Currently Brewing Help!!!

Hi All,

Today is my first day of brewing! I just finished the boil and now its currently in the bath tub cooling down. I have a few questions that I have read through out the forum that wasn't very clear in my brewing instructions.

1) What is the temperature that the wort have to be before I transfer to the carboy?

2) Do I have to include water in the carboy before I transfer the wort. My brewing instructions doesn't say anything about putting water in the carboy, but have read in the forum people putting water in.

Thanks,

Sam

I would transfer no higher than 70f so you can pitch the yeast. Do you have fermentation temp control? If yes, you could transfer higher and put in you chamber to cool to pitching temp.

Assuming you did an extract. Did you do a full or partial boil? If you did a full boil no need to add water. If you did a partial, add water to make 5 gallons.

Yes, I did an extract and did a full boil. I dont have a fermentation temp control.

How long does it take to get the tem down to 70f. I went through all my ice and now just have cold water running.

Like pjfallat said, 70F or under for pitching yeast is pretty standard. I personally like to get to 64F or less before pitching. So, if you're in a bathtub and you hit 70F no problem then keep it cooling down to the mid- to lower-60s. If, on the other hand, you have a hard time just getting to 70F then go with it.

You only need top-up water if you did a partial boil (i.e. boiled only part of the full batch). If this is the case and you're using cold top-up water then you can factor that into your cooling time. For instance, if you boiled half the batch and the other half is refrigerated spring water then you know that you spring water is about 40F which means you could stop cooling your wort at 80F, and when you mix the two together you'll get 60F.

Edit: I just saw your reply above this one. Kind of blows my suggestions out of the water

It can takes many hours to get to a good pitching temp.

For instance, I brewed a batch last and have an immersion chiller. My tap water runs about 70F right now. It took about 20-30 minutes to get the wort to 75F at which point I put it in my fermenter. I then put the fermenter in a swamp cooler in my basement with about 60F water and a fan, and it took about 4 more hours to drop to 64F.

As long as you keep your wort covered and sanitary then you can leave it for a long while (12-24 hours even) while it cools. Sanitation is key!

Thanks St. Pug! Just took my first temp reading. Its at 80f. So hopefully it drops to 70f soon. So it looks like it might take me awhile to get my wort to 64f.

Some people these days do a "no chilling" method, which revolves around letting the beer drop by leaving it overnight basically. As long as nothing can get in there, it'll be fine.

Since you said you did a full-boil, there is no reason to add any water.

I'd do as stpub mentioned (which is the same as my own method), get it as cool as you can, then transfer it to your fermenter. If you can put that into a new ice bath, do that to help it keep dropping. If you're room temp is under 70F, just put the airlock in place and leave it overnight, and in the morning it should be around room temp and you'll be able to pitch. With no temp. control though, you'll need to watch out, you're beer will start warming up once you pitch your yeast.

For future batches, if you're doing full-boils, I'd strongly recommend and immersion chiller, it'll work a lot better than an ice bath... 5 gallons is a lot of volume to cool down with an ice bath.

you need your wort at 70 degrees (ish) to pitch the wort...

if you have some cold water in the carboy (which has been boiled and cooled) then it will also help bring the temp down before you pitch the wort

try this, since the wort is already in the bathtub.

go to the store and get some bags of ice.

put about half the ice around your pot, and add some water to spread the cooling all the way around the pot.

give the wort a really good stir with a santized spoon, and it will cool faster

when the ice is melted, and the water gets warm, repeat the process again.

you will be surprised how fast it gets cool (but a a buck a bag of ice it may be pricey)

Also, moving the wort around in the pot and moving the cold water around the pot helps a ton.

bd2xu said:

Also, moving the wort around in the pot and moving the cold water around the pot helps a ton.

Click to expand...

^^^^ this

Brewers:
As per my PM to SamJ, if you are using syrup(LME) or DME as only source of flavor and color, there may be no need to boil at all. I contacted Munton's and was told that ALL their syrups are no-boil. Boiling damages the flavor!!!
Likely that all the major brands are no-boil. Email them. Ask!!!
Since syrup must be thinned, warm the can in hot water, add to other ingredients(cooled) in 'boy, add starter, "don't need no stinkin' SG", don't need to stir. Use largest starter as is practical.
This does not mean that you don't sanitize. On contrary, everything must be sanitary as it goes into the 'boy. It just doesn't have to be hot.
Rack as usual. I've got 5 batches done this way, and am still enjoying a Heavy Ale pitched last Oct., so, no, it won't go bad.
Next batch is a Breiss, NO BOIL!!! Give me 6 mo., and PM me.

Thanks everyone for your help. It looks like I have a few methods, either get a few bags of ice or leave it overnight and pitch the yeast tomorrow.

After going through my first brew. I might have to invest in a wort chiller.

bd2xu said:

Also, moving the wort around in the pot and moving the cold water around the pot helps a ton.

Click to expand...

^^^^^^ Absolutely this!

