Adding ice to lower pitching temp

[kelper]

Where does the 79.5 come from? And won't the final volume be 1,562, not 1,000?

Specific heat of ice is half that of water.

 

[Hopperty]

Where does the 79.5 come from? And won't the final volume be 1,562, not 1,000?

Specific heat of ice is half that of water.

334/4.2 (or more accurately 334J/4.186J = 79.79)
in the same way you ended up with 1700


indeed I omitted the lower specific heat capacity of ice so formula should read
IceVolume = ((WortVolume x WortTemp) - (WortVolume x GoalTemp)) / (GoalTemp - ((IceTemp/2) - 79.5))

 

[kelper]

I'm intrigued. I can't quite figure out what you doing but I think it's quite clever. I think I'll write a spreadsheet! Does the increase in volume matter?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oTxgVJExl5aT_p43jCjQyP81sYEgjeRgZS0y1Dmp5oo/edit?usp=sharing

You can only alter cells D1 to D5. Most domestic freezers are set at -18.

Play with the mass of ice until the energy figures in E17 and E19 match.


Would anyone actually add this much ice? You would have to boil a much reduced volume.

 

[ExpatBrewer]

I just pre-chill sanitised soft drink bottles full of water in the freezer and let them cool while I brew. Because I'm brewing partials I'm only making around 12 litres of wort which I then top up with the ice water directly. The amount of water I chill changes with the seasons of course - in Summer the tap water as noted is a lot warmer.

 

[DavidDetroit]

I'm up for using a couple of gallons of water that are just shy of freezing.
I'm really interested in getting the wort much further down than I earlier mentioned and let it rise naturally. I was shooting for 70F but now I'm going for 64F. I'm making 3 Belgians in a row. The first, a tripel, is already done fermenting. It was the victim of high initial temps but I plan on fixing that with the next two batches which will be Belgian Quads.
I appreciate all of the input so thank you.

 

[kelper]

Ice is 80 times more effective than ice-cold water

 

[Hopperty]

I'm intrigued. I can't quite figure out what you doing but I think it's quite clever. I think I'll write a spreadsheet! Does the increase in volume matter?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oTxgVJExl5aT_p43jCjQyP81sYEgjeRgZS0y1Dmp5oo/edit?usp=sharing

You can only alter cells D1 to D5. Most domestic freezers are set at -18.

Play with the mass of ice until the energy figures in E17 and E19 match.


Would anyone actually add this much ice? You would have to boil a much reduced volume.

didn't know it was possible to add spreadsheets to the web - learn something everyday

getting a bit mixed up with permissions on who can edit what? so not sure if the following will work!

Use any units you like for volume, 3 could be litres Gallons or buckets
Only negative values allowed for ice
will work for celius and fahrenheit.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EJvtQwwZfuXZOV25_9q2ebXz_yWils7ckPzSt2zmtVw/edit#gid=0

 

[kelper]

didn't know it was possible to add spreadsheets to the web - learn something every day.

Good job. It works well and is a lot tidier than mine. I can edit in the red boxes but not elsewhere, as you intended. I think for people who have cooled their wort to 50C then adding ice might be very practical. But mine explains the philosophy/method.


Ice density is 0.92. That's why it might be better to use weight rather than volume. I know the difference is small. Plus, it's very hard to measure ice volume!

 

[PhilBrew]

Hi David

I recognise that, with all of the help above, you may be close to solving your problem anyway but I thought I'd chuck my technique for cooling wort down to pitching temps below ambient in to the mix, for your consideration ... first off, earlier in the thread you asked ...

Is "no chill" where you cover it and let it come to room temperature on its own, maybe use a water bath?

... what people mean by "no-chill" can vary a lot, from putting a lid on your boiler at flame-out, through transferring to FV and on to using a "no-chill cube"

I use the latter technique and my "no-chill cube" is a 5 gal HDPE jerry-can ... at end of boil I transfer my wort (through a hop-stopper so all hops and kettle trub are separated out) into the cube, I squeeze as much of the air out of the cube as possible and seal it, and then turn it over a few times in the next 15-30 minutes so that all of the internal surfaces have been in contact with the (still hot) wort ... at that point (in theory and from my experiences in practice all the times I've done this) I have a jerry-can of pasteurised wort which can remain in that jerry-can until I'm ready to pitch (the shortest I've waited is overnight, the longest has been around 1 and a half weeks (waiting for a problematic ferment to finish off and free up an FV)) ... various breweries and home brewing retailers will sometimes offer "fresh wort homebrew kits", which are basically wort prepared in jerry-cans like this ... from what I've seen on forums Aussie no-chillers are happy to wait for the wort to cool to ambient, US home-brewers appear to have a habit of dropping their cubes into bodies of water (and then prefer to call it a "swamp-cooler", but maybe I'm mis-interpreting that); but the key here is that even though it's called a "no-chill cube" you can do things that chill it, if you want to, but once it's in that jerry-can time is on your side

