Cooling....

[Zambezi Special]

I managed to get a small amount of ingredients to make summer blonde ale.
It's all grain and biab and just a 7 liter batch.
I got some other materials on order but I don't have them yet (inclusive of wort chiller)
I do have my one fridge set to 21 oC (70 F) and it stays nicely between 20 and 22 oC (68-72 F), which I think is good enough as there will be a delay in the fermenter reacting to the outside temperatures (instructions say 18-24 oC (64-75 F))

But now to get my wort to cool down quickly to about 23 oC (73 F) (as stated in the instructions)? My daytime temperatures are around 35-38 oC (95-100 F) , my cold water temperature are around 25 oC (77 F).
Do I:
- put the brew kettle in an ice bath (as per instruction)? But the ice will melt in no time
- put it into a a big tub (on a trivet) and keep running cold water through it, making sure that the lid is above water level? (I got no lack of water)
- use less water for boiling and add ice to the wort?
- put the whole thing in the 4 oC (39 F) fridge?
- pour the hot wort into shallow oven trays to cool down (more surface area)?

I am tempted to use the second method till it gets to 40 oC or thereabouts (105-110 F), then pour into fermenter, put into the cold fridge and remove when it's to the required temp and then add the yeast.

I cannot do the no-chill method as I don't have a fermenter that closes perfectly and is food-safe and can handle boiling temperatures

Any advice/insights?

 

[tgolanos]

I would do the no-chill in your brew kettle for a few hours and then pop it in the 4° fridge. Just put the lid on your kettle after you finish boiling and leave it alone. Once the kettle is warm to the touch (around 40-50°C), transfer to your fermenter and put it in the fridge to finish cooling. Then add your yeast and ferment as normal.

 

[Zambezi Special]

Thanks for the reply!
So you wouldn't think it is better to put the lid on the kettle and have cold water (well, not really cold, but sort of) run past it to speed up the cooling somewhat?

Another question: Wouldn't the longer cool down period affect the bitterness of the beer?

 

[IslandLizard]

Many of us use a wort chiller. You can build one yourself from some copper or stainless tubing and run (cold) tap water through it. But for small batches, a sink or tub with cold water works well too.

Your last option is the worst unless you want to make (wild) sours. Look up coolship.

If you want non-sour beer you need to keep the kettle closed and prevent microflora infecting it. The yeast you pitch is the only one allowed in there.

- put it into a a big tub (on a trivet) and keep running cold water through it, making sure that the lid is above water level? (I got no lack of water)

Method #2 ^, but revised somewhat:

Streaming cold water wastes a lot of water, with little return.
To get from boiling to 50-40C is rather easy. Place your kettle in a sink or tub with tap water. If you have a small recirculation pump put that in the tub (NOT in your brew kettle) or stir the tub water a few times. Temps will drop fast. When the chilling water has become hot, drain and refresh it. Perhaps repeat once or twice more.

At the last refresh add ice packs, frozen water bottles, ice cubes, etc. and let chill to around pitching temps. Again agitation speeds things up.

You could stir the wort in the kettle too while chilling, just make sure not to contaminate your wort by splashing (unclean) chilling water into it. Use your sanitized brew spoon.*

If your wort is still a little too warm, leave longer in the iced water, or transfer to your fermenter and place that in your fridge to bring it down the last few degrees.

It looks harder than it is.

Pitch yeast at the lower side of her recommended range, and keep your ferm temps controlled. When bubbling slows down you may raise the temps gradually a few degrees to keep her going and finish out.

* Anything touching your chilled wort (under 60-70C) and beer should be clean and properly sanitized.

 

[cactusgarrett]

Another question: Wouldn't the longer cool down period affect the bitterness of the beer?

As Lizard mentioned, to get from boiling to 50°C is easy/quick. THAT's the main factor in preventing additional bitterness. Then hotter the wort, the more isomerization of the hop acids continues, thus contributing more bitterness. Getting it down to 50°C via submersing the kettle in a bath (refresh the water frequently or add ice) will shut off that bitterness formation and should take ~30-60min.

 

[Jag75]

Immersion chiller with a submersible pump in a ice chest with a bag of ice & water is a winner imo. Doesnt waste water and chills in 15 -25 minutes. Win Win .

 

[Zambezi Special]

Thanks Lizard,
I got a wort chiller underway, but it will take some time to get it here.
I think I will go with the tub (just a coolbox, but open. It's easier to work with than the sink, I think) First water, then water/ice/ice pack
It is indeed only 7 liter, but still....
My plan is for future batches to be around 10 liter, easy to work with and a good way to gain experience

Thanks Cactusgarrett:
I am not a lover of beer that's too hoppy. Cooling down quickly to 40-50 oC should be relatively easy.

I promise I will sanitise and work cleanly
It's my first batch and I wanna be able to show off a bit!

