Beer Forum

I am thinking of adding a couple of zip lock bags full of dry ice to the whirlpool.
What could possibly go wrong?
In the past I have pumped the wort through a chiller which was placed in a bucket of dry ice and water. The company that I work for gets 50lbs of dry ice with a weekly delivery....just happens to be on Thursdays...NICE

I would not recommend that, Dry Ice goes from solid to gas. In a zip lock you risk having the bag turn into an exploding ballon. This idea could potential hurt you. Now a copper open top pot suspended half in the kettle may work. At least then you can sanitize it with the boil and there would be ample space to vent the gasses.

My .02

-Christian

Oh man, I forgot about the explosion factor...ah. How could I forget that when I have made countless dry ice bombs.
OK, so I will add a container full of dry ice with a blow off tube.

Has anyone else tried this?

I think you could just add the dry ice to the cooling wort. Try small pieces first. One benefit is that you will create a nice blanket of CO2 over your wort.


Mylo

problem is that it is not foodgrade
or should that be a problem

I didn't think there was such a thing as food grade dry ice. It is just solid CO2, afterall. You could "wash" it in sterilized water - which would take the outside layer off...

I could be wrong, but it sounds like an interesting experiment.


Mylo

Maybe it would be better to use an imersion chiller with a pre-chiller. Then you could put your dry ice in the pre-chiller and get that coolign water nice and cold. I think the two things important to chilling are 1) surface area and 2) movement, oh and temperature of course (three things... sue me). You need to get as much of the surface area of your chiller in contact with the wort, and get that wort moving around in the kettle. That's why the Jamil-o Chiller works so great.

I'm assuming you are looking at dry ice because your tap water is too warm??

Brew Strong

My water is nice an cold. I just don't want to waste gallons cooling the wort. Plus, like I said I get 50lbs of dry ice everyweek.....tired of making dry ice bombs