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dayton102 · 08-05-2012, 11:19 AM

so for my first brew i got a diamond knot ipa. i followed the directions well but the one thing i dont have is a wort cooler... i tried the sink with cold water but ran out of ice after an hour! so i cooled it for another hour in the fridge and it was sitting right at 80 but it had been so long and i know your supposed to cool quickly that i just went ahead and mixed in the rest of the water into the carboy with the brew.... i pulled a sample and got 7.5% and 15 and 1.060... rocked the carboy for a couple mins then added the yeast and left a blowoff hose into a jar of water...

but my main question is if that cool of time being so long, would that ruin the brew???

**Hammy71** · 08-05-2012, 11:35 AM

When I did extracts I routinely cooled the wort in my sink til around 100. Poured into my fermenter and topped off with water I had stored in the fridge. Basically same thing you did. As long as you waited to pitch the yeast until the wort was around 70 ish, you did fine. No worries.

Pezedorado · 08-05-2012, 11:48 AM

My first few brews happened just like this. They were just fine. RDWHAHB

dayton102 · 08-05-2012, 11:56 AM

!!! Good!!! Thanks guys! I feel a lot better about it now! And look forward to all the great advice on here!

mcberry · 08-05-2012, 01:23 PM

You'll be fine. Some people don't chill their wort at all - just let it sit overnight before pitching and it comes out ok. Homebrew is actually pretty hardy and not as easy to ruin as one may think. At this point, focus on keeping your fermentation temperature under control as best you can, and give it plenty of time to ferment.

**grem135** · 08-05-2012, 02:51 PM

With my first brew I ran out of time and had to go to work. I pitched yeast when I got home 10 hours later. turned out fine

**unionrdr** · 08-05-2012, 04:05 PM

Cooling it down in 20 minutes or less goes a long way to preventing/greatly lessening chill haze at fridge time. Just give it plenty of time to settle out clear in primary before bottling.

dayton102 · 08-05-2012, 04:26 PM

The diamond knot kit I got tells me to secondary it so I'm sure I will end up doing that, I was happy to see I landed on 7.5 apv cause the kit said between 5.5 and 7.5!

**unionrdr** · 08-05-2012, 04:47 PM

If you're dry hopping,you can do it in primary. Many don't use secondaries any more unless adding oak or fruit,etc. I dry hop in primary & it works just fine.
If it just says to secondary to clear the beer,leave it in primary & it'll clear up just fine. I do that.

chessking · 08-05-2012, 05:05 PM

Hold on, you don't have 7.5% yet. That scale on the hydrometer is "potential ABV" and I think it means more to the wine makers. What you want to pay attention to is the specific gravity scale, and remember to correct for temperature. Your hydrometer is calibrated to a particular temperature. Its written on it somewhere. Measure the specific gravity at that temperature, or use a correction calculator like this.

http://kotmf.com/tools/hydrom.php?PHPSESSID=8ba36c0c0c001b0dbff388b9fd132 b38

Write down your initial reading from a sample taken after the wort has mixed thoroughly in the fermenter prior to pitching the yeast. This is your Original Gravity. After fermentation has concluded in a couple of weeks, take another sample and remember to correct for temperature. If consecutive readings over several days show no change, this is your Final Gravity. Plug both of them into a calculator like this

http://kotmf.com/tools/alcohol.php

That will give you your ABV. For instance you are starting at 1.060 and lets say you ferment out to 1.012, your ABV would be 6.3%.