Timing, end of boil to pitch...

How fast do i have to go?

today I knocked out a mid weight brit ale since I got off work early. Second voyage of my new wort chiller.

At the end of boil I dumped a quart of refrigerated RO water into the kettle to stop the boil and lock down my hops. Then I whisked in my ME, covered and steeped for ten minutes.

Then I poured in an entire gallon of RO (2.5 gal boil) and started my wort chiller.

The end temp on my ME steep was 180, so good there. I wiped my chiller down with isopropyl with 15 minutes left in the boil, so that should be OK.

Between the reefer RO and the chiller my wort was under 140° 12 minutes after the end of boil and down to 89°F at 20 minutes after end of boil.

I whirled it up real good and waited five minutes, but really all the trub and hot break and pellet hops and cold break is in my fermenter.

How long do I really need to wait on the whirlpool ?

I am maybe obsessing, but that window from end of boil to sealed, pitched fermenter gives me the heebie-jeebies.

TIA4Y2c,
P

I am kinda wall-eyed about boiling the chiller, coating it with sugary goodness and then taking it out of the kettle while I whisk in the *ME too.

Your wort chiller seems to be slightly undersized to me. Mine is a DIY using 50' of 1/2" tubing and pulls 6 gallons of wort from 212F to 70F in 7 minutes and I'm betting my tap water temperature isn't quite as cool as yours.

One fantastic sanitation acid test that I read about here is siphoning the first 12 oz of wort to an empty and sanitized coke bottle. The idea is to time how long it takes to pressurize due to wild yeast or bacteria starting fermentation. Over 72 hours is considered quite good and less than 24 indicates a serious sanitation problem which could yield defects in the finished beer.

Undersized? really? I got from 180°F at T +10 minutes to 140°F at T +12 minutes, 2 minute delta. I am recirculating with a 155 gph pond pump out of a sink of ice water through 20 feet of 3/8" copper tuning.

I guess I could use more ice in the sink, but I am getting a metric ****ton of cold break with it and under the 140mark well inside the 20 minute window. I forget what it is that can develop above 140°F, i wanna say DMS but it doesn't sound right.

I am thinking about going with a shorter Pasteurization steep on the *ME, but getting that quart of refrigerated RO on the bottom of the kettle (ahead of the *ME) has really helped lighten my color and I am sort of used to where the hop flavor/ aroma ends up.

I'll try the sanitation test on my next batch.

Thanks.

My chiller takes about 25-30 minutes and the whirlpool another 15. Most beers you can see when the trub has centralized and settled.

A plug for paint strainer bags here. I can have the wort chilled in 8 minutes and within 2 more minutes, have the wort in the fermenter, pull out the strainer bag, take a gravity reading, pitch yeast and put the cover on. Flame out to cover on = 10-11 minutes.

After I reach my desired cooled temp. (70-75F) in my boil kettle I'll do a whirlpool & wait 25-30 min. for settling. By then all the crud is at the bottom. Nothing is running or chilling during the settling time and the wort is already cooled. It usually takes me about 30-40 min. to cool, then another 25-30 min. to settle.

Poindexter said:

How fast do i have to go?

I am maybe obsessing, but that window from end of boil to sealed, pitched fermenter gives me the heebie-jeebies.

TIA4Y2c,
P

Click to expand...

IMHO you are obsessing. Ideally you want to chill and pitch as fast as possible to thwart any undesirables taking hold of your wort.

I feel that as long as the kettle is kept sanitary post boil, you are fine for a fair period of time.

Sometimes during a late night session, if my wort is not at pitching temps, say 75 - 100, I will just leave the kettle in an ice bath for the night, w/ the cover on of course, and pitch the following morning.

Single stage ferment for 10 - 14 days, then I am usually kegged and kept cold till the keg blows. If it were something that I was looking to bottle and cellar age, perhaps I would have more concern.

I think a couple three hours is reasonable from boil to pitch if your practice is sound.

As Charlie said, "Nothing ruins beer faster than worrying", RDWHAHB

edit...additionally, I think you would save some time if you ran the wort chiller prior to diluting w/ the chilled top off water. Chillers remove heat much more effficiently the greater the temp difference is from tap to wort.

Poindexter said:

At the end of boil I dumped a quart of refrigerated RO water into the kettle to stop the boil and lock down my hops. Then I whisked in my ME, covered and steeped for ten minutes.

Click to expand...

I would worry less about the chill time, and more about errant bugs in your beer. It sounds like you steeped grains AFTER your boil. Gran can carry all kinds of wild yeast and bacteria. You want to steep grains, then boil. 180°F would kill some of the bugs, but perhaps not all.

Hopefully, I misunderstood what you're doing. Sounds like you got the chill part down though. It takes me about 1/2 hour to chill 4.5 gallons of wort from 200° to about 100°. Then I add a gallon of chilled water (pre-boiled or store-bought). I might suggest adding the water at the end. Easier to take heat out of 4 gallons than 5.

You could always do no chill.

I think there is way too much emphasis on cooling the wort quickly, I think it only came from people wanting to get done faster. There is cold break but alot of people dump that in the fermentor anyway. I just let the wort take it's times with the IC I use and it's cool when it's cool. Sometimes I stir if I'm in a rush.

i too think you're worrying a bit too much about it. i chill from boiling to 100 asap, then into my sanitized fermenter. put on the lid and stopper, then it goes into the fridge...sometimes overnight if it's late. for ales, i pull the fermenter out when the fermometer reads 55. pitch at 58, and into the closet, where it stabilizes at 65 in a short time. sanitation is key.

Poindexter said:

Undersized? really? I got from 180°F at T +10 minutes to 140°F at T +12 minutes, 2 minute delta. I am recirculating with a 155 gph pond pump out of a sink of ice water through 20 feet of 3/8" copper tuning.

Click to expand...

180°F @ t=10 min
89°F @ t=20 min
implies 91°F/10 min or 9.1°F/min

A larger surface area is yielding 212°F to 70°F in 7 min or 20.3°F/min. I didn't mean to imply that you were chilling problematically slowly because I think there is an increasing body of evidence that rapid chilling doesn't matter. But I understood your original post to ask if there was a way to chill faster and there is; increase the surface area of your chiller.

Poindexter said:

...How long do I really need to wait on the whirlpool?

Click to expand...

To answer this specific point; I don't and I've read about a lot of ppl here who don't either. The cold break would appear to be beneficial for yeast metabolism and doesn't necessarily need to be whirlpooled out and discarded. You can save yourself 5+ minutes by just siphoning the chiller wort directly into the fermenter.

A good whirlpool needs to have the full volume of wort moving in unison, then allowed to rest absolutely still for at least 25 minutes.

I think avoiding having all the boil junk in the fermenter makes a significant difference.

Thansk for y'alls input.

I have been putting the cold break in my fermenter and making pretty good beer. I do want to try a batch or three with no cold break - minimal cold break- in the fermenter to see if I notice a difference.

I see that most of my cooling is coming from the one gallon pour of RO. I am going to see about running the pump outlet down the drain for a few minutes before letting it recirculate over the ice, and back off my steep time some.

For my next batch I am going to run a shorter steep and siphon some wort off into a sanitized bottle(s) to see if it carbonates. If that goes good I'll next look to extending my whirpool time even further.

Thanks again.
P