Cooling wort by adding cold water

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sasabs

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I have read that it s important to cool the wart rapidly after the boil and the techniques recommended are wort chillers or immersing the boiler in ice. I have also read instructions to fill the fermenter part way with cold water and then add the hot wort.

My question is - Is it okay for me to add cold water to the hot wort in the boiler to cool it before pouring it into the fermenter? It seems easier and cheaper then the other methods.
 
a lot of people here do that

i put a 2.5g jug of water in the freezer before i would brew to get it as cold as possible without completely freezing solid

i waited till the wort is 100° or less and then add it to get you down to pitching temps instead of adding it right after the boil
 
My last batch was a wheat beer extract with a 3 gallon boil. After flame out I added two gallons of room temp water to the boil kettle and circulated ice water through a copper pipe wort chiller, and went from boil to pitch temp in under 15 minutes. This was a personal record for me. I then siphoned to the fermenter and added water to the 5-gallon mark.

When siphoning from the boil kettle to the fermenter I did not notice any greater amount of sediment than in previous batches. This batch has been in bottles for one week (still needs two more) and I cracked one open last night out of sheer curiosity. I did not notice any off flavors or additional sediment.

Of course others' experiences may vary, but it worked for me.
 
In theory, your idea is great, but in practical terms it is a big mistake. The reason; sanitation.

I was brought right back to Alton Brown's infamous homebrew episode, where he encourages dumping the near boiling wort into your fermenting bucket already full of an equal amount of store bought ice. His realization was that combining the two mediums will result in immidiate cooling, and will quickly get you in a pitchable range. His idea is logical. Again, it is a great idea, but completely ignores sanitization.

There is no way to know what is lurking in the ice or cool tap water that you are pouring your wort into. One of the functions of the boil is to kill off "nasties" in your water, which is why in ancient times, it was safer to drink beer than water. Obviously we are past a point that we need to be concerned about the safety of our drinking water/ice, but that does not mean it is sterile enough to add to cooled wort and still have a healthy, clean fermentation.

This was always one of the things that puzzled me about partial wort boils....I never understood how it could be sanitary to add tap/bottled water to your wort on the way to fermentation. I guess it is a 300 level concern for a 100 level process. I do not want that to sound insulting, I just mean that perhaps at that stage in your process, there are still other things that are being worked out, and that is fine.

That said, do what you need for now, but if your system allows full wort boils, do them. If not, make that your next upgrade. Sanitization is the first easy step toward better beer, and I just don't think it is wise to be knowingly doing something that puts sanitization in question. Ideally, preboil your "topping off" or "chilling" water for 15 minutes or so, then put it into the fridge, covered, to cool before brewday. I guess that would be the best compromise I can offer and still make your idea work without effecting sanitization too much.

Joe
 
I have just dumped all the ice in my fridge ce maker to cool it down before and it worked great. The water is all filtered and it made for a great kolsch. However, I agree with the post above and I no longer do this. It did work, but it could have went wrong.
 
Also, in John Palmer's book he says you do not want to introduce oxygen to hot wort. You want to cool it down to pitching temp before you aerate. Dumping cold water into the hot wort would probably introduce oxygen before the wort is fully cooled, which could cause staling reactions later on.

I'm no expert but that's how I understood it. Ideally you want to chill the wort without introducing any oxygen to it. Then once it is cool, mix with cold water and aerate all you like.
 
That's known as hot side aeration, and it really isn't a problem for homebrewers. I boil some water with campden to get rid of the chlorine/chloramine, put it in a sanitized container, and freeze it. I then add this to my fermentation bucket, to which I add the hot wort. I have yet to have a problem.
 
I usually take my 5 gallon pot with about 2-3 gallons of wort in it.. put it in an ice bath for a good 10 minutes stirring it. I take out 2- 1 gallon jugs of drinking water from Walgreens that I had in the freezer for 4 hours. I pour one gallon right into the pot to make it cool enough that it won't crack the glass.. then I pour the rest in once the wort is in the carboy.

I am pretty annal about sanitation.. but I think if you are using store bought drinking water that has never been opened.. I think you are ok.

I have never had a problem and I have done countless batches.

