ICE

[beerboy]

Is it advisable to add the yeast to the fermenter when there is ice still floating in it? Or is it better to let it totally melt then add it. The wort temp. is approx. 18 degrees with ice still floating in it.

[Wassa]

Beerboy,

I use ice to cool the wort most of the time I am making Lagers. I find it best to let the ice do its' job and cool the wort and to do this I stir the wort to dissolve the ice. This also helps in the aeration of the wort prior to tossing the yeast.

Hope this helps.

Wassa

[yardglass]

imho it's much better to top up with chilled water than throw ice in your wort.
your freezer can harbour nasties that you don't want in your beer.

like i said, just my opinion.

yard

edit: shitty spelling.

[r.magnay]

Dogger covered the topic of adding ice to worts some time back, he strongly advises against it, and I have not had any infections since I stopped doing it! Maybe coincidence, but it worked for me.

[vitalogy]

I've added ice on a couple of occasions without any problems, but I made sure it all melted first.

I think I read somewhere that if it's not melted, the temperature shock can bugger up some of your yeast.

</scientific explanation>

[Dogger Dan]

Adding ice to your wort directly is asking for trouble folks.

Your freezer is a nasty place with all sorts of bad things in it for beer. Freezing water doesn't kill any nasties off and when you add it to your brew, instant infection.

If you need to cool your wort down, add the ice indirectly, ie have the fermentor standing in ice

Dogger

[pharmaboy]

Dogger, is it the same for ice out of an ice maker - ie filtered with carbon block and kept in a seperate compartment from the food, with the obvious turnover of the ice - not months old etc.

In our climate, bringing a wort down to 18-20c is a mjor effort and will take hours in a bath of ice - my current tap water temp is about 25c - add it to 2 litres of 70c, and you are sitting at 32 with ambient of high 20's. The only real alternative is to pack the freezer a couple of hours before with PET bottles of water - cold not frozen?

[yardglass]

i'm getting my partial boils down to low 20's pretty quickly by dumping the kettle in the tub of ice/salt slurry, reducing to 28 approx and then top up with chilled(filtered) water up to 22lt.
pitch and chuck in the brewbox.

[Dogger Dan]

I appreciate what you are saying,

I cant say on the ice cube maker but bad JuJu the ice in the freezer.

If temp is a big problem what about this

Make your brew up to 23 litres, trying to get it as cold as possible with tap water

Drain it off through a hose (plastic will do) which runs through a sink filled with ice and water where it is chilled and then drains into another primary.

Regulate the flow through the tap.

It would be kind of a reverse inversion chiller

I know it would cost a few dollars for another primary but hey, infect two batches and what does that cost?

Dogger

[Dogger Dan]

The more I think about it, run it through a plastic hose in an esky, like a jocky box type thing

Dogger

[grabman]

For a real flash gadget try a chillzilla!

http://www.northernbrewer.com/chilling-etc.html

mine works a treat, boiling wort down to around 14C in one pass!!

[scblack]

I just chill overnight the day before doing a brew roughly 15 litres of water in the fridge. This chills the wort easily, and can then get the wort temp down to 20c pretty easily.

[pharmaboy]

pre chilling the water to add, has some merit - the merit been that its easy to do! 10 litres sitting in the fridge for 12 hours should also go some way to removing the chlorines (not badly chlorinated water - but you can smell the difference between filtered and tap). Need to do something - it took 20 minutes filling a bloody pot and emptying into the ferementer using the fridge water dispenser - ssssslllooooowwww!

thx for the advice

[yardglass]

pre chilling the water to add, has some merit - the merit been that its easy to do! 10 litres sitting in the fridge for 12 hours should also go some way to removing the chlorines (not badly chlorinated water - but you can smell the difference between filtered and tap). Need to do something - it took 20 minutes filling a bloody pot and emptying into the ferementer using the fridge water dispenser - ssssslllooooowwww!

thx for the advice

try the HVB Bucket Filter.

[Ed]

The more I think about it, run it through a plastic hose in an esky, like a jocky box type thing

Dogger

Sounds a champion idea, DD. I wouldn't mind giving that a try. The only thing I'm thinking though, you'd have to figure how to weight the hose down so it doesn't float. I guess there'd be an easy solution to this though.

Cheers, Ed

[db]

i generally do partials with a 13litre boil which i cool in a bath of cold water & 6 ice packs for around 20-30mins.. i also fill 3x 1.5litre sanitised water bottles with filtered water & stick them in the freezer at the start of my mash (about 2-3hrs before pitching) & dump them in the fermentor before adding the wort & with the top up water. works ok for me.. i get between 22-26deg after top up most times.

i'd still like to get a chillzilla though sounds very nice Grab

[Ed]

i generally do partials with a 13litre boil which i cool in a bath of cold water & 6 ice packs for around 20-30mins.. i also fill 3x 1.5litre sanitised water bottles with filtered water & stick them in the freezer at the start of my mash (about 2-3hrs before pitching) & dump them in the fermentor before adding the wort & with the top up water. works ok for me.. i get between 22-26deg after top up most times.

i'd still like to get a chillzilla though sounds very nice Grab

I'm using the ice water bath also, and replacing the ice again at 15 minutes. 30 minutes and down to around 22C. Water temp here seems to be around 22C at this time of year. This is acceptable to me for ales, but wouldn't mind some sort of chiller like DD suggested or maybe a copper arrangement for getting those lager worts down before pitching.

Cheers, Ed

[db]

i generally do partials with a 13litre boil which i cool in a bath of cold water & 6 ice packs for around 20-30mins.. i also fill 3x 1.5litre sanitised water bottles with filtered water & stick them in the freezer at the start of my mash (about 2-3hrs before pitching) & dump them in the fermentor before adding the wort & with the top up water. works ok for me.. i get between 22-26deg after top up most times.

i'd still like to get a chillzilla though sounds very nice Grab

I'm using the ice water bath also, and replacing the ice again at 15 minutes. 30 minutes and down to around 22C. Water temp here seems to be around 22C at this time of year. This is acceptable to me for ales, but wouldn't mind some sort of chiller like DD suggested or maybe a copper arrangement for getting those lager worts down before pitching.

Cheers, Ed

yeah i too replace the water Ed - using the ice blocks on the 2nd bath only.. & i agree it probably wont get temps down to lager pitching temps

[Shaun]

The water temp here is 29 deg and I have had the problem off getting the temp down see http://www.homebrewandbeer.com/forum/vi ... ght=#19858

I went with the pre-chilled water to start with and used 20L of water chilled to 10 deg and ended up with a pitching temp of 26 deg.

[Ed]

Gee Shaun you do have some temp probs there, huh (read that thread). Like an uphill battle when already starting close to undesirable temps. One of my brothers spent most of his years in the NT and was doing HB's, reckons the same, difficult to control temp, but still managed to get some good brews out.

db, I've only had a fridge for a few months so have only done 1 lager so far. Pitched in the 20's and just kept the fridge on constantly for 24 hrs and then set it on timer. Took 2 days before the brew settled down to under 14C. Like to try doing some more at these lower temps, but I agree it would be much better to start in the desired range. The lager tasted ok out of the fermenter (didn't seem fruity), so I've my fingers crossed for the first bottle sampling

Cheers, Ed