Cooling wort as fast as possible or allow to cool?

OK, i've been reading lots around here recently, and today joined the forum.
I bought a book called "Brewing beers like those you buy" by "Dave Line" and all the recipes try to mimic the beers sold in pubs.

My problem is, i keep reading here at this forum, and in my other book "How to brew" (recommended reading here), that the wort must be cooled as quickly as possible, however, here is a quote from the book i bought:

Boil the malt extract, malt and hops for 45 mins. Carfully strain off the wort from the hops and malt grains into a fermenting bin. Rinse the spent grains with 2 kettle fulls of water.

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Kettle fulls? Does that mean use a kettle to boil the water, or use boiled water from a pan? Then the recipe continues:

Disolve the sugar in hot water and add to the bin. Top up to the final quantity with cold water.

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Now im assuming that means water that has been boiled, then left to go cold.
But add the cold water to the hot wort? is that really right? Every recipe in the book uses this technique. The amount of water in the wort is 1gal, and the final batch size of 5gal, so you add 4 gal of cold water.

Cooling the wort as quickly as possible is the right idea, but if you are boiling one gallon and dumping it into 4 gallons of water in the fermenter, it's gonna cool quickly anyway. When you are brewing a full 5 gallons in the brew kettle, the quick cooling is more important for several reasons... There will be a 'cold break' of solids that will settle to the bottom of the brew kettle during the cooling process. If this cold break happens in the fermenter rather than the brew kettle, you don't get to keep it out of the fermenter. It's not a big worry though. You are still gonna have great beer

yup, JM is right on!!!!

JMSetzler said:

Cooling the wort as quickly as possible is the right idea, but if you are boiling one gallon and dumping it into 4 gallons of water in the fermenter, it's gonna cool quickly anyway. When you are brewing a full 5 gallons in the brew kettle, the quick cooling is more important for several reasons... There will be a 'cold break' of solids that will settle to the bottom of the brew kettle during the cooling process. If this cold break happens in the fermenter rather than the brew kettle, you don't get to keep it out of the fermenter. It's not a big worry though. You are still gonna have great beer

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What would you do with the cold break if you're using the type of cooler where the wort goes through a tube?

taylornate said:

What would you do with the cold break if you're using the type of cooler where the wort goes through a tube?

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Strain it as you go to primary or rack off the trub into a secondary a couple of weeks later.

Lots of people just dump everything into primary.

The one thing I picked up on was to "rinse the spent grains with water into the fermenter". You never, ever, want to put unboiled water that has touched grains into your fermenter. Grains have all kinds of bacteria and stuff on them, especially lactobacillus. You can use the grains, then throw them away. Then you can proceed. You can sparge with water over the grains, but only the water that is going into the brewpot after the sparge. Once it's boiled, it's fine.

I don't understand the question above about cold break and cooler. If you mean a counterflow chiller, then that's where the break happens, and it usually ends up in the fermenter. It's ok.

The sooner the wort is chilled, the better the "cold break" and usually the clearer the beer ends up.

also the op quoted to boil the malt extract, malt and hops

plz dont do this it extract tannins from the grain husks that lead to an astringent puckering factor in the finished beer.

YooperBrew said:

I don't understand the question above about cold break and cooler. If you mean a counterflow chiller, then that's where the break happens, and it usually ends up in the fermenter. It's ok.

The sooner the wort is chilled, the better the "cold break" and usually the clearer the beer ends up.

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The cold break is going to happen one way or the other no matter how the beer is cooled... It just seems to create a better break when the cooling happens quickly, and is also enhanced by additions of irish moss or whirlfloc.

Using an immersion chiller causes the cold break to start and finish in the brew kettle. This gives the brewer the ability to keep that break out of the fermenter if desired. With a counterflow chiller, since the break happens in the chiller, the break will come out the other end into the fermenter, or it can possibly be filtered out as mentioned above. You could potentially filter it out with something like a nylon grain sack or whatever method works with your chiller.

Clarity is one of the two primary reasons for quick cooling. The other reason is that the wort is most likely to become infected with creepies between the temperatures of about 135° F and 90° F. Getting through this temperature range as quickly as possible is just another good measure to protect your time and investment