cooling wort question

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jerzeedevil13

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So my pot ( 8 gallon ) is too big for my sink, I have a double sink.
Is it ok to pour hot wort into cold water in fermenter ? I have an ale pail that just fits in the sink. Will this have any negative effect on the beer ?
 
You risk hot-side aeration (wet cardboard) flavors. I've poured hot wort (post mash not post boil) at 170F and not had problems. But right after the boil might be more of an issue.

Ideally you need to get or make a chiller.

Otherwise, you can buy some bottles of water. Remove the labels. Freeze and sanitize the bottles. Then put the frozen bottle in your wort to lower the temp.
 
I guess my best bet is to invest in a chiller or maybe get a 5 gallon pot that can fit in my sink since the boils are only 2.5 to 3 gallons anyway.
The 8 gallon almost seems like a waste.

The bottle idea seems like a good one if you can get the labels off without any glue being left behind.
Thanks for the advice guys.
 
I would definitely recommend getting a wort chiller. Makes a real difference to your beer and makes cooling the wort quickly very easy.
 
I guess my best bet is to invest in a chiller or maybe get a 5 gallon pot that can fit in my sink since the boils are only 2.5 to 3 gallons anyway.
The 8 gallon almost seems like a waste.

The bottle idea seems like a good one if you can get the labels off without any glue being left behind.
Thanks for the advice guys.

If your stove can boil more it would be a good idea to do it, more boil will make better beer. Then use a few sanitized ice bottles once it is in the ale pail and cool that sucker down.

Look into some foam eliminator and I bet you could boil over 5 gallons if your stove can handle it. My stove can do 5 gallons no sweat, and with the foam eliminator I can do a boil 2 inches from the top no boilover. The stuff I use is called Five Star Defoamer from Austin Homebrew Supply. Highly recommended.
 
An 8 gallon pot on a stove should be able to span 2 burners. If it does, you should be able to do a full boil.

A spray bottle of water is pretty good for controling boilovers.

The frozen bottle solution wasn't my idea. I remember someone on here posting it a long time ago. Rubbing alcohol or "goo gone" should take any glue residue off.

When I was doing partial boils, I'd semi freeze two gallons of bottled water and pour them into my 3 gallons hot wort. I could get it down to 140F pretty fast that way. Then I'd use ice baths to take it the rest of the way down.

Speaking of which, you could do that in a bath tub.
 
I had the same problem. What I did was go to home depot and get the cheapest copper tubing and just turn it around my pot and attach some tubing so it can connect to my sink and expel into my sink. Total investment might have been about 60 bucks including connectors and tubing but I do have 50ft of copper tubing in the chiller. Works pretty well and can bring my pot down to pitch-able temps in about 7 minutes.. maybe 10 on a bad day if the temperature of the input is high. Yes it's money but it makes life easy on brew day.

Bath tub would also work. I would not downsize the kettle though.
 
I use my bathtub and a couple of 10lb bags of ice in the water to make an ice bath. adding the bags one at a time to the water will get it down to pitchable temps in about 12-15 minutes (I do it with the pot covered cause god knows what bacteria is floating around the bathroom- this makes the chilling take longer). then i use cold top off water in the fermenter...

i can't wait to move out of an apartment into our new house so i can brew outside...
 
i use the bathtub and ice as well.
I do full boils, lid on the pot move to tub of water, add ice.
swirl the water in the tub, careful not to splash around the top of the pot. this will help dissipate the heat better.
 
I'll third the bathtub water bath. I don't use ice as much though. I do full boils, and I'll fill the tube with cold water. Plop the BK in and stir and swirl. Once the tub water starts to warm, I just drain it and refill with cold water again.

I'm hoping to use my CFC on my next batch though. It's all assembled, I just need wort tubing fittings for it. I'll just be using gravity for now too, so we'll see how well that works.
 
I also plan to do a full boil. Lots of good information here. I don't plan on getting a chiller because our city water is always too warm (Norco Ca). I'd have to invest in a submersible pump and a huge ice bucket. So what time tables are we working with? What is a good chill time and when is it time to worry?
 
jerzeedevil13 said:
I guess my best bet is to invest in a chiller or maybe get a 5 gallon pot that can fit in my sink since the boils are only 2.5 to 3 gallons anyway.
The 8 gallon almost seems like a waste.

It won't when you start all grain. :)
 
I guess my best bet is to invest in a chiller

THEY WORK SO WELL, AND EVEN WITH WARM WATER YOU CAN GET A PUMP AND RECIRCULATE THE WATER THROUGH ICE

or maybe get a 5 gallon pot that can fit in my sink since the boils are only 2.5 to 3 gallons anyway.
The 8 gallon almost seems like a waste.

AS ALREADY MENTIONED - THIS IS A GOOD POT SIZE FOR WHEN YOU GO FULL BOIL.

The bottle idea seems like a good one if you can get the labels off without any glue being left behind.
AND WHERE IS THE SANITIZED DEVICE YOU'LL FREEZE THE WATER IN? THAT IS, SET THE SANITIZED BOTTLE INTO THE FREEZER AND RISK GETTING RAW CHICKEN/BEEF JUICE IN YOUR BEER.

Thanks for the advice guys.

SOMEONE MENTIONED CARDBOARD FLAVOURS FROM HSA - DIS-SPELLED AS URBAN LEGEND THESE DAYS.

Brent
 
You risk hot-side aeration (wet cardboard) flavors. I've poured hot wort (post mash not post boil) at 170F and not had problems. But right after the boil might be more of an issue.

Ideally you need to get or make a chiller.

Otherwise, you can buy some bottles of water. Remove the labels. Freeze and sanitize the bottles. Then put the frozen bottle in your wort to lower the temp.

If you add the bottles to the boiling wort those bottles can melt at such high temps.
Best option is a wort chiller or fill this with ice water
http://www.walmart.com/cp/Plastic-Containers/976939
 
I don't want to carry 50 pounds of boiling wort to my bathtub, so I invested in an immersion chiller. To help keep the water going through the chiller cool, I fill a bucket with alot of ice, some salt, and water into which I coil the bit of hose (probably a little over three feet) that goes from the faucet into the chiller. It sort of works like a budget pre-chiller and is WAY better than regular tap water temperature.

-Frankie D.
 
You risk hot-side aeration (wet cardboard) flavors. I've poured hot wort (post mash not post boil) at 170F and not had problems. But right after the boil might be more of an issue.

Ideally you need to get or make a chiller.

Otherwise, you can buy some bottles of water. Remove the labels. Freeze and sanitize the bottles. Then put the frozen bottle in your wort to lower the temp.

You know, i've never really understood the validity of the HSA argument. You NEED oxygen in the beginning of the fermentation process to help the yeast multiply correctly. That's precisely why we splash our wort into the FV, to get that precious oxygen throughout the solution. When aeration becomes an issue is after you've already fermented the worth and you don't want oxygen mingling with the finished beer.
 
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