Amount of Time from End Boil to Primary

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

robnog

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2006
Messages
96
Reaction score
0
Location
Bloomington, IN
I was wondering how much time it is supposed to take to go from ending the boil to pitching the yeast and sealing the primary. It takes me about 1 hour, broken down as follows:

20min chilling
25min whirlpooling
5min siphoning
10min aerating (by shaking it)

Is there anything I should cut down or out to minimze this time, or is an hour fairly standard?
 
I'm probably closer to a half hour. Chilling is 15-20 minutes. I strain my wort on the way into the fermenter, so I don't worry about whirlpooling. I dump the brewpot through a fine-mesh adjustable collander I bought at Target, which also aerates. Once I get my bazooka-t figured out, I won't be dumping the keggle anymore, but I'll be oxygenating with an O2 setup from Williams Brewing, so that's two minutes instead of ten. Should still be no more than forty minutes from flamout to pitched and sealed.
 
I top off with 4 gals of water that's been in the freezer for 4-5 hours.

After a few stir to mix the hot/cold I let it sit for about 5 mins to homogenize then take a temp reading.

If it's down under 75 (which it usually is) I'll pitch my yeast.

Total time...10-15 mins.:D
 
I'm 1-1.5 hours from flameout to pitch. It takes me about 15 minutes to get the wort to the 60's. I whirlpool and let it sit for about 30 minutes. I take this time to get my carboy ready. After I drain into the carboy, I use the aquarium pump method to oxygenate, so I let it bubble for about a half an hour or so. I’m also cleaning the kitchen area during this time, so my times may vary.

I will eventually get the oxygen cylinder setup so it will only take a couple of minutes to oxygenate.
 
S78.JPG


http://www.williamsbrewing.com/WILLIAM_S_OXYGEN_AERATION_SYST_P699C106.cfm
 
That looks like a nice system. I like the idea of a wand to spread the oxygen around
 
homebrewer_99 said:
I top off with 4 gals of water that's been in the freezer for 4-5 hours.

After a few stir to mix the hot/cold I let it sit for about 5 mins to homogenize then take a temp reading.

If it's down under 75 (which it usually is) I'll pitch my yeast.

Total time...10-15 mins.:D
Do you only boil 1 gallon of wort? I'm confused.

I am planning my first batch tomorrow. I already have 2.5 gallons of boiled water sealed/covered in my garage from last night. It can't be more than 38 degrees in there.

I plan on boiling 3 gallons of wort, and then mixing it with the 2.5 gallons of cold water to bring the temp down quickly.

My only question is can I dump basically boiling water into a food grade bucket to cool it? What if I put the 2.5 gallons of cold water in the bucket first and then poured the boiling water? Without a wort chiller, where do you guys do your cooling? In the primary or in your boiling apparatus?

I have the LD carlson kit BTW. The one that doesn't include a carboy. But I bought a carboy to use as a secondary, but a guy at work recommended I use that as my primary. *confused*
 
< 20 minutes.

5 minutes moving the kettle from garage (or back yard) to kitchen and hooking up the CFC
10 minutes draining through CFC into fermenter
2 minutes oxygenation (with O2 tank)

-a.
 
cwb124 said:
...Do you only boil 1 gallon of wort?...boiling 3 gallons of wort, and then mixing it with the 2.5 gallons of cold water to bring the temp down quickly...

My only question is can I dump basically boiling water into a food grade bucket to cool it? What if I put the 2.5 gallons of cold water in the bucket first and then poured the boiling water?...

I have the LD carlson kit BTW. The one that doesn't include a carboy. But I bought a carboy to use as a secondary, but a guy at work recommended I use that as my primary. *confused*
Yes, I only boil 1.5 gals of water. I also only boil 1 lb of malt. At 45 mins I add the remining malt and boil for 15 mins. I have a nylon net that fits over my plastic primary buckets. I pour 1 gal of water into the bucket. Then I put a net on the bucket (re-inforce it with clip-on clothes pins or the weight of the water and hops will push the net into the primary). This seperates the hops form the wort. Then add more water over the hops (sparge) to get the malt off of the hops and let drain. Sometimes I'll squeeze the water from the net.

