water, plus those might leak and dilute the wort as they melt.

Then I thought of "whiskey stones" that people use to cool cocktails without diluting. Only problem is the amount of whiskey stones you would need to cool two gallons is prohibitively expensive. So here is the question: what is a cheap or free material that you could freeze and would be guaranteed not to change the flavor of the beer as it thaws in the wort?

Glass aquarium marbles? Rocks harvested from a stream?

 

[wilserbrewer]

1.75 liter soda bottles filled with water and frozen. I hop stand to about 160, then add frozen bottles to take me to pitching temps....I dunk them in star san prior to adding to the kettle.

 

[kh54s10]

Are you using any top up water? If so you can freeze water in a sanitized container, remove the ice from the container and add it directly to the wort.

Or maybe these: http://www.amazon.com/ChefLand-Reusable-Plastic-Dilute-Drinks/dp/B00D3MGYR0/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1456415176&sr=8-4&keywords=artificial+ice+cubes

 

[A2HB]

I'll just stick with using the ice water bath versus trying to pick out marbles and rocks from my brew kettle lol

Or if push comes to shove, buy an actual chiller, but ain't nobody got time for that

 

[Aristotelian]

I'll just stick with using the ice water bath versus trying to pick out marbles and rocks from my brew kettle lol

Or if push comes to shove, buy an actual chiller, but ain't nobody got time for that

I was thinking of using a muslin grain bag and throw it in at flameout

 

[TheCrackpot]

My experience with whiskey stones is that they lose their cooling capability pretty rapidly in room temperature liquids. I don't think they, or anything like them, would have much effect on gallons of boiling liquid. Three or four of them in 2oz of 70deg whiskey changes the temp not much more than 10 degrees or so.

I think you'd find that for the stones, marbles, or rocks from a stream to have an effect, you'd have use such a large mass of them that you'd have to constantly swap them out to deal with the volume displacement.

 

[mongoose33]

I always liked the idea of adding ice as top-off water, but the water needs to be sterilized before frozen, the containers in which it is frozen must be sanitized, and the water needs to be covered while freezing and until use.

Boiling first then pouring into sanitized containers would solve that problem.

 

[drainbamage]

My experience with whiskey stones is that they lose their cooling capability pretty rapidly in room temperature liquids. I don't think them, or anything like them, would have much effect on gallons of boiling liquid. Three or four of them in 2oz of 70deg whiskey changes the temp not much more than 10 degrees or so.

I think you'd find that for the stones, marbles, or rocks from a stream to have an effect, you'd have use such a large mass of them that you'd have to constantly swap them out to deal with the volume displacement.

This. Also, I'd worry about the thermal shock breaking glass marbles or aquarium stones when first added to the hot wort.

I'm fine with just using my immersion chiller.

 

[TallDan]

The magic of ice is the energy required for the phase change between solid and liquid. Freezing a solid object will not be able to provide the same cooling power as ice.

Whiskey stones have very little cooling power because there is no phase change involved. This is desired with whiskey stones since you don't want your whiskey ice cold, you just want it to be chilled slightly.

Plastic bottles with frozen water inside have two problems that i see:
*Difficult to properly sanitize the outside of the bottle with the texture around the cap
*Fatigue of the plastic with the expansion of water when it freezes can lead to leaks.

I think that solving either of those problems will be more difficult/expensive than buying or building a chiller based on a proven design.

 

[Aristotelian]

My experience with whiskey stones is that they lose their cooling capability pretty rapidly in room temperature liquids. I don't think they, or anything like them, would have much effect on gallons of boiling liquid. Three or four of them in 2oz of 70deg whiskey changes the temp not much more than 10 degrees or so.

I think you'd find that for the stones, marbles, or rocks from a stream to have an effect, you'd have use such a large mass of them that you'd have to constantly swap them out to deal with the volume displacement.

Dang it. I have never actually used whiskey stones. That makes sense, though.

1.75 liter soda bottles filled with water and frozen. I hop stand to about 160, then add frozen bottles to take me to pitching temps....I dunk them in star san prior to adding to the kettle.

This seems great. My only concern would be plastic not being food grade for boiling water. Maybe 4-6 12 oz water bottles enclosed in big freezer bags? Or maybe just double bagging freezer bags filled with ice.

I am thinking a combination of topping off with sanitized ice then adding the bagged water bottles.

 

[LostHopper]

I'm a very minimalist biab brewer but the one item I've splurged on was my JaDed immersion chiller and it's the best money I've spent on this hobby. It makes my brew day so much simpler. (and I think my beers better)

 

[A2HB]

What is the purpose of quickly cooling wort anyway? Does it really make that much of a difference in flavor if it takes 10 mins to cool versus 45 minutes? What about people that do no chill brewing, doesn't their beer still come out tasting great? Am I missing some aspect to this other than the time savings?

 

[wilserbrewer]

Plastic bottles with frozen water inside have two problems that i see:
*Difficult to properly sanitize the outside of the bottle with the texture around the cap
*Fatigue of the plastic with the expansion of water when it freezes can lead to leaks.

I think that solving either of those problems will be more difficult/expensive than buying or building a chiller based on a proven design.

I have done this quite a bit, and have not run into the problems you potentially foresee....

I don't fill the bottles all the way, leaving a little room for expansion.

Haven't had any sanitation issues with the texture around the bottle cap, but I don't worry much and pitch a lot of healthy yeast...

I actually own a chiller, but find it easier to just add ice to the kettle and ignore it for several hours rather than babysit a chiller for a 1/2 hour...jme

I'm lazy, to me running a chiller is more work ...

