Cooling wort question

From what I've read, it seems that everyone uses an ice bath or wort chiller for bringing the temp down after the boil. For a partial boil, is there any reason why you wouldn't want to add cold water to cool the wort?

It seems like it would be much quicker and easier than an ice bath. Would it cause off flavors or something?

It is quicker and easier to add the wort to cold sanitized water. Nevertheless, you still need to get the wort down to a temperature that can be easily lowered by the water. When doing partial boils, I put my wort in an ice bath to cool down to 115°F. I pour my cold sanitized water into my primary container from 7' above to aerate. Once my wort is down to 115°F, I can add it to the water to finish bringing the temperature down to 70°F.

Wild

Adding to the cold water does not lower the temperature enough, and then you have the problem of trying to cool 5-5 1/2 gallons instead of 2-3...it takes much longer. I know from experience, I used to cool my 2-3 gallons in a cold bathtub, then I tried just adding it to the fermenter with cold water; it took forever to get down to 80. I bought a wort chiller several batches ago, not thinking that I really needed it but just wanting to buy something (you know how it is :cross: ). It was my best post-starter kit purchase, now that I have it I wouldn't want to do without.

rdwj said:

From what I've read, it seems that everyone uses an ice bath or wort chiller for bringing the temp down after the boil. For a partial boil, is there any reason why you wouldn't want to add cold water to cool the wort?

It seems like it would be much quicker and easier than an ice bath. Would it cause off flavors or something?

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you could but you would have to doing a partial boil probably less than half your actual total batch size to make significant dent in the temperature. and i don't think anybody here would recommend doing a partial boil that small.

I've gotten better at getting a real quick cooldown of my partial boils. I'm usually boiling between 2.5 and 3.0 gallons, so I can't add a lot of cool water to bring it down to pitching temp. I buy two big bags of ice. I make an ice bath in half of my sink, and place the hot brewpot in that. Since the ice bath is quickly increasing in temp, I set up a siphon into a spare 5 gallon carboy I have on the floor, so that I'm constantly draining the water in the ice bath. I then turn the sink on gently to replace the water I'm taking out, creating some circulation of the ice bath water and also constantly adding new, cold water. I have more ice in the other sink which I continuously add, as well. I also gently stir the work, not enough tocause aeration, just enough to keep the wort moving.

I shoot for a wort temp of ~ 90-95, which I can do fairly quickly; haven't checked the clock, there's too much else going on, but I don't think it's much more than 15 minutes. From there, I add some cooled water to the brewpot to bring the temp down a little further, and strain that mixture into the fermenter (the wort is cool enough to aerate at this point, and I want to get most of the trub out). I then top off with more either cool or room temp water, and I'm right at pitching temp.

Some other people also freeze a block of ice, usually filtered, the night before and add that directly to the wort. I may try that next (just need to remember to freeze the ice the day before).

i did a full boil for this last batch and the ice block/bath method didn't cut it fast enough. I got the temp down eventually but my new project this weekend is an immersion chiller. :rockin:

Most places dont have ambient air temps below 70° so you have to get the temps there somehow. I usually run the water for a few minutes in the bathtub to get as cold as possible. The wort gets a ice water bath in my sink. At 100°F I dump in the primary, and pour in cold water to ~5 gallons. This lands me somewhere around 75°... which is exactly the temperature of my yeast (ambient air temp). So far no problemo.

chillers are cool as heck though....

I use 2 chiller coils one goes into the wort at 45 min. the second goes in a plastic tub with ice, salt and water. After the boil the coils are connected to a garden hose and eachother water is exausted to my grass. Takes a bout 20 min. to drop to 70F.

I pour my wort into a bottling bucket with 8lbs of ice in it. That drops the temp down to about 90 some degrees. Then I top off to the 5 gal mark with cold RO water to pull it down to pitching temp. Works like a charm for me and takes around 5 min or less usually.

HTH

Just make an immesion chiller there CHEEEEEP and EASY and i will probably be the best brewing investment. untill you buy a GOOD counter flow.
JJ

My partial boils are 1-1.5 gals.

I place 4 gal of water in the freezer for 4-5 hours prior to brewing. After the brew is done I pour 2 gal into the primary and sparge the hops with the remaining 2 gals and top off to 5.25 gals.

The temp is down the about 72F or lower every time.

jaybird said:

Just make an immesion chiller there CHEEEEEP and EASY and i will probably be the best brewing investment. untill you buy a GOOD counter flow.
JJ

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Ya, that's probably one of my next two purchases. I've got to start spreading them out a little or SWMBO is going to have my head on a platter. I love all the toys that come with this hobby - makes me feel like a mad scientist - lol.

There is a pretty sweet guide to building a nice counterflow somewhere on this board, but I don't really have a use for one until I get a big pot with a valve.

I use the double sink method. Right off the burner I put the kettle into a water bath with a light amount of ice since it'll heat up extremely fast. While it's sitting in the one side of the sink, I fill up the other with some ice. Once the water is warm, I switch the kettle over and repeat the process, gradually adding more ice to the cold water in the sink as the wort cools. I occasionaly and slowly stir the wort as well when it's chilling.

I timed my last effort and it took 30minutes to bring a wort down to 80 degrees that way. I'm fairly certain I could lower it to about 25 with some shenanigans

I'm still going to invest in making a Wort Chiller in the next month or so.

Wort chiller's definately on the to-do list. Pretty long list though, it may take a little while to get to it!

Recommmend checing prices for copper tubing at a plumbing supply shop. Talk to the person at the counter, you should be able to get it far cheaper than at HD or Lowes.

Using straight tap water thru a 3/8" x 25-30ft copper tube immersion chiller gets my 5.5 gallon wort to less than 70* in 5 min or so.

Just drop it in the wort (cleaned off of course) with 10min left in the boil to sanitize it.

A couple months ago I was able to pick up 50' of 3/8 for $27, But I've got a friend at a supply house, soI get it for employee cost. Maybe some tasty home brews could be traded for a discount.