Yes, use the plastic bucket as your primary. Hot wort is not going to ruin it. Do not pour hot wort into a glass carboy or it will surely break.

Boiling 3 gals and cooling it with 2 gals will not cool it down enough. You'll have to set the primary into a sink of cold water. Afterwards you can add some ice to the tub to help cool the wort.
 
homebrewer_99 said:
Yes, I only boil 1.5 gals of water. I also only boil 1 lb of malt. At 45 mins I add the remining malt and boil for 15 mins. I have a nylon net that fits over my plastic primary buckets. I pour 1 gal of water into the bucket. Then I put a net on the bucket (re-inforce it with clip-on clothes pins or the weight of the water and hops will push the net into the primary). This seperates the hops form the wort. Then add more water over the hops (sparge) to get the malt off of the hops and let drain. Sometimes I'll squeeze the water from the net.

Yes, use the plastic bucket as your primary. Hot wort is not going to ruin it. Do not pour hot wort into a glass carboy or it will surely break.

Boiling 3 gals and cooling it with 2 gals will not cool it down enough. You'll have to set the primary into a sink of cold water. Afterwards you can add some ice to the tub to help cool the wort.
No I wasn't counting on 2.5 gallons of cold water to cool 3 gallons of 210 degree water down to 70 degrees, but it's the best start that I can give it. I am getting 2-3 bags of ice tomorrow morning and piling them around it in my bathtub and using cold water.

I've never heard of the nylon net deal. I have a large fine mesh strainer that would easily fit over the plastic bucket. Here are my ingredients, should I be concerned with straining anything? The directions don't mention anything about it, other than to pour the wort into the fermenter leaving the trub behind, should I go an extra step and strain stuff out?

3.3 lbs. Plain Light Malt Extract
2 lbs. Plain Light Dry Malt Extract
12 oz. Crushed Crystal Malt
1 oz. Crushed Black Patent
1 each Grain Steeping Bag Siphon Package
1 oz. Willamette Hops (Bittering)
1 oz. Willamette Hops (Finishing)
5 oz. Priming Sugar
60 each Crown Caps No-Rinse Cleanser
Beer Yeast

This is the Red Ale kit from Brewer's Best/LD carlson. Thanks for the help so far.


Oh and the last thing I'm concerned about is blowoff. The directions say to put the wort into the fermenter bucket with lid and airlock. I've read about blowoff...will the airlock let enough out, or will the lid blow off? I can't imagine a recipe and directions that would be off like that, so I think I'm ok. Just worried about blowoff that I've read about.
 
Does the mesh strainer you have have elastic on the outer edge? That's the one I'm talking about.

Straining is up to you. If you are using pellets then it's optional. I use whole hops and need to keep them out of the primary.

If you have a 7 gal primary I wouldn't worry too much about a blow off unless you overfill with water and don't allow for kreusen room. At 5 gals you should be OK.
 
homebrewer_99 said:
Does the mesh strainer you have have elastic on the outer edge? That's the one I'm talking about.

Straining is up to you. If you are using pellets then it's optional. I use whole hops and need to keep them out of the primary.

If you have a 7 gal primary I wouldn't worry too much about a blow off unless you overfill with water and don't allow for kreusen room. At 5 gals you should be OK.
Yes my strainer has elastic, but since I'm using pellets I will not strain tomorrow.

I have the 6.5 gallon buckets from the L.D. Carlson kit. I planned on fermenting between 5.25 and 5.5 gallons so I would end up with 5 gallons bottled. Perhaps I should just ferment 5 gallons in the 6.5 gallon bucket to avoid blowoff. If I end up with a little less than 5 gallons bottled, it's not the end of the world. I'd rather end up a couple bottles short than ruining the whole batch. I already have 2.5 gallons boiled and outside, so it looks like I'll just boil 2.5 - 2.75 gallons tomorrow and be done with it.

Any idea how much you lose to steam during the 1 hour boiling process?

Thanks again for the help, this message board has made me 95% confident in my first batch tomorrow, way up from about 50% before I started reading.
 
Back
Top