Ice instead of wort cooler

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JamesMcS

JamesMcS

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Evening all! I wanted your thoughts on a cunning plan I have.

I've got a few kits on the go right now, but have been sufficiently bitten by the bug to give brew in a bag a crack.

I'm thinking of making the wort slightly smaller, say 15 litres, then when it comes to chill time, plonking 8L of ice in the FV with the wort to make it up to the 40 pints.

What would the consequences be of using 23L of ingredients in 15L of water? Would it affect the taste? To my mind it's just like using concentrate, but that's just my mind :-)
 
A smaller volume is likely to mean less extraction of the hop flavours and sugars from the grains. Why not put the FV in a sink (or other vessel) of cold water, and add the ice to that? I don't do this myself, but know that others swear by it. I won't tell you about ant clever tricks for your first attempt, 'cos you'll be under some pressure anyway. My advice would therefore be to write a list of every step and remember to look at it! Don't drink 'til it's all over. Brewing is far too serious to be clouding your judgement with alcohol:nono:Keep notes and don't panic. I forgot to put the bag in on my first BIAB, I recovered the situation and the beer was great!
 
You'd need to increase the amount of bittering hops used as the utilisation will suffer at the higher SG but otherwise sounds OK. Will the ice be sufficiently 'clean'? No reason it shouldn't be, just asking.
 
I did worry about the water being saturated with sugar duxuk - I wanted to give it a whirl before using a proper wort chiller (there's no running water in my brew shed - yet), maybe a big bucket full of ice might be the way forward. And yes, beer does make me rather slapdash with my notes!

Jonny - I've just done some googling on clean ice, and a clean freezer - I guess a good defrost and scrubbing out would do the trick, but I might just grab one of those big gardening buckets and stick the boiler in that with some ice when I'm done. Sounds better to make the wort up to the proper volume for both reasons.

Are you both AG'ers? I've been looking into hoegaarden clones for my first 'real' brew
 
I'm a BIABer. I see it not as a means to an end, but an end in itself. I don't have room for any bulky kit and have brewed about 30 stonking ales this way.
 
Saturday's impending brew will be #19. You won't look back.

There are a few good recipe's for Hoegaarden in the Recipe section. Pitty's your man if you want to brew with wheat.
 
Cool, from what I've read I can't see any major disadvantages - will have to make some space though, my area is a bit tight as well.

Thanks for the advice both - Biab seems roughly the same price, but a whole new game in terms of customisation
 
JamesMcS said:
Evening all! I wanted your thoughts on a cunning plan I have.

I've got a few kits on the go right now, but have been sufficiently bitten by the bug to give brew in a bag a crack.

I'm thinking of making the wort slightly smaller, say 15 litres, then when it comes to chill time, plonking 8L of ice in the FV with the wort to make it up to the 40 pints.

What would the consequences be of using 23L of ingredients in 15L of water? Would it affect the taste? To my mind it's just like using concentrate, but that's just my mind :-)
Click to expand...

The difficulty is keeping your ice clean, it will invariably pick up bugs in the freezer and then you will plonk those in your freshly made beer and the ice will protect your bugs from getting zapped by the heat ... you have a serious risk of infection unless you put the ice in double plastic bags and then sanitize the ice packs before they go into the beer ... I wouldn't be doing it myself, but I had thought along those lines, there must be a reason why no-one else is using the technique, probably due to infection risks methinks. :electric:
 
I'm sure the Mrs won't mind the kitchen and bathroom being tied up for the day :-/
 

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