New idea about chilling wort and adding O2

[stoneyrok]

So,
I have been looking at chillers online all night, but I started thinking about what I could do that would not waste as much water, and be as efficient, using what I have. I have a HUGE deep freezer in my tool room, so tell me what you think of this idea.

5 Gallon boil, then move the pot to the deep freezer, drop in a 99/GPH fish tank pump to circulate the wort so the cooling can happen fast (8.00 new and sterilized), and at the same time the wort is circulating, drop in an air stone (pump and stone dirt cheap) while I am at it. the stainless steel surface would get cold, the deep freezer is set to -2, and it gets O2 at the same time. Thoughts???

 

[stoneyrok]

I guess the only way to figure it out is to try it. I know if there are ambient smells in the freezer, they may introduce themselves, so maybe it is not a great idea. If I buy a wort chiller, then I am going to use a pump to recirculate the same ice cold water from a bucket, I will keep adding ice to the bucket, and the pump will pump cold water through the wort, back into the bucket where it will chill again. saves some water, and is colder than tap water. thoughts?

Out of these two? I think I like the pump in bucket with ice water, and the water recirculating back to the bucket, and I keep adding ice...

 

[ultravista]

As seen on an Alton Brown "Good Eats" show - why not use ice instead of cold water to bring the wort temp down?

If you made ice from sanitized water, I don't see why it wouldn't work as an effective chilling measure.

 

[Bobby_M]

Water is way cheaper than using the electricity it would take to remove all that heat from your deep freezer. The other problem is that I doubt any submersible pump isn't going to make it through a soak in boiling liquid.

If it were me, I'd use an immersion chiller to get the wort down to 100F, then put the pot in the freezer for a little while.

 

[Hermit]

Use a five gallon bucket and make a big ice cube in the freezer. I dump mine in the laundry tub with another 5 gallons or so of water and use a submersion pump and a chiller coil. The water is used for on overnight presoak of my equipment. Energy to freeze the ice is 'free' this time of year because it becomes heat in my basement. I ice is frozen from the waste line of my RO system.

 

[Johnny_Crunch]

I dump ice right into my wort and it cools in seconds, has worked with no problems every time.

 

[Hermit]

I dump ice right into my wort and it cools in seconds, has worked with no problems every time.

I don't want to dilute my wort, especially with something that hasn't been sanitized. Glad it works for you though.

 

[Justibone]

I don't want to dilute my wort, especially with something that hasn't been sanitized. Glad it works for you though.

You can add ice if you don't do full boils. Most of the guys who advocate it recommend either freezing water from the store in the jug it comes in, or boiling water and putting it in tupperware in measured amounts, so instead of topping with water they top off with ice.

They aren't diluting their wort any more than they would otherwise do with water.

 

[johnmcc]

You can add ice if you don't do full boils. Most of the guys who advocate it recommend either freezing water from the store in the jug it comes in, or boiling water and putting it in tupperware in measured amounts, so instead of topping with water they top off with ice.

They aren't diluting their wort any more than they would otherwise do with water.

hmm, i have to try this, went thru 2 bags of ice last time. I can sanitize a few tupperware containers, fill them with water and freeze.

thanks!

 

[stoneyrok]

excellent point. I shoud NOT use distilled water though correct? If I were to buy a few gallons of spring water at the store and freeze those? Is it the spring water that retains the minerals for the beer? Also, I had another idea, tell me your thoughts on this one...

move the hot wort from the brew pot to a bottling bucket, and place the spigot like if it were going to drain into your kitchen sink. Place a long 6 foot tubing onto the spigot. Fill the sink with ice water, coil the tubing around (like what an immersion looks like) in the ice water sink, then let it come out of the sink and down into a fermenter bucket on the floor... this might flash cool it, meanwhile, keeping a 10 or 20lbs bag of ice handy to keep cooling the sink water.. that might be fast and work great. how hot can we let the clear tubing get?

 

[gnuworldorder]

fill your sink with ice and cold water then use a wort cooler. i found that 30lbs of ice is about 4-5$ and with the 10 gal pot submerged in ice and water it will cool 5-6gals in ~10 minutes

 

[Justibone]

excellent point. I shoud NOT use distilled water though correct? If I were to buy a few gallons of spring water at the store and freeze those? Is it the spring water that retains the minerals for the beer?