 

[DoctorMemory]

I'm a very minimalist biab brewer but the one item I've splurged on was my JaDed immersion chiller and it's the best money I've spent on this hobby. It makes my brew day so much simpler. (and I think my beers better)

Confirmed. I made my own chiller, and it's the single biggest upgrade I've made to my process. Just brewed last weekend and brought five gallons of wort down from 195 to 80 in about ten minutes (yay cold ground water!). I think the trifecta for homebrewing would have to be a wort chiller, stir plate and fermentation chamber.

 

[Aristotelian]

What is the purpose of quickly cooling wort anyway? Does it really make that much of a difference in flavor if it takes 10 mins to cool versus 45 minutes? What about people that do no chill brewing, doesn't their beer still come out tasting great? Am I missing some aspect to this other than the time savings?

The purpose is simply to shorten my brew day. Kids and a job and all that. It doesn't seem like a big enough deal to invest in a chiller, so I am just trying to think of a quick way to get it to pitching temp.

 

[nDub]

What about a pound of dry ice right into the boil kettle?


Put the lid on quickly though, I imagine as the dry ice turns into gas it'll displace some liquid...

 

[Mismost]

1.75 liter soda bottles filled with water and frozen. I hop stand to about 160, then add frozen bottles to take me to pitching temps....I dunk them in star san prior to adding to the kettle.

Very low tech, but effective...i do this too. I don't worry too much about germs...I starsan spray down the frozen bottles and chunk them in the wort. Any germs will be killed off by the hot wort. Good, cheap, reusable, and fast. I hate wasting water, I may need to drink it someday.

As a plus, it's handy to have those frozen water bottles in the freezer...I use them all the time in my small coolers for hunting, fishing, or just outdoors playing...keeps stuff cold, yet dry, and you can actually drink the water too. I like the square big apple juice type bottles...they stack up nice in the freezer.

 

[wilserbrewer]

The purpose is simply to shorten my brew day. Kids and a job and all that. It doesn't seem like a big enough deal to invest in a chiller, so I am just trying to think of a quick way to get it to pitching temp.

I have found the best way to shorten a session is to no chill or passively chill as described above. Walk away and come back to the beer later...

 

[Citizen86]

What about a pound of dry ice right into the boil kettle?


Put the lid on quickly though, I imagine as the dry ice turns into gas it'll displace some liquid...

I used some dry ice in the ice water bath during my second brew. All I can say is that dry ice was MAD. It bounced and jumped around quite violently. I can only imagine how much worse it would be pitching it directly into the hot wort. It would be much more than a vigorous boil.

I also don't think dry ice is any better at cooling than normal ice. The only benefit of dry ice is no puddle and it lasts really well during shipping... Two things that aren't really requirements when chilling wort.

 

[nDub]

I also don't think dry ice is any better at cooling than normal ice. The only benefit of dry ice is no puddle and it lasts really well during shipping... Two things that aren't really requirements when chilling wort.

I would add that it wouldn't increase the final volume like a chunk of ice would.

In the summer time I do IC and an ice bath and I always consider buying some dry ice just to see if it would work.

I have used dry ice in my cool fermenter bag. Worked pretty good and didn't sweat like crazy like the frozen gallon bottles I usually use.

 

[TexasWine]

No chill is your answer. I've done many batches just dumping the hot wort into the fermenting bucket and putting it in the ferm chamber. Shove a paper towel in the grommet so no insects get in, then when it's cool pitch your yeast. Make sure to modify your hop schedule. It's a huge time saver.

 

[A2HB]

The purpose is simply to shorten my brew day. Kids and a job and all that. It doesn't seem like a big enough deal to invest in a chiller, so I am just trying to think of a quick way to get it to pitching temp.

I just throw my batches in the tub and fill it up with cold water. It usually takes about 45-50 min to get to pitching temps that way for me. Chillers are great and if my sink were closer to my stove I'd use one, but for me, just putting it in the tub with a bunch of cold water seems to work fine. And in that 45 min I can be doing other things like cleaning up or sanitizing stuff or anything else.

I brew on days I don't have to work and no kids for me (yet), so a leisurely pace is not too bad. In your situation I can see the need for haste.

You should really just get and IC or something, that's going to be the most efficient and fastest method of cooling your wort. Anything else and you might as well just do a cold water/ice bath.

 

[Thedillestpickle]

I can imagine dry ice would give you an insane frothing science experiment like boil over... Maybe not?

Dry ice would possibly also impregnate the wort with CO2 so you would want to make sure you really really aerate your wort before pitching the yeast.

If you use ice means a reduced brewing efficiency because you need cannot use as much sparge water.
Immersion chiller works great.

 

[ultravista]

ain't nobody got time for that

Are you drinking a cold pop?

 

[schematix]

You and I have very different definitions of "brilliant". Reminds me of a boss that I used to have named Bill. Every idea that came out of him he thought was pure genius. Most were half baked at best. A coworker and I nicknamed these "Billiant" ideas.

This is a "Billiant" idea. Stick to the ice bath, buy a chiller, or just stick it in your fridge for a few hours.

 

[schematix]

I can imagine dry ice would give you an insane frothing science experiment like boil over... Maybe not?

Dry ice would possibly also impregnate the wort with CO2 so you would want to make sure you really really aerate your wort before pitching the yeast.

If you use ice means a reduced brewing efficiency because you need cannot use as much sparge water.
Immersion chiller works great.

The thermodynamics of dry ice make it unsuitable as a chilling agent for wort, not to mention its questionable sanitation.