To Chill or not to chill?

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Tom Smith

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I have been brewing for a few years now, and I have never once used a wort chiller. I dump my wort into the my brewbucket, and let it sit around a day, and then pitch.
So now I'm thinking about trying a wort chiller, but I'm wondering aside from chilling the wort quicker, allowing me to pitch sooner, what is the benefit to brew quality?
 
Tom Smith said:
I have been brewing for a few years now, and I have never once used a wort chiller. I dump my wort into the my brewbucket, and let it sit around a day, and then pitch.
So now I'm thinking about trying a wort chiller, but I'm wondering aside from chilling the wort quicker, allowing me to pitch sooner, what is the benefit to brew quality?

As far as I know the two main benefits are clearer beer and less chance of an infection. Letting the wort sit at higher temperatures for a longer period of time give bacteria a better chance to get a foothold and infect your beer. The sooner the wort is cooled down and fermenting the better.
 
"At the end of the boil, it is important to cool the wort quickly. While it is still hot, (above 140°F) bacteria and wild yeasts are inhibited. But it is very susceptible to oxidation damage as it cools. There are also the previously mentioned sulfur compounds that evolve from the wort while it is hot. If the wort is cooled slowly, dimethyl sulfide will continue to be produced in the wort without being boiled off; causing off-flavors in the finished beer. The objective is to rapidly cool the wort to below 80°F before oxidation or contamination can occur.
Rapid cooling also forms the Cold Break. This is composed of another group of proteins that need to be thermally shocked into precipitating out of the wort. Slow cooling will not affect them. Cold break, or rather the lack of it, is the cause of Chill Haze. When a beer is chilled for drinking, these proteins partially precipitate forming a haze. As the beer warms up, the proteins re-dissolve. Only by rapid chilling from near-boiling to room temperature will the Cold Break proteins permanently precipitate and not cause Chill Haze. Chill haze is usually regarded as a cosmetic problem. You cannot taste it. However, chill haze indicates that there is an appreciable level of cold-break-type protein in the beer, which has been linked to long-term stability problems. Hazy beer tends to become stale sooner than non-hazy beer. The following are a few preferred methods for cooling the wort." --John Palmer, "How To Brew".
:tank:
 
Tom Smith said:
I have been brewing for a few years now, and I have never once used a wort chiller.


I think this is a key sentence. Apparently , with all the dangers mentioned, he hasn't had a problem. After a few years I would say he has a pretty strong case on the other side of the coin. That letting it sit doesn't pose a problem:D

Tommy
 
I'd say he has been very careful with his sanitation AND lucky.

The biggest difference will be in the aroma. Fast cooling will mean less loss of the aromatic oils.
 
Even if you simply moved to letting it sit in the covered pot in an ice bath, you wouldn't really have to buy a chiller or change much with your process. After that you can decide if you want to cool it even faster.
 
I would advocate a chiller, for a couple reasons... #1 LESS of a chance of infection, #2 You can pitch and get your beer started sooner, #3 you can get alot more break material. Along with the break material, if you whirlpool your wort frantically and let it sit completely still for say 20 minutes, you can get some VERY clean wort into your fermentor.

Brewpilot
 
Brewno said:
I think this is a key sentence. Apparently , with all the dangers mentioned, he hasn't had a problem. After a few years I would say he has a pretty strong case on the other side of the coin. That letting it sit doesn't pose a problem:D

That is quite a jump since you have no idea what prompted him to ask the question. I've never had Tom's homebrew and it may well be world class. But it is possible that he is here looking for ways to improve his process and saw this difference.
 
I was told from the guy at my LHBS that pouring or oxygenating hot wort is a big no no. It stales the beer and produces many off flavors. Not sure of the science behind it though
 
I've had to brew without a chiller a few times due to my CFC being on the fritz. I just put my "top off" water in a trash can ice bath, similar to how people cool kegs at college parties. I have no idea how cold this water got, but when I added it to the boiling wort, I'd end up with a mixture that was just a few degrees above pitchable temperatures. For the 7 or so dollars I spent on ice, it sure worked real well.

If you're hesitant to drop some money on an expensive chiller, you could try this first, and see if it really does make a difference in your beer. If not, you'll only be out a few dollars instead of $50-150.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brewno
I think this is a key sentence. Apparently , with all the dangers mentioned, he hasn't had a problem. After a few years I would say he has a pretty strong case on the other side of the coin. That letting it sit doesn't pose a problem:D


That is quite a jump since you have no idea what prompted him to ask the question. I've never had Tom's homebrew and it may well be world class. But it is possible that he is here looking for ways to improve his process and saw this difference.