Edit:
But I do want to clarify that I do Partial Mash and not All Grain. Also I would recomend against using tap water or ice from your ice maker.
 
i use a sealed water jug as well

although Revvy has posted several times that there is no reason to fear adding tap water - i've never tried
 
although Revvy has posted several times that there is no reason to fear adding tap water - i've never tried

Yes, then I agree with Revvy. You do not need to "fear" tap water in brewing. For the sake of making my point clearer, I am going to rephrase tap water as unboiled water. I am just saying that if you could choose between adding unboiled water, or not having to add unboiled water, (and keeping all else constant), you can not possibly argue that adding unboiled water is the better process........

......and no, it is not an equal process either.

Again, the OP's idea will work. Like I said, it is very sound logic. The better idea is still to not do it. Someone after me mentioned using campden tablets, boiling, then freezing their top-off water in a fermentation vessel. That goes even beyond what I described as a good "compromise". I am sure that works great, and you are doing everything you can to have the best chance for a good finished product, while working within the confines of your set-up. That's awesome. I was speaking more to the "but I always just add a bag of ice and it works out fine" set. Please see that there is a difference between a process that worked fine, and the process that works best. Some processes have bigger gaps than others. I fall into this trap too, but the advice to the OP should not always be as simple as "it worked fine for me".

It is a mistake to underplay the role of great sanitization. I just heard something on BBR that I will pass off as my own thought.

"Missing mash temperature by 1 degree will change your beer. Poor sanitization will ruin it."


Joe
 
I have thought about doing this also though I have some sort of perhaps unsound fear that if I add water to an already boiled batch somehow chemically the wort will taste different. Like having 1 wort volume but in 2 pieces. After all, boiling wort is not unlike alchemy and at the chemical and atomic level, it seems like a full wort boil would not be the same as adding water post-boil and would essentially detract taste-wise from the final product. Anyone?
 
topend said:
My last batch was a wheat beer extract with a 3 gallon boil. After flame out I added two gallons of room temp water to the boil kettle and circulated ice water through a copper pipe wort chiller, and went from boil to pitch temp in under 15 minutes. This was a personal record for me. I then siphoned to the fermenter and added water to the 5-gallon mark.

When siphoning from the boil kettle to the fermenter I did not notice any greater amount of sediment than in previous batches. This batch has been in bottles for one week (still needs two more) and I cracked one open last night out of sheer curiosity. I did not notice any off flavors or additional sediment.

Of course others' experiences may vary, but it worked for me.

Why siphon pre-pitching? Might as well jus pour it in, no?
 
Can someone explain why it would be unsafe to mix tap water with wort, if the water is safe to drink? I understand the potential of off flavors from chlorine, minerals, etc., but as far as sanitation goes, it shouldn't make a difference, especially after the yeast starts doing its thing...
 
JWest said:
Can someone explain why it would be unsafe to mix tap water with wort, if the water is safe to drink? I understand the potential of off flavors from chlorine, minerals, etc., but as far as sanitation goes, it shouldn't make a difference, especially after the yeast starts doing its thing...

Depends on your tap water...just because it is "safe to drink" doesnt mean it is "bacteria free"
 
speaking to question a few posts above:
We go through so much time (at least I do) in crafting the recipe .... oooh, 0.25 oz of hops or 0.5 oz.... which specialty malt....
& then the time to brew it- then some just wanna dump any old kind of water on top.

You can and MANY (most?) do, but I boil all my brew water. I can spare the ten or whatever minutes it takes. It is probably ok. But I like to treat the water and get rid of the chlorine/chloramines.

You can even pitch yeast to wort and add the top off water later when it cools down (if you cant boil it separately or you forget).

cheers.
 
RMitch said:
Why siphon pre-pitching? Might as well jus pour it in, no?

I do that because I can hold the racking cane up a bit and aerate the wort as it goes into the fermenter, and also to let the bits of hop and such settle out in the kettle during the 3-5 minute siphon. I would rather that stuff not be in the fermenter.

Sent from my iPhone using HB Talk
 
I always told not to use unboiled tap water because of the chlorine and possible contamination. I am planning on brewing my second batch within a week, and I plan to do the following. I will boil my top-off water the night before, let it cool a bit and put it into a sanitized carboy. I will then cover it and put it outside for the night (it's been about 35F here at night). Then on brew day, I will chill my wort in an ice bath down to around 100F and put into the fermentation bucket, then dump however much cold top-off water I need on top of it.
 
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