ok just made my first 5 gallon batch

It was a nut brown. My idiot self thought if I put my wort in the freezer it would drop fast. I didn't think about heat transfer. I should've being I'm a heating and air tech. After about 10 min I thought about it. I then put it in an ice bath. I hope it doesn't have any ill effects on my beer. It might just effect the clarity hopefully. I guess it's all a part of learning. I'll have a wort chiller before I brew again. Let me know your thoughts on my newbie mistake.

Hopefully you got it before the ice cream was ruined.

I'm confused. Other than heat going from you wort to your frozen food I can't imagine what you mean by "heat transfer" and can't see how in any negative way your wort would be effected.

Until you get a wort chiller the best method is ice baths with frozen water bottles.

What I meant by heat transfer is that if something cold actually touches the kettle it will transfer the heat to that substance whether its water or ice. It transfers it better than just cold air.

I dont think 10 mins would have hurt anything. You food in freezer should be fine. The stuff in there was frozen before hand so I dont think it warmed to quickly. Hot molecules move faster that cold which effect BTU's. Take 2 empty water bottles, fill 1 with cold tap water and 1 with hot water. The one with hot water will freeze faster than the one already cold. Try it , its true.

collycreekbrewer said:

What I meant by heat transfer is that if something cold actually touches the kettle it will transfer the heat to that substance whether its water or ice. It transfers it better than just cold air.

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Then I'm very confused why you think this will hurt your wort.

BrutalBrew said:

Take 2 empty water bottles, fill 1 with cold tap water and 1 with hot water. The one with hot water will freeze faster than the one already cold. Try it , its true.

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Nonsense!!!

The hot one has to go through the temperature of the cold one before it freezes. That will take some positive amount of time. Then its at the temperature of the cold one and it will require the additional time that the cold one required to freeze. It will always take longer.

Suppose a 70 degree bottle takes 20 minutes to freeze. How long will a 120 degree bottle take to freeze? I don't know, *but* it will take some positive amount of time to get to 70 degrees. *Then* it will take another 20 minutes more to freeze. So it *has* to take more time for hot water to freeze.

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Or to be nerdy.

Time for a cold bottle to become a frozen bottle: n; n > 0.
Time for a hot bottle to become a cold bottle: m; m > 0.
Time for a hot bottle to become a frozen bottle: m + n; m + n > n.

*ALWAYS*

woozy said:

Nonsense!!!

The hot one has to go through the temperature of the cold one before it freezes. That will take some positive amount of time. Then its at the temperature of the cold one and it will require the additional time that the cold one required to freeze. It will always take longer.

Suppose a 70 degree bottle takes 20 minutes to freeze. How long will a 120 degree bottle take to freeze.? Well, it will take some positive amount of time to get to 70 degrees. *Then* it will take another 20 minutes more to freeze. So it *has* to take more time for hot water to freeze.

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Hot water does freeze faster than cold water. This does however depend on being in a controlled environment.

Hot water goes through an endothermic reaction known as evaporation at a higher rate than cold water. This means that heat energy is converted into kinetic energy at a higher rate with hot water compared to cool water thereby losing heat energy at a higher rate in the hot water than cold water. This means that hot water can and does freeze faster than cold water. It's pretty counter intuitive but is true.

* I don't know what happened to the rest but here it is.

Hot water and cold water "freeze" in different ways. Likely because of dissolved gases and minerals in the water. So you have to first define what "freezing" is. Again this is in a controlled environment.

But for real world purposes both hot and cold water will freeze in a very similar time span. For the most part cold water freezes faster than hot.

I didn't believe it at first either ,try it. “Mpemba Effect” Its not 100% but most of the time the warmer water freezes faster. Google scientific study's on it. So be nerdy and research it. ITS TRUE here's a random link that has good explanations why
http://factorfictionblog.com/2009/11/20/does-warm-water-really-freeze-faster-than-cold-water.aspx

Being an HVAC guy myself, I have to chime in. The benefit of the ice bath would be twofold over putting it in the freezer. 1st, heat transfer through conduction is probably more efficient than through convection. 2nd, and more importantly I think, is that in the ice bath you have a latent heat transfer as the ice melts as opposed to a sensible heat transfer just putting it in the freezer; latent heat of fusion/melting = 144 btu / lb / hr. sensible heat transfer would be probably just shy of 1 btu / lb / hr. (air to wort).

