Cold Breaks

Hey all, tonight was my first attempt at home brewing and i think i messed something up.

Once the wort was finished boiling i was told to place the steel pot in water and then fill my carboy (fermenter) with 3 gallons of near freezing water. Then i poured the still hot wort into the carboy with the cold water, i then placed the glass carboy back in the cold water of this sink. It has been 1 hr and 45 min since i have added 3 bags of ice to the sink and my wort temp is still above 80 deg.

I am still waiting to pitch the yeast but feel like this could be too late.

Any suggestions or info on cold break times and techniques?

Thanks, Eric!

it will be just fine. It takes awhile when you don't have a wort chiller. Next time just put your boil pot with the 2-3 gallons of wort in the ice bath. Cool it to 100 or so than transfer it into the fermenter with the cold water. Should drop your temp to 60-70 rather quickly

Try to get your wort to around 80 degrees before transferring to the carboy - the top off water you add will get the wort down closer to the late 60's to early 70's range which is the best temp for many of the yeasts you will be using. Avoid pouring hot wort into the carboy, that's a great way for you to crack it...

You might move around the water in your ice bath while also moving around the wort in the pot - the more both are moving, the faster that you will get the wort to cool.

Just keep monitoring the temp, let it cool, and pitch your yeast once it gets to the recommended temp. that much water takes a long time to cool. Like Smoke says, hot wort will crack carboys and cause grave wounds, so you're ok on that front. As they say, rdwhahb.

It's never too late to pitch yeast, provided youre not brewing in antartica where your wort temp will be below freezing.

You'll be fine, as a matter of fact there's some people on this forum that simply leave their wort in the garage over night to cool down and pitch the next morning.

This is one of the reasons I will eventually get something like an immersion chiller. Took me about an hour to cool 5 gallons in an ice bath. It was nerve racking for my first brew and I rehydrated the yeast well before I pitched. Only mistake on first brew though.

Thanks for all the great answers everyone! I finally got my wort to cool to around 78 degrees and pitched the yeast Sunday night around 10PM, so far everything seems great i have a 1" foamy layer atop my wort and the blow off is bubbling at least once a second.

Looks like everything will be fine just scary for the first time when its not going as planned.

Luckily i didn't kill myself pouring hot wort into my carboy, thanks again!

Cooling very quickly is nice and has its benefits, but not an absolute. As HH60gunner already mentioned, many practice a technique called "no chill" brewing that may be of interest to you until you decide to get a chiller.
One point that has not been mentioned that I would like to add is to keep in mind the risks of infection when the wort is cooling. At 140°F and above, getting leaves, flies, even small farm animals in the wort is not a problem (for the wort anyway). But below those temps, the risks become real. So take precautions and cover your pot or kettle so that nothing (wild yeasts, bacteria, etc) can fall into it as it continues to cool.