The HBT wisdom on this is: if you are doing extract, you can use distilled or RO water. If not, you need some kind of minerals in there. That's a rough consensus. There are those who advocate certain positions and whatnot.

Also, I had another idea, tell me your thoughts on this one...

move the hot wort from the brew pot to a bottling bucket, and place the spigot like if it were going to drain into your kitchen sink. Place a long 6 foot tubing onto the spigot. Fill the sink with ice water, coil the tubing around (like what an immersion looks like) in the ice water sink, then let it come out of the sink and down into a fermenter bucket on the floor... this might flash cool it, meanwhile, keeping a 10 or 20lbs bag of ice handy to keep cooling the sink water.. that might be fast and work great. how hot can we let the clear tubing get?

I don't know how hot you can let food grade tubing get.

There are people who use this basic method to chill, but I forget what it's called. They are essentially running the beer through an immersion chiller immersed in cold stuff, instead of running an immersion chiller full of cold stuff through hot wort. Often copper or other metal tubes are used so you get better heat exchange. Also, alcohol, antifreeze or other very cold liquids can be used as the cooling bath so long as the wort stays inside the tubes...

 

[specialkaye]

Everything your beer touches after the boil must be sanitized. So, all that tubing, that other bottling bucket, etc, must be sanitized. For my money and time, the fastest solution was a ribcage immersion chiller started on the garden hose, then switched to a recirculating ice water system. Simple, easy, and fast. Plus, the only thing that touches your beer is the RIC and that's sanitized by throwing it into the boil for 10 or 15 minutes. Again, simple, easy, and fast.

 

[stoneyrok]

nice way to sanitize the RIC.... what kind of pump do you use for recirculating the ice cold water through the chiller, and how thick is your copper tubing? Also, are you putting the ice water and pump in the sink and keeping it cold by adding additional ice or using something other setup. This might be my ultimate setup...thanks!

 

[Johnny_Crunch]

you can add ice if you don't do full boils. Most of the guys who advocate it recommend either freezing water from the store in the jug it comes in, or boiling water and putting it in tupperware in measured amounts, so instead of topping with water they top off with ice.

They aren't diluting their wort any more than they would otherwise do with water.

+1

 

[Chenslee]

I use an immersion chiller, a cooler, ice, and a PUNY little pump to push the ice water through. I freeze water in pans and dump them in the cooler with some water on brew day.

Even with this 110 GPH pump pushing through 60' og 3/8" tubing, I was able to cool of 5 gallons in about 8 minutes.

I spray the chiller down with starsan AND boil it for the last 15 minutes.

 

[stoneyrok]

excellent, thanks for the advice! I am going to buy a 99gph submersible pump off ebay for about 7-10 dollars. Place ice water in my sink with the pump, and Re-circulate the ice water through a immersion chiller, and that should do the trick. I will make an immersion system using copper tubing from Lowes Home improvement with a few adapters.

until then, I will use filtered water anf boil it from my fridge and place into tupperware, cover and freeze. There is nothing in my deep freezer right now and since the tupperware will be covered, it should not catch any off flavors, and I will deduct the ice cube volume from the 5 gallon total in the fermenter before adding the cubes.

 

[specialkaye]

I use an immersion chiller, a cooler, ice, and a PUNY little pump to push the ice water through. I freeze water in pans and dump them in the cooler with some water on brew day.

This is almost my exact set up too. (check my signature) The pump I scavenged off an old indoor table top fountain. It's tiny but it'll work until it wears out or money loosens up, then I'll replace with a bigger one. Though, I start with a garden hose, then move to the RIC and ice recirculation. I only used a little ice, last batch couldn't have been more than 3 or 4 pounds, and still had ice left in the cooler and lots of cold water. Because of drinking while brewing, I forgot to pre-chill the chiller water and just put 86f hose water in with the ice when I started the recirculation. Today, I'm going to try to remember to pre-chill the chill water. And, hopefully that'll happen because I'm also pre-chilling the homebrew that is required to drink while brewing more.