Thanks for the vote of confidence dantodd! And thanks for all the replies. I have been very careful about sanitization, and I'm sure that's the main reason for not having an infection. With respect to world class status of my beer ... heh heh heh ... no ... :D

I've brewed many different types of beer, and they've all turned out good, but one common thread in all of my brews is a slight harsh flavour, which I'm figuring is coming from the the grain and how long and how hot I steep the grain. I also tend to go with darker beers, so the grain content tends to be high and dark, and I expect this will cause a harsh "grainy" flavour.

I'm finally considering getting a wort chiller, not because of the process, it's because I finally got an 8 gallon brewpot. This new pot, unfortunately doesn't have handles, so I can't just pick it up anymore like a used to when I was dumping it into the bucket. So rather than just siphoning it off, I figured I'd go to the hardware store and pick up some flexible copper piping and make a wort chiller.

I was mostly curious as to what changes I could expect in the flavour, clarity, ... in my brew.

Thanks again for all the insight!

Tom
 
Tom Smith said:
Thanks for the vote of confidence dantodd! And thanks for all the replies. I have been very careful about sanitization, and I'm sure that's the main reason for not having an infection. With respect to world class status of my beer ... heh heh heh ... no ... :D

LOL.... I think all of us are here to make better beer. As olllllo said, fermentation temp and a good cold break are probably quickest way to improve beer that is already made with good sanitation practices. Obviously sanitation is the number one issue.

As others have said chillers will give you a good cold break and a good cold break will give you much clearer beer. Also, as anthrobe mentioned, hot side aeration can lead to oxidation which may have to do with the harshness if you are now pouring while the wort is hot. Also, if you are currently doing partial boils that can cause excess maillard and a chiller will help get a full boil (like in your new 8 gallon brew pot) down to fermentation temperature.

DMS (dimethyl sulfide) has a sulfur flavor which can come off as harshness as well.

I also recommend listening to both Basic Brewing and the Jamil show podcasts. Jamil's show in particular focuses on taking good brewing practices and improving them. Jamil is a pretty well renown brewer and his co-host, Jonathan Plise, won this years Sierra Nevada homebrewer of the year award. The August 14th episode talks about chillers and DMS.

http://www.basicbrewing.com/
http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/jamil.php
 
Brewno said:
I think this is a key sentence. Apparently , with all the dangers mentioned, he hasn't had a problem. After a few years I would say he has a pretty strong case on the other side of the coin. That letting it sit doesn't pose a problem:D

Tommy

All he said was that he has been brewing. He never said whether or not the beer he was brewing was turning out great, or just mediocre. There may very well be problems, and he's just not aware of it. For example, I can sniff out a "corked" wine like a bloodhound...but most people I know wouldn't know that the wine is tainted unless I pointed it out...they just assume that it's "supposed" to taste like that. It all depends on how well your palate is trained, I guess.
 
You dont even need an immersion chiller to chill the wort. I keep 4 2L bottles full of ice in my freezer. After I cook, I put the entire stock pot in the sink, fill it with cold water, and put the 2L bottles in there. I usually drain and refill the water two times. That successfully takes a 230F pot of wort down to ~100F in like 15 minutes. I dump the wort in the primary, top it off with cold tap water and it usually ends up around 80F. If you are doing full boils, I would suggest an immersion chiller and stone... even if its worked for you so far.
 
I, too, have gone the ghetto route... but seeing as how wort chillers are about as much as one batch of beer, I really don't know why I haven't invested in one yet.

I sanitize a plastic zip-lock bag and some plastic water bottles. Then I put the sanitized water bottles in the sanitized bag and freeze it. When the boil is finished, I stick the boil pot on ice and start throwing bottles in when the temperature drops to ~160°F. The biggest problem, however, is chilling the wort too much and having to warm it back up to pitching temperatures. :)
 
I just chill my 1.5-2.5 gallon boils in an icebath in the sink. I buy one 8lb. bag of ice and use about 5lb. from my icemaker and I can cool 2.5 gallons to 70-80 degrees in 10-15 minutes or so. Not as quick as a chiller (5mins?) but far better than a day!

Actually you only really need to chill to about 90-100 because when you combine with the other 3 gallons you will get down to your temp. Today I chilled my 2 gallon boil to about 90 and combined with 1.5 in the bucket and 1.5 top water. I pitched my yeast around 67-68 degrees. This took about 10 minutes...
 
olllllo said:
If I could point to 2 things that made my beer better:
1. Control of the fermentation temperature.
2. Being able to quickly cool wort.

I 2nd the 2nd one. I'm still working on the 1st one...
 
For me it's about the speed.I timed the chiller on Sunday when we brewed.5.25 gallons from full boil to 80 in 12 minutes!It still blows me away how fast it works.
Cheers:mug:
 
I just dont see why this is so much of a discussion. Although it ahs been a good discussion with a heck of a lot of good info. But this is the way that I look at it. BUY A $45 WORT CHILLER, or make one. The are no cons to it, only pros. Sorry for being blunt, I just feel that it is a simple answer. But I did really enjoy reading everyones responses. Rock On!
 

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