Cooling the wort question

This is my first real batch of beer and I'm planning on boiling 3 gallons with the extract and hops and then mixing that with 2 gallons of normal water. I'm reading a bunch of stuff about rapidly cooling the wort by immersing it in ice which as I understand will get the wort to 75 degrees in about 30 minutes, but everyone fails to mention what temperate those extra 2 gallons should be at. Should I mix the cooled wort with cold tap water or room temperature or what? I don't want to cool it down too much, what do I do?

You can take the temperature diferential into consideration. If you add 2 gallons of 50* water to 3 gallons of 90* wort you will end up with 5 gallons at 74*. Be carfeul if you are using a glass fermenter. Temperature variations can be dangerous.

I used to use cold tap water. Ale yeast like it between 60-70 degrees usually,

I personally use just room temperature water, so around 70. For whatever reason I'm not a huge fan of relying on the extra water to cool my wort down much... I just hate running the risk of mixing say 50 degree water with 90 degree wort and hoping its the right temp in my carboy. I'd rather them both be pretty close in temp so I know what to expect.

Just use tap water.
Don't worry too much about getting the yeast started "too cold." The wort will reach equilibrium with the ambient temp before anything really gets going, and fermentation produces heat, so they'll warm themselves up.

If you read Brew Like a Monk, most of the Belgian brewers start their beers off pretty chilly (62-64) and let them naturally ramp up temp.

In fact, you're better off being a little chilly at first to keep the growth and resulting ester/fusel production restrained. A surefire way to make a "meh" beer is to start out too hot.

I get the wort in the pot to about 90-95*F using an ice bath and add it to the fermenter along with tap water. Then put the fermenter in the ice bath again if it needs cooling down further. I use a bucket for primary fermentation.

I'm glad you asked this question. I was wondering this myself. Also along those lines, Should you boil the 2 gal. to sanitize it before mixing in the 3 gal. of wort?

Toothman said:

I'm glad you asked this question. I was wondering this myself. Also along those lines, Should you boil the 2 gal. to sanitize it before mixing in the 3 gal. of wort?

Click to expand...

No need to do this. The water is kept "sanitary" by the use of chlorine and other chemicals.

I personally use R/O (Reverse Osmosis) water from the grocery store. I have found that the lack of chlorine has greatly reduced the "extract twang" flavor in my beers.

Toothman said:

I'm glad you asked this question. I was wondering this myself. Also along those lines, Should you boil the 2 gal. to sanitize it before mixing in the 3 gal. of wort?

Click to expand...

If your water is clean, you might not have to... but in any case its best to always boil it, and cool it down. I usually do this as the first thing when I brew, so by the time I'm all done and ready to mix... that water has cooled down from boil to room temperature. If its not cooled down enough, I just put it in my ice bath after my wort is done cooling.

I also just top off my fermenter with Brita filtered water if I'm under. I'm no pro since I first started... but It seems to be working for me