I am mostly partial mash brewing. By the time the wort finishes boiling, I'll have approximately 2.5-3 gallons of liquid. To cool it to pitching temperature I will have 2 gallons of distilled water completely frozen. I will add those big chunks to the fermentor and then pour the hot wort into the fermentor. If I don't quite have 5 gallons I'll have some water that is refrigerated that I can add to make up the rest. I can usually get the wort to cool to 80 deg. F in under 10 minutes with minimal stirring and effort. I know that there may be some implications with using the distilled water, but I'm more interested in what you think about cooling the wort with this method. What are your thoughts about using ice and effectively shock cooling the wort?

Hey, if it works...

what type of fermenter? pouring boiling hot wort into anything plastic is probably not a good idea even with the ice in there...

One thing that stands out for me is the large amount of trub and junk material you may be inadvertently carrying into your fermentor. I'm assuming once you reach pitching temps you have a large amount of trub that settled out of suspension into your fermentor?

Are you freezing the gallons of water and then cutting the plastic bottle off from the ice?

When I did extract brewing I used to use cold spring water to make up the difference and help cool it down. I don't think I got infections but I also didn't really know what to look for at the time. My guess would be that the method is okay but not ideal and you do run the risk of infection.

I did freeze the water in their plastic gallon jugs and cut off the plastic with sanitized scissors. I took them out of the freezer about when I started the boil so that there would be a thin layer of liquid between the plastic and ice by the time I had to add everything to the fermenting bucket. That made it easier to cut off the plastic.

I have done this twice so far and have not had any issue with pouring hot water in to my plastic fermentor. Nothing has warped or melted as far as I can tell.

There was quite a bit of trub. Most of it can from the hop pellets. I used a grain bag for steeping so most of that was contained. I wanted to do the same for the hops, but forgot to because that was not what I usually do.

I think the infection risk isn't very high with distilled water, but I could see how it would be with spring or tap water.

Thanks for all the input.

As long as you are confident in the water you have frozen (boiled and chilled, etc) you probably don't have to worry too much about infection, but the point about not heating plastic is a good one. That being said, 2.5 gallons will cool down pretty quick in an ice bath, you could use an ice bath to knock most of hte heat off and add to chilled water (not frozen) to drop you the rest of the way.

I would also be wary of pouring your hot boiled wort into a bucket which can lead to splashing and our course oxidation in the final product. Besides cooling the beer below 80F for yeast pitching purposes it is also to reduce chances of splashing your hot wort which some say may lead to oxidation. Just a thought....