Wort chiller is the way to go simply because of the surface area. Being a tech, I'm sure you can find som 3/8 scrap copper and make one up pretty easily.

Still nonsense. Hot water still needs to cool down to a state of being cool. Mpemba effect says that this new cold water from hot water has had more evaporation and is a lesser amount than the original cold water. Perhaps but not to any significant effect. The "insulation effect" is nonense because the hot water may have began more efficiently but when it reached the cold temperature it's in an equal state of inneffficiency.

from Wikipedia "Although there is anecdotal support for the effect, there is no agreement on exactly what the effect is and under what circumstances it occurs. There have been reports of similar phenomena since ancient times, although with insufficient detail for the claims to be replicated."

In other words, nonsense.

Anyway back to the OP.

*Oh* I *get* it. You're worried the the freezer was ineffectual and you wasted time using the slow freezer method when an ice bath would have been quicker!

No, you're fine:

1) No matter how quickly you cool the wort, it'll never be quick enough. You cool wort to get it through the warm zone quickly and to minimize exposure to air-born nasty microbes. You do the best you can. It'll *never* be the case that cooling in 20 minutes is utterly perfectly ideal but cooling in 30 minutes is deadly and a complete failure.

2) And here I'm talking out my ass: I don't think there are any nasty air-born microbes in your freezer. It's too cold inside. ('course the wort could have woken them up but... )

Well, in any event the freezer was colder than room-temperature so you can't have done that much harm. I mean you *did* get it cooled eventually. That's usually quick enough.

Yep. My fellow hvac Guy knew what I was talking about. I just didn't use the terminology you did. You said what I was trying to say only better. I wasn't concerned about the food in the freezer. I got it cooled in about 25 min so I think its OK. And yep I've started collecting scrap copper. Thanks everyone. I'll be trying one in about a month

And heat transfer from conduction is way more efficient than convection. I had a major brain fart.

I wouldn't trust wikipedia for everything. I didn't believe that hot water would freeze faster than cold, but there have been scientific studies that have proved it. I've also always heard that cold water boils faster than hot water, but that one I know is false. I saw a tv show where they put two pots of water on burners, and the hot water pot boiled first.

I trust wikipedia (and cecil adams) over the bozo you cited (who cites no references). Find and cite me a reputable study where they've proved and replicated it. None of the sites the claim it occurs have been able to cite or list the conditions required for it to happen.

All the articles that claim it occurs admit no-one really knows why. Thus that it sometimes (but not always) occurs but can not be explained, replicated nor even consistantly define what "freezing first" even means, puts the whole thing in the category of nonsense.

You most certainly can not claim that hot water *will* freeze faster.

I was wrong that it never happens though. But you can't say that it always happens.

woozy said:

I trust wikipedia (and cecil adams) over the bozo you cited (who cites no references). Find and cite me a reputable study where they've proved and replicated it. None of the sites the claim it occurs have been able to cite or list the conditions required for it to happen.

All the articles that claim it occurs admit no-one really knows why. Thus that it sometimes (but not always) occurs but can not be explained, replicated nor even consistantly define what "freezing first" even means, puts the whole thing in the category of nonsense.

You most certainly can not claim that hot water *will* freeze faster.

I was wrong that it never happens though. But you can't say that it always happens.

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Very true , it doesnt happen all the time. Most test/study's say it happens most of the time. But there is no proven fact of why. That doesnt make it false just because they dont know why. I actually tested the it (only once) and the hot water did freeze faster. Freeze = going by which turned to ice first.

I bottled my beer last night. I gotta say I was pretty shocked at the clarity and taste. I drank one last night at room temperature. It's gotta be better after carbonation and refrigeration. Now I guess I gotta brew another batch. Lol