Cold breaks

[Danzar]

Here's an interesting one.

Can a cold break be achieved by dumping a jug of ice cold water into a big pot at flame out, rather than immersing the pot in an ice bath?

[Kevnlis]

Do you mean pouring water into the pot, or putting the jug into the pot?

I will assume you mean pouring cold water into the pot, which would not precipitate as much break because you are diluting the wort at the same time.

You can however submerge frozen jugs of water that have been sanatised to cool it directly. This is my practice now and it works quite well, I can cool a 23L batch in about 15 minutes with four 2L bottles of ice.

[Danzar]

Cheers!

I'm just about to do this with that recipe you helped me with, so, my thanks.

[drsmurto]

You put bottles of ice directly into the wort?

I guess if you give them a sanitise first this should/could work.

What sort of plastic are you using? PET tends not to like boiling wort. Found that out the hard way.

[Kevnlis]

You put bottles of ice directly into the wort?

I guess if you give them a sanitise first this should/could work.

What sort of plastic are you using? PET tends not to like boiling wort. Found that out the hard way.

I am using PET juice bottles, they do snap and crack and sound as if they will explode, but they haven't yet.

I put the wort into the laundry tub, drop the ice blocks in and cover. I also thaw the ice blocks a bit before I sanatise them to get rid of the frost on the outside of the container, maybe that helps?

[Chris]

Perhaps only use the bottles a few times each. The hot/cold effect will eventually break them- hopefully not into your wort.

[Kevnlis]

Yeah I had debated making them single use, but thought that was too wasteful. I will see how long it takes for them to break, or start looking like they will.

[rwh]

Or just sanitise the inside as well as the outside, that way it shouldn't matter if they break.

I read somewhere (I think in Papazian's Complete Joy) about using snap-lock bags for this same purpose. What you do is fill one with water, sanitise the outside, then put that inside another bag and seal. When you get it out of the freezer, you remove the outer bag, and pop the inner (sanitary) one into your wort.

Six of one, half a dozen of the other, I suppose. I try to avoid getting plastic in contact with anything hot, never have trusted the plastic manufacturers' assertions that there are no harmful chemicals involved.

[Kevnlis]

Might taste like your beer has been put through a garden hose

I do use boiled water inside the bottles just to be sure. It will not be a big deal if one breaks open so I will continue to do it. Though if your stockpot doesn't fit in your laundry tub it probably would not work as well, half the cooling comes from the bath. I have toyed with the idea of buying bagged ice for the bath water since it does not contact the wort.

I also have toyed with the idea of pumping the boiled wort through some old PC water cooling hardware I have laying around. Submerge a radiator in the ice bath and recirculate the wort through that, would be cheap and hopefully effective

[Brewaholic]

When you get yourself a still to make your scotch and ginger beer you could use the condenser as a wort chiller they turn steam into luke warm liquid so i would say it would have the capacity.

[Kevnlis]

When you get yourself a still to make your scotch and ginger beer you could use the condenser as a wort chiller they turn steam into luke warm liquid so i would say it would have the capacity.

You are an excellent sales man, problem is you are selling to the wrong person. My wife already hates the amount of "beer crap" as she puts it!