Cooling Wort Question

Hey people. I am extremely new at homebrewing. I just started making my first batch yesterday. Anyway, I used a pre-hopped malt extract and dried malt extract combo to make my wort. I know you are supposed to cool the wort quickly before adding yeast but I did not know this before I started so I allowed my wort to cool simply by allowing it to sit for 7 hours until it reached 78 degrees. After 7 hours of waiting, I pitched my yeast. Did I mess up my brew by allowing it to sit for so long. I used fairly sound sanitizing methods. I tried doing some research on other forums but I can't seem to get a sufficient answer. I was curious if somebody more experienced could lend me some advice. Thanks in advance.

Not ideal but if your sanitation was done right and your yeast is healthy your beer will be fine. 78 sounds a little warm to pitch your yeast. Did you boil all five gallons? If so you can cool it faster by putting it in a sink with some ice.

There are folks on here experimenting with a technique some of the Aussies do. Brew up their beer, throw it in a sealed container and leave it until the next day to cool. They seem to make drinkable beer that way, so I'm sure you're ok.

Cooling faster stops the production of DMS (which can cause a cooked cabbage flavor) and lowers the time your wort is exposed to contaminants between boiling and pitching. Both good reasons to cool as quickly as you're able, but nothing that will automatically ruin your beer if it takes you longer.

I use the hi-tech "throw the pot in a sick full of cold water" method myself. Cools it in an hour or less if you change the water out as it gets warm since I have cold tap water where I live.

Lots of good things happen when you cool quickly.
- Cold break
- No DMS
- Can begin fermentation quicker=less chance of infection

An awful lot of brewing is waiting, but this is one time in the process when speed helps.
RDWHAHB. Beer is hard to mess up and yeast is great at covering up our mistakes when you give them enough time.

For partial boils, I would just use my side by side sink in the kitchen. Fill one side, put the brew pot in there and then let the water run into the sink, keeping the water at a cool temp. the over flow just went into the other sink. Once the wort is down to about 100 degrees F, you pour in about 3 gallons of chilled water.

This same method can be used for Full boils, but it will take longer without the use of the chilled water addition at the end.

I built a wort chiller this weekend with some copper coil and a cheap garden hose. Can't wait to try it this weekend on my Oatmeal Stout.

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I bought something like the copper pipe above. a few hose clamps and some plastic tubing and you have an immersion chiller. Drop it in your brew pot 15 minutes before the end of the boil, put the pot in the sink and shove one end of the plastic tubing into the faucet. I can cool about 3 gallons down to 80 or so in 15 minutes.

also, if you aren't boiling a whole five gallons, you can buy a gallon or two of water and keep them in the fridge and use that water to bring your wort to the temp you need. I mixed them in the primary when I used this technique.

sketerbuck said:

Not ideal but if your sanitation was done right and your yeast is healthy your beer will be fine. 78 sounds a little warm to pitch your yeast. Did you boil all five gallons? If so you can cool it faster by putting it in a sink with some ice.

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I did not boil all 5 gallons. I boiled about 2, then added 3 gallons of room temp water. I should have used 3 gallons of cold water, not room temp but I can't go back now. I already see bubbles in the airlock so I know the yeast is working. For a new homebrewer like myself, will I really notice a taste difference because I let it sit for 7 hours? It obviously not ideal, but I didn't really have a choice. Thanks again

I can't speak to the taste, for I am still in the middle of my first batch, but while I was reading this, I had to look up what DMS was, so I thought I'd share in case not everyone knows.

Dimethyl Sulfide (DMS) - A background flavor compound that is desirable in low amounts in lagers, but at high concentrations tastes of cooked vegetables like corn or cabbage. Actually this is only one of a group of sulfur compounds that contribute to these aromas and flavors. Others are dimethyle disulfide, dimethyl trisulfide, diethyl sulfide, etc. (referenced from How To Brew by John J. Palmer pg. 335)

And I would like to clarify my understanding of cold break. As I gather, the "cold break" process is when a certain group of proteins are thermally shocked out of suspension by rapid cooling. If this does not occur, the beer will have a cloudy "chill haze" when chilled prior to drinking, when those same proteins come out of suspension in the bottles. What kind of affect does this have on the beer? Can you taste these proteins?

This may be more complex then is necessary for a beginner's forum, and if you think so, I'd be happy to post this in a more appropriate thread. I just happen to be a beginner with a strong interest in the chemistry behind the brew process.