What I've done when I want to get my (lager) worts down to 9C (Google tells me that's 48F, apparently) for pitching, is let the cube cool to ambient overnight, then when my brewfridge is next available I'll set it to the temp I want my wort at and put the cube in there to chill it down to where I want to pitch ... usually with the flask of yeast that's going to get pitched into it so the two are at the same temp from the start ... then I'll open up the cube and transfer the wort into a sterilised FV, pitch the yeast and put it back in the brewfridge to get on with fermenting.

Just how I do it in my (home) brewery, of course, you are the head brewer in yours
Cheers, PhilB

 

[DavidDetroit]

@PhilBrew
Thank you for the info. I like that the wort can be pasteurized and so not be a concern, time-wise.

 

[Hopperty]

Good job. It works well and is a lot tidier than mine. I can edit in the red boxes but not elsewhere, as you intended. I think for people who have cooled their wort to 50C then adding ice might be very practical. But mine explains the philosophy/method.


Ice density is 0.92. That's why it might be better to use weight rather than volume. I know the difference is small. Plus, it's very hard to measure ice volume!

I done another google apps spreadsheet thing
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dLqozJ9F-v_vE9GbvgSlLVlKZnC0A7mKuLtSLsgwGMM/edit#gid=0
a bit more involved this time as it includes Boiling water, Tap Water, Chilled water and ICE

The idea being that you can have a plan inplace to get the right temperature as soon as possible - may be you could run a critical eye over it and tell me what you think - it sort of works apart from the odd stray gram that has me puzzled - LOL

 

[DavidDetroit]

Used two-plus gallons of nearly frozen water to top off the fermenter this afternoon. I got an 11F improvement. The yeast is now being allowed to progress a little slower so I'm looking forward to better tasting beer.

 

[kelper]

The idea being that you can have a plan inplace to get the right temperature as soon as possible - may be you could run a critical eye over it and tell me what you think - it sort of works apart from the odd stray gram that has me puzzled - LOL

I can't 'unhide' column H. Where is this gram of which you speak?

 

[Hopperty]

I can't 'unhide' column H. Where is this gram of which you speak?

Nothing very exciting in "H". But I will let you take a peak.

Unusual grams sometimes appear when the calculations involve ice - they make no difference but look daft and from a programming point of view are doing my nut in. I tried to sort it out a few nights ago with more stout, but that didn't work out too well, I had to start from scratch the following evening....

 

[kelper]

OK. Where are the calculations done? Column H only has numbers. And why would you add kettle water. Does ice have priority over tap water?

 

[Hopperty]

OK. Where are the calculations done? Column H only has numbers. And why would you add kettle water. Does ice have priority over tap water?

In a cloud ? it puzzles me too, but yes it is apparently an "Apps Script" so may be I have wrote an app ............ I must be a modern person - LOL
(can you see the script from Tools>Script Editor)?

Kettle ? if you had very low tap temperatures (5°) and your wort was very small (4 Litres) then you would have to add a cup of boiling water for that instant yeast take off experiance.

Priorities? script will first try to do the job with tap water, then 'chilled water' and only resort to ice as a last resort.

 

[kelper]

I think you have those priorities in the wrong order! I've never written scripts - will have a look.

I suggest you have the ice measured by weight. If someone adds five litres of cubed ice there will only be about 3kg of ice and 2 litres air space.

I've never seen 'gram' appear.

Please hide column H again.

 

[HarryFlatters]

I use the latter technique and my "no-chill cube" is a 5 gal HDPE jerry-can

I've used this technique for my last two brews and they've turned out great.

 

[kelper]

may be you could run a critical eye over it and tell me what you think

I sent you a PM.

 

[Birkin]

I've never really had this issue.. the water in the uk tends to be cool enough all year round.. But.. if I was having this issue, I would chill with water as usual for 15 mins or so to take most of the heat out of it, then i would connect the chiller to my mash bin (or any other bucket with a tap on it), then throw a load of ice in the mash bin and fill it with water. Then gravity flow the water from the mash bin, through the chiller and into the sink - that way you're not diluting your brew.

The mash bin would need to be higher than the chiller, but that's easy done- just upside down a fermenting bucket and put it on top of that.

It would probably help to fill the mash bin before cooling with water, that way the water has time to cool down to near freezing.