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Chilling worth with ice?
I'm getting ready to brew my first batch and I have a question about
chilling the worth.
I'll be doing an extract brew and I've seen a couple of different ways of
doing a concentrate boil. I've also seen a couple of instructions that
involved chilling the worth with ice. This seems like a pretty simple
maneuver and attractive given that I do not have a worth chiller.
Any problems with washing out some gallon milk jugs, filling them with
water, and freezing them? Then pouring the boiling worth over the ice blocks
in the plastic fermentation bucket?
I saw Jim Koch do it on the Sam Adams web sight.
Any risk of contamination due to freezing and then thawing the water? Taste
issues?
Thanks
Amir
The risk of infection is much higher if you choose to pour the extremely vulnerable fresh worth over a vessel that holds ice. The worth is in an effectively sterile container already, so why not leave it there and let it sit in an ice bath to cool down. Once the worth has dropped below 70C (don’t know what that is in F!!) I gently stir in one direction and then stir the ice water in an opposite / counterblow direction to help exchange heat between the hot and cold layers against the kettle skin.
Thanks
Andre
Keep in mind here that I am no homebrew master! I am actually still working on my first batch, and I used the ice method to cool my worth. I bought a 25lb bag of ice from our local maker. They claim that their ice is made from filter water under "sanitized" conditions. So I figured I would give it a shot. I too, saw old' Jim do the same on his website. I actually thought that I had used too much ice, because once I had slowly poured my worth into my primary it did not quite melt all of the ice (I had used about half the bag, so 11lbs). I stirred piously with my sanitized whisk to complete the melting. My temp at that time was 65degrees F. I am brewing a Hefeweisen beer, and I did not know if this was too cool or not. I added my yeast anyway that was room temp(about 75 degrees F). For the first day, I was worried because I saw no real activity. On the second day though the yeast blew up! Literally, it blew the lid off my Primary at least 4 times! Luckily I was home to catch it immediatly and get it closed quickly. Anyway, not to ramble, the ice method seems to work ok so far.
Thanks
Andy
Amir i think sanitized ice may be can save your batch !
That'a a pretty nice trick .i like it !
I've used ice from companies that use spring water for making their ice. The ice companies tend to filter the water first and make a pretty good product. I've had good results using ice and also using bottled water I put in the refridgerator to cool before adding to the wort. Anything that gets the temperature down so you can pitch the yeast quicker helps.
Cheers,
MzIce
ANY time you use ice (either homemade or store bought) you are risking contamination. no matter what the label on the ice says, you cannot be sure. however, if you freeze a container, like amir suggested, and then sterilize the container by dipping it in your iodine solution (or whatever you use to sterilize), you can safely add that to your kettle of hot wort. try not to pour hot wort, or shake it up, or stir it up. it is better to let it cool down before agitating it, otherwise it can become stale quickly and/or produce off flavors.
if you need to use ice to cool down the wort, use an ice bath, and place the whole kettle into the ice bath. this way the ice does not come in contact with the sterile wort.
good luck!
Ice bath and immersion chiller will do the trick. I have seen people use 2 liter soda bottles frozen that they immersed in the hot wort. I would be worried about sanitation issues.
how about santatizing a milk jug, freezing bottled water in it.
Then cutting th ejug away from the ice and putting it in the wort, the extract
kit I'm looking at say to add water to bring the level up anyway.
As long as you took the steps for clean water would be this be okay?
Marv.
I'm always afraid of using plastic containers to freeze water in. I'm fear that the rapid heating of the plastic will cause it to shed some off flavors into the wort. I'm sure I'm being paranoid, but I still always use glass containers and I don't use them until the end of the chill in order to get those last 20 degrees F.
It's been a while since I brewed a batch. I used extract kits but I never used ice.
What is the reason for using the ice?
The ice is added as part of the total volume to get the wort to cool more rapidly. SO you might boil to 3 gallons and add 2 gallons of water as ice to make 5 gallons.
I wouldn't worry too much about adding ice to the wort. That being said I wouldn't try to use ice to push the cooling all the way down to pitching temps, but if you add ice immediately after the boil and drop from 200 to 140 degrees and then immersion chill, ice bath or whatever, at 140 degrees your wort is still pretty hostile to anything that was in that ice.
What is the reason for using the ice?
To bring the wort down to pitching temp.
Marv.
What i have found that works best for me is boilin 2 gallons for my wort. I put the other 3 gallons of water in the refridgerator a couple days before and make sure they are nice and cold. Then i just add the 3 gallons of ice cold water with my 2 gallons of wart in the primary and we are at the proper temp to pitch the yeast.
I use bottled water in my brews, I'm on a well and don't want to risk bad taste in my brew.
I clean out and sanitize a half gal. jug. and freez bottled water. I add this to the wort just after knockout and do an ice bath in the sink to get the temp down. Since I use a 1/2 to 3/4 gal starter culture, I only use a half gal. block of ice. When I freeze the water I don't fill it up far enough for the water to freeze in the handle,(makes it easier to cut away) after it cools, I bring up the level leaving enough space to add my starter as part of the volume.
Well I think the whole boil everything or you can get an infection is a little over the top. If you have the time to boil all your water and then cool it back down, good for you, but I usually just use spring water and dump it in, never had any issues with infection.
It's also pretty easy to figure out what you can bring your temperature down to fairly quick. Think of it like this, if you have 2.5 gallons of 200° wort (X) and you add 2.5 gallons of ice at 32° (Y), you will then have 5 gallons of 116° wort (Z).
(X/2)+(Y/2)=Z
So this means your wort won't be cool enough to pitch the yeast into if you just use ice in the wort to cool. Using the formula above, you would need to get your wort down to 108°, before adding the 32° ice, in order to bring the temperature down to 70°. Now the forumla changes a bit when you change the proportion of wort to water, but you get the idea.
DT
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