Chilling the wort. A few questions.

The book I have (How to Brew, by Palmer) says that ideally the wort should be cooled to the temp it will ferment at. (65-75 degrees Farenheit) In you guys history, is this possible using a garden hose and copper tubing submersion wort chiller?

And while using the wort chiller, as it seems its gonna take a while, what do you recommend I do to keep the wort kettle from getting contaminated? I cant leave the lid on with the chiller in there….

My IC gets the wort down to ~70 in about 15min. Its a simple 3/8" copper tubing coiled up with a hose adapter on one end.

I'm usually whirlpooling the wort in the opposite direction that the IC flows, so i don't bother covering it. Unless you have a bunch of stuff flying around in the air, I wouldn't worry too much about contamination in this short period of time. But if you are worried, you could drape a towel over the kettle.

Garden hose + copper tubing immersion chiller is what most people use, as far as I can tell. It works well for what it is, as long as you have cool tap water.

It works much better if you swirl the copper chiller in the wort as it cools, or if you stir vigorously. I don't worry about anything dropping into the wort while I'm doing this. It happens pretty quickly and when you pitch the yeast, they will far outnumber any floaties that might land in that short time period.

eighteez said:

The book I have (How to Brew, by Palmer) says that ideally the wort should be cooled to the temp it will ferment at. (65-75 degrees Farenheit) In you guys history, is this possible using a garden hose and copper tubing submersion wort chiller?

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The lowest you can chill to is a little above the temp of the water that you are sending through the chiller. So, unless you live where the tap water is less than 65*F, you will never get chilled to 65*F. This is where the idea of pre-chillers come in; you put one coil in ice water and then another coil in your wort (or you come up with some other way of sending very cold water through the coil.)

eighteez said:

And while using the wort chiller, as it seems its gonna take a while, what do you recommend I do to keep the wort kettle from getting contaminated? I cant leave the lid on with the chiller in there….

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homebrew is not as fragile as you think. it'll be fine to leave the kettle open to the air while you are chilling. the idea is to get a lot of yeast in there as soon as possible. if a few stray bacteria or something like that get into the wort, the massive army of yeast will win any battle that goes on.

great tips. Thanks!

(Fragility... I hear ya. I keep being very careful, while reminding myself that hundreds of years ago this was done right by the river with next to nothing...)

Do yourself a favor. Get or buy a copper immersion chiller at any cost. I made mine for around $40/parts. I was able to cool 5.5 gallons of hot wort down to pitching temp in 10 minutes!!! Granted I have fairly cool tap water, but it sure was better than screwing around with ice. I did it outside, and just stirred the wort with my brewing spoon. Nothing flew in the wort.

I've brewed my first batch last week, and can already tell the IC is going to be one of my favorite pieces of equipment.

I'm not handy in the least, and I made it no problem.

yes.

That is what I am using.

Make sure you clean the chiller with boiling/hot water and white vinegar before you use it.

I boiled it in water and then cleaned it with the PBW cleaning stuff that I bought with my kit pieces...

And then left it soaking in sanitizer until it went into the wort.

The sanitizer probably wasn't necessary. All you have to do is put it into your pot 15 minutes before the end of the boil.

I figured that. but I had the sanitizer made up already for other stuff. If something is gonna be sitting out inmy garage waiting to be dunked in wort it may as well be sitting in sanitizer.

logan3825 said:

The sanitizer probably wasn't necessary. All you have to do is put it into your pot 15 minutes before the end of the boil.

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x2.

again, I figured that. but I had the sanitizer made up already for other stuff. If something is gonna be sitting out in my garage waiting to be dunked in wort it may as well be sitting in sanitizer.

I have a double sink, and make an ice bath in one - stir the bejezzus out of the wort, transfer pot to the other when half the ice is melted and repeat.

Last batch I made took 3 bags of ice ( cheap enough at $1.59 each ) and some rock salt ( I have around the house all the time any way ).

Wort chilled in 13 minutes. I had thought about a wort chiller, but had never timed my ice bathing - after that am trying to figure whats the point?