Ice, Ice Baby -- Brewing an Ice Cold Beer

I had a new experience. I was brewing a new batch of beer, a California Common or Steam Beer, and after boiling the wort (this was the first time I didn't have an overboil), I was ready to cool the brew and pitch my yeast.

A pound of ice is roughly a pint of water. Eight pounds of ice melts into a gallon of water. This is valuable info for those of us that haven't saved enough as homebrewers to buy an immersion chiller or other contraption to bring our wort to the proper temperature before we throw in our yeast. I remembered this tidbit of information the night before the brew and I stocked up on 20 pounds of ice first thing the next morning.

So, here was my thought. After boiling about a gallon and a half of water, grains, hops, and malt extract for about an hour, I figured I'd have boiled down to a little over a gallon of wort. Then I'd splash the wort into my fermenting bucket, toss in the ice, check the temperature, and then pitch the liquid yeast into the mix. Done-zo.

Well, after all the boiling, I did just as I planned, but I freaked out when I took the temperature. It was 46 degrees Fahrenheit.

I thought to myself, "Oh, crap. This is too cold." My head is spinning, because I never read anything about the wort being chilled too much, or having too cold of an environment to pitch in the yeast. Every instruction guide I can remember reading or watching tells me to get the brew down to 70 or 80 degrees and you're ready to rock. Should I reboil? Should I leave the bucket out in the sun for a while? Rather than risk contamination, I just crossed my fingers and poured in the yeast. With pains in my stomach, I sealed the bucket, cried a little bit, and put on an airlock to keep the bugs and germs out of the liquid gold within.

I felt a little sick as I moved the bucket to the corner of the garage, listening to the sloshing and knocking of all the ice cubes still floating in my brew.

Days passed and I saw no signs of life in my brew. I usually wait for the top of the bucket to bulge and listen for the gurgle in my airlock as the yeast eats the sugars and burps out alcohol and CO2. On the third day, I was angry and desperate to get any kind of action from my bucket of disappointment. So I shook it. I shook the bucket and walked away.

Minutes later, BURP! HAHAHAHA! I woke up the yeast... or more accurately, they were doing just fine in there. Maybe a little sluggish sitting in the hot garage, but living it up on the fine brew I concocted. What a relief -- the baby burped!

So, I guess the point was made very clear by Charlie Papazian, the homeboy of homebrewers everywhere, when he said "Don't worry; have a homebrew." Trust me, readers, don't worry. When making beer, there's only three things I've found that are crucial to success.

1. Keep your equipment clean throughout the brewing process,
2. Watch the temperature when boiling and fermenting,
3. and "Don't worry; have a homebrew."

Stay cool, homebrewers.