SamJ said:

Thanks everyone for your help. It looks like I have a few methods, either get a few bags of ice or leave it overnight and pitch the yeast tomorrow.

After going through my first brew. I might have to invest in a wort chiller.

Click to expand...

personally, i would get the ice.

leaving it overnight, without a tight seal leaves you open to infection.

my personal preference is ALWAYS to get into a nice tightly sealed fermenter as quickly as humanly possible.

get your wort as cool as you can, then put a bunch of cold water in the fermenter, and add the wort.

you don't need to be EXACTLY 70 degrees. anywhere in the neighborhood is fine. the yeast will work when it's time as long as you don't kill them (and it's hard to kill them).

my bet is that I would play the odds of getting the wort in the fermenter, and cool, and add the yeast over the odds against some sort of infection leaving the wort in the tub overnight.

btw... you don't need to spend a lot of money on a wort chiller, until you are ready to.

get a decent size wash tub, or rubber maid tub, to fill with ice and water, and put your pot in there.

with plenty of ice, and water, and a good stir, you should be able to get your wort cool in a couple hours, tops

dadshomebrewing said:

btw... you don't need to spend a lot of money on a wort chiller, until you are ready to.

get a decent size wash tub, or rubber maid tub, to fill with ice and water, and put your pot in there.

with plenty of ice, and water, and a good stir, you should be able to get your wort cool in a couple hours, tops

Click to expand...

True and a wash tub (got mine at Walmart for five dollars) is a great swamp cooler for fermenting.

A chiller is one of those things that, when combined with others like full wort boil, great aeration, liquid yeast, purified or spring water... Make good beer to great beer. IMO

bd2xu said:

True and a wash tub (got mine at Walmart for five dollars) is a great swamp cooler for fermenting.

A chiller is one of those things that, when combined with others like full wort boil, great aeration, liquid yeast, purified or spring water... Make good beer to great beer. IMO

Click to expand...

five bucks, and multiple uses, for a wash tub sounds like a winner to me.

heck... the poster might just consider a quick trip to walmart, especially as an alternative to waiting overnight to pitch the yeast and seal up the fermenter

And a cheap aquarium pump in the washtub. Will help cool it as well

Just letting your pot of wort sit and cool in water, after the initial transfer of heat from the pot into the surrounding water, is barely more efficient than letting it sit on the stove and cool in ambient air. You've got to make sure to help along the heat transfer by stirring to make sure the hot wort in the center of the pot is also getting exposed, and change out the cooling water once it's absorbed a bunch of heat, or else you're going to be waiting hours for the cooling process.

It never took me more than 40 minutes or so to chill my full boils down to pitching temp before I got my counter flow chiller - I just had to develop a method like follows:

Place my pot into my utility sink, fill the sink with cold water (no ice) up to about the same level as the height of the wort in the pot. Using a sanitized spoon, stir the wort, occasionally moving the pot around a little in the sink to make sure I didn't just have a layer of hot water around the outside of the pot.

Drain the sink, refill and repeat.

Drain the sink one more time, refill but add ice this time, repeat the stirring with a sanitized spoon. 99% of the time, this third pass got me down to pitching temps.

I'm like strat, I place the pot in the sink which has the ice bath in it, and within a matter of 30 minutes its cooled to a good temp for pitching. If you've got the wort in the bath tub, that's a lot of water to be using to cool it down. If you had a wash tub or sink, you could contain the ice bath better. I can fit 18 lbs ice and water in my sink and the boil pot. I do however only do partial boils so the pot is not that full, and the other water I add is refrigerated too.

I can't speak to the initial portion of the question (how to chill it quickly), but I usually oxygenate and pitch when the wort is at around 85º. I then put it in the basement to finish chilling - I haven't noticed any negative effects so far.

I just finished brewing my first beer last week (yay!) and had some decent success cooling my wort to 95F in 15mins and about 80F after 30mins (total 45 min cool time) by creating an ice bath in a 20 gallon Kmart-bought plastic tub and immediately submerging my covered brewpot into the tub. I then put a cotton towel (fabric of some kind that retains cold) over the top of the tub and put the lid of the tub on. I hope that all made sense. Anyway, it seemed to work well. I only did a half boil (2.5 gal) and added this to my fermenter that had a pre-boiled, cooled 2.5 gal of water.

I just started another batch yesterday and plan on using that stirring trick you kids keep talking about to cool the wort to a cooler temp.

Groovy.

Thanks for all your help everyone. I did have success after going to the store and buying a huge bag of ice. Overall it took me 8 hours from start to finish in brewing my first beer. It was longer than I expected, but enjoyed it. I will be certainly ready in my next batch.

I think my first all grain was 7 hours but I had cold winter ground water and an immersion chiller working for me. Now, I find a typical brewday to be 5 hours; not including when I put my 75F wort in a swamp cooler and pitch yeast about 4 hours later. You'll find some hours you can shave off on most brews.

Cheers!