Taking forever to cool down

Ok, it's taking forever to cooldown..... It's been over half an hour and it's still at 120*...

The directions from the kit I had said to pour the hot wort into the extra water in the fermentation bucket and put the lid on, then pitch the yeast after it cools down to 75*. Would it be alright to take the lid off, to help it cool down quicker.

Those instructions stink! The correct way (too late now) would be to chill your boiled wort in an ice bath in the sink, and when it's under 80 degrees, add it to your fermenter with cool water and add the yeast when it's 65-70 degrees. It takes about 20 minutes.

Now, you've got a large volume of too-warm wort. What I would do is either do an ice bath (if you have ice) or just cold water in the bathtub or in a cooler. Add more cold water as the water warms, and stir the water to circulate it. Shake up the fermenter a bit, too, to "stir" the wort so it'll cool.

You can put the fermentation bucket/carboy in an ice bath to speed up the cooling. This will get the temp down pretty quickly. Also, you can leave the top off to help it cool faster, though I usually don't like doing this and instead leave the lid cracked to allow steam to escape but not room for dust, dirt, or anything airborne to get into the wort.

Edit: Damn, too slow! These mods are like vultures!

will taking too long to cool down affect my beer in any way?

It shouldn't, but it's preferable to cool down the wort quickly so that there's less time (and thus less chance) for an infection to start before the yeast is pitched.

I doubt your beer will be infected, it's just a good practice. Plus, who wants to wait around all day for gallons of liquid to drop 140 degrees?

HH60gunner said:

will taking too long to cool down affect my beer in any way?

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Maybe. You'll have to wait to pitch the yeast, for one thing, so there is a heightened risk of contamination. It's a small risk, but it's there. Usually, you pitch the yeast as soon as the wort as cool because you don't sterilize anything, simply sanitize. Sanitizing is generally good enough because the yeast outcompetes any organisms to get fermentation started. In this case, though, it will take a LONG time at room temperature to cool down to 70 degrees.

Also, one of the advantages of chilling the wort quickly is a "cold break". What happens is the quick cooling causes proteins to coagulate and precipitate out, so that the beer is clearer in the end. That's simply cosmetic, though, and not a real issue.

I'd do my best to use cold water and get the wort temperature down.

TVarmy said:

It shouldn't, but it's preferable to cool down the wort quickly so that there's less time (and thus less chance) for an infection to start before the yeast is pitched.

I doubt your beer will be infected, it's just a good practice. Plus, who wants to wait around all day for gallons of liquid to drop 140 degrees?

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yeah that's what I figured. There went my 1730 plans. Thanks for the re-assurance. It's fine the payoff will make me forget all about this. Too bad I have to wait a few weeks... lol

If you're going to do it like the instruction say the extra water needs to be cooled. Probably almost frozen. That will help bring your temp down quick.

HH60gunner said:

will taking too long to cool down affect my beer in any way?

Click to expand...

A couple potential problems:

1) Potential for wild yeast/bacteria infection: Once the temperature of the liquid drops down far enough, micro-organism can survive in it.The longer it is is in this temperature range before adding yeast, the greater the risk. However, if you keep things well-sealed, it'll likely be fine.

2) Lack of cold break: During rapid cooling, certain proteins in the wort coagulate. If this is not allowed to happen, then those proteins stay in suspension and there's a chance the beer will later have "chill haze," which is what it's called when the beer gets cloudier when cold. Flavor is not affected; this is just cosmetic.

Edit: I need to stop multi-tasking and taking forever to post replies.

Not too worried about the haze if it doesn't affect flavour. So I guess all I have to worry about now is bacteria. So wish I hadn't followed these directions, and just piped up on this forum. Oh well, I guess making mistakes is part of the process in learning to brew.

YooperBrew said:

Those instructions stink! The correct way (too late now) would be to chill your boiled wort in an ice bath in the sink, and when it's under 80 degrees, add it to your fermenter with cool water and add the yeast when it's 65-70 degrees. It takes about 20 minutes.

Now, you've got a large volume of too-warm wort. What I would do is either do an ice bath (if you have ice) or just cold water in the bathtub or in a cooler. Add more cold water as the water warms, and stir the water to circulate it. Shake up the fermenter a bit, too, to "stir" the wort so it'll cool.

Click to expand...

Those instructions do stink. Wow!

I cooled my wort in under 30 mins. I filled my whole sink with ice, set the pot on top and filled up the sink with cold water. The pot floating in the ice bath I put the lid on and kept spinning it around and around. Cooled off so quick I almost went too cold.