Beereater
Member
Today i tried for the first time to use ice made from preboiled water to cool down the wort.
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View attachment 1459145113273.jpg
Using ice to cool down wort
- Thread starter Beereater
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OP
OP
Beereater
Member
I undershot on the ice a bit, so i could only bring it down from boiling to 50 degrees celsius with the ice i had. it went really fast, maybe 15 min.
OP
OP
Beereater
Member
yes
with the ice i had i was only able to bring it to 50 c (120 f). it went really fast. if i double the ice i think i would bring it to 25 c in about 20 min.
Ethanfox
Well-Known Member
If you use 33 f water (~0.5 degree C) water, you don't have to wait for the ice to melt. I used to do this before I got a wort cooler.
You might have better luck cooling the wort in an ice bath in the sink before adding the ice. Getting the temperature from 100 to 70 always seems to take longer for me than getting it from 200 to 100 degrees f.
My last batch I topped off with 3 gallons of cold water from the fridge right away, and still had to wait until the morning to drop the yeast. Going to do a brew today where I will try to get the wort down to the low 100s before pouring in the cold top off water.
tgolanos
Well-Known Member
How many liters of water did you freeze? I might do this whenever I do my next brew.
OP
OP
Beereater
Member
i froze about 4,5 liters (3x1,5). I think double that (6x1,5) will probably be enough to cool a 5 gallon batch. but since i havent tried yet, i cant guarantee. Wiseprey is probably correct that it could be smart to cool the wort down some before adding the ice.
If we all post our experience we should be able to get close to a good method pretty fast.
cheers, beereater
theDREWery
Well-Known Member
My buddy Tyler does this on every batch. 15 lbs of ice is close to 2 gallons of water. He does a partial boil, ending with about 2.5-3 gal wort. Pours through a strainer into a bucket with ice, and stirs till it's all melted, tops up with water from the fridge. He says he hits ferm temp almost every time.
Natdavis777
Well-Known Member
Sounds solid if it works for you process and outcome. If you happen to have a chiller of a sort, a pre-chiller isnt a bad idea. Take, say, 50' of copper and coil it. Submerse it in a bucket and fill it with ice and a little water. After your wort is half way cooled, implement the prechiller. Your chilling water will go from ground temp to almost freezing temps, and allowing you to hit your pitch temps quicker.
You know, my undersized wort chiller just doesn't cut it in the summer months, and it's a big pain to buy ice and run ice water through it with an (underpowered) aquarium pump, which still takes longer than I would like. I might have to try filling a couple sanitized ziplocs with boiled water and chucking that ice into a batch when the groundwater temps get too high.
