Chilling your wort

I brewed my 3rd ever batch of home brew tonight and keep in countering the same problem. One finished hoping I take my wort pot and put it in an ice bath. Once it gets to around 110 degrees I dump into my priming bucket than 6.5 gal carbon.

I follow this up with 3 gals of near frozen spring water. Every time I get the wort to around 58 or 60 degrees to cold to pitch the yeast and have to wait till it heats back up.

Any suggestions???

Thanks!

58 is perfect for for pitching ale yeast.

I don't necessarily think that is a bad thing. Pitch your yeast and slowly warm the fermenter. Pitching a little cool is much better than pitching too warm.

harrydrez said:

58 is perfect for for pitching ale yeast.

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Agreed! Just pitched my an APA (wy1272) at 60^. I think doing that keeps the ester production during the reproductive phase in check. It depends on the strain, but most ales are fine in the lower 60s.

Thanks for the advice! Yeast has been pitched!

consider a wort chiller. I find they are one of the best pieces of brewing equipment i have.

I agree on the IC, just made one for my last 2 batches, great addition.

brew2enjoy said:

Pitching a little cool is much better than pitching too warm.

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I think this really depends on the ambient temp the fermenter will be in. I've found lately that if I pitch too cool and place my fermenter in the usual cool spot it never warms up as much as I'd like it. I've found that the ambient temp compared to the pitch temp makes a difference. In other words... if the place I am storing my fermenters is 58-60 degrees and I cool my wort to 64 I can't really expect it to get to 70, let's say for a hefeweizen. It just doesn't happen and I've experienced this even though fermentation raises the temp the ambient and pitch combine to reduce the expected warming.

That aside, yes... get an IC!!! Ice baths are the pits and once you've used one you will slap yourself for getting one sooner. I chilled my wort (5.25 gallons but a pinch over 5 in the fermenter) from boiling down to 68 in 11 minutes today, though it was 42 degrees outside and I circulate the wort with the chiller to make it cool faster.


Rev.

kobber44 said:

I brewed my 3rd ever batch of home brew tonight and keep in countering the same problem. One finished hoping I take my wort pot and put it in an ice bath. Once it gets to around 110 degrees I dump into my priming bucket than 6.5 gal carbon.

I follow this up with 3 gals of near frozen spring water. Every time I get the wort to around 58 or 60 degrees to cold to pitch the yeast and have to wait till it heats back up.

Any suggestions???

Thanks!

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As others have said, your pitching temp is probably fine. But the two obvious answers in my book if you wanted to have the wort a little warmer for pitching would be:

1) only cool it to 120 before moving it to your carboy
2) only chill two of the gallons of spring water, leave the other at room temp

I bet either of these would put you around 65 or so.

lgilmore said:

consider a wort chiller. I find they are one of the best pieces of brewing equipment i have.

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I don't think this has much to do with the original post

I wouldn't worry about pitching too cool, just allow it to warm sometime in the near future to the normal temp range for that strain of yeast. Wyeast and white labs are refrigerated when you get them, so a little bit on the cool side won't hurt a thing

discnjh said:

2) only chill two of the gallons of spring water, leave the other at room temp

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That'll do the trick. It's the exact same strategy I used before I got my IC.