Am I reversed?

A couple of thoughts, if I may;

So I cool my wort to 70ish degrees F. I then dump it into Primary that already has 2 to 3 gallons of water, ready and waiting.
Should the water be added after I move into my primary?

Second thought ( and I think I already know the answer :cross: ). With reducing the temperature of the wort such a critical stage, can I just add ice cold water to the primary to cool it, rather then chilling the temp of the wort down.

Cheers,
J

you can't really be sure your ice is sanitary. cold filtered water works, but is an ineffiecient means of lowering the temp. a wort chiller, or some sort of homemade immersion chiller works well. anything you can lowe the temp with while still maintaining proper sanitation. before i sarted doing full boils i always added the top off water after the wort, splashing it as much as possible to try and oxidize the wort. but i'm not sure the order makes a difference.

Some people do that. Some people even add ice to speed the cooling process. My feeling is that regardless of method, the most important factor is sanitation. So, if I were to add cold water, I would boil it first, then cool it. If I were adding ice, I would make the ice from boiled water.

I use a wort chiller now, so I don't worry about this anymore.

As for your first question, I think this is 6 of one and 1/2 dozen of another. My primary concerns at this phase are sanitation and temp. I typically boil the additional water first. When I take it off the burner to cool it, that is when I start my wort boil. Once the additional water is cooled, I put it in the primary, and seal the top to prevent contamination. once my wort is cooled, I pour it right on top of the water. This also aerates it a little. By the time I am adding my wort to the primary, the additional water is around 60*F, so when I throw the ~75*F wort on top, I have a nice ~70-72*F temp to pitch yeast to, and get going.

you can use ice-cold water, as long as it is clean.

I do partial boils, chill the wort to under 100 degrees, move it into the fermenter, top off with a couple gallons if cold water, and then shake that mofo like it's my job to aerate.

Makes no difference if the cold water is added to the fermenter before or after the wort.

As long as the wort is cooled sufficiently before moving it into the fermenter, you are fine.

works fine.

Just put the wort (in the pot) in your sink with ice cold water. That will cool it down. Later downt he road you could use other ways to cool it down... wort chiller and such... but with extracts with boilpots of 2-3 gal, wort chillers are realy not needed.

If your primary is glass, DO NOT put your wort in it hot. There is a good possibility that the carboy will shatter. Usually you want to have the 2-3 gal of water in the primary before you add the cooled wort. At least that is how I think most do it.

Can't you just add the hot wort say (1 1/2 gal) to the fermentor which allready has 4 gal of cold water in it? What is the purpose of cooling the wort before adding it to the water? That is what I did.. Then I stuck it outside (Minnesota) and it cooled down pretty quick. Got it down to about 80 degrees and added the yeast.