 

[Zambezi Special]

@JAG 75
I got access to plenty of water.
Wort chiller is on the way, but will take some time. In the meantime I got this little kit with milled malt, so I don't want to wait for the chiller

 

[balrog]

Difference between hot item and cool water will make heat transfer quick when pot is hot, even if ground water is 70's. @IslandLizard is absolutely spot on. Don't waste ice. Use ground water bath and just slowly move pot around in tub, stir wort, move pot, etc. When the temp diff between wort and groundwater is (212, 77) high, it will drop pretty quickly with one maybe two changes of tapwater in tub/sink. Once you're down to 120F, start using ice in the tub/sink. Shouldn't take more than 20-30min to get to 70F with only 7L.

 

[IslandLizard]

I got a wort chiller underway, but it will take some time to get it here.

Make sure it fits inside your kettle! Most coil chillers I've seen are for 5 gallon (21 liter) batches, and their larger sized kettles.

Keep in mind:
With immersion (coil) chillers, either the coil needs to be moved around in the wort or the wort needs to be moved around the coil to get fast chilling rates. A coil just sitting in a pot of wort won't chill fast or efficiently.

 

[IslandLizard]

Immersion chiller with a submersible pump in a ice chest with a bag of ice & water is a winner imo. Doesnt waste water and chills in 15 -25 minutes. Win Win .

Not exactly, there's a lot of misunderstanding on that topic.

As @balrog said, it's the difference in temps that does the chilling. Pumping ice water through a kettle full of near boiling wort won't make much difference in cooling speed compared to pumping coolish tap water through it. But you'd be wasting a lot of ice, and saving only a small amount of water.

Also recirculating hot water back into an ice chest is wasting ice. Just drain the hot return water into a large bucket or tub and use for clean up.

Once the temps near each other (say 20-40F difference) the cooling process becomes slower. That's where ice helps drop the chilling water temps another 30 to 50-some degrees to get the difference back up. If the return water is colder than the tap water, recirculate back into the ice tub. Otherwise discard it, or clean with it, water the flowers, etc.

 

[IslandLizard]

@Zambezi Special
Not sure where you live, but if you use tap water as your brewing water (to make beer from), make sure it does not have chlorine or chloramines in it. It will ruin your beer!
Most water companies add one of those to keep the drinking water sanitized to the delivery points, the customers, you! You can sometimes smell it, but not always.

If you use chlorinated tap water as brewing water, dissolving a pinch of K-Meta or 1/4 Campden tablet (crushed) per 20 liters to neutralize the Chlorine or Chloramines.

 

[Jag75]

Not exactly, there's a lot of misunderstanding on that topic.

As @balrog said, it's the difference in temps that does the chilling. Pumping ice water through a kettle full of near boiling wort won't make much difference in cooling speed compared to pumping coolish tap water through it. But you'd be wasting a lot of ice, and saving only a small amount of water.

Also recirculating hot water back into an ice chest is wasting ice. Just drain the hot return water into a large bucket or tub and use for clean up.

Once the temps near each other (say 20-40F difference) the cooling process becomes slower. That's where ice helps drop the chilling water temps another 30 to 50-some degrees to get the difference back up. If the return water is colder than the tap water, recirculate back into the ice tub. Otherwise discard it, or clean with it, water the flowers, etc.

My water is warm where I live . I use 1 bag of ice . The first output of the water is really hot and I put that in a bucket to use for cleaning . Once the water starts to cool then I route back to the ice chest . I've done just running water through it with an ice water bath around and it took a while to get down to 68. Now mind you I'm doing extract kits when I use this set up . So I'm only cooling 3 gallons. I've done a ton of them and the chest full of cold water worked faster by almost 20 min . The last couple times I've just topped off with cool water then ran my immersion and it was faster cuz the added water cooled immediately.

 

[ncbrewer]

I'm a little (maybe a lot) paranoid about leaving the lid off the kettle while using an immersion chiller. Doing 5 gallon extract batches, I boil about 2.5 gallons of wort. During the boil, I have a sink full of water with some ice jugs in it chilling the water. For chilling the wort, I remove the ice jugs and set the kettle in the water for 20 minutes, occasionally stirring the bath water and the wort (different spoons - clean and sanitized for the wort). Then I drain the water, remove the kettle, and put 3.5 gallons of ice cubes in the sink, and add tap water so that it will come up to the wort level in the kettle. This leaves about enough water to fill the voids in the ice. Put the kettle back in. Occasionally stir the wort. The wort gets to 68F (20C) in 50 minutes, and 60F (16C) in 55 minutes. (These measurement were on two different batches, so don't necessarily correspond to each other.) In the summer I get it cooler than that in order to get my target pitching temp when combined with the somewhat warm tap water that I use for top-off, but you don't have this concern since you're doing a full boil. Because this allows chilling with the lid on almost all the time, I prefer it.

 

[Zambezi Special]

Thanks all for all the tips/hints/advice.
I will be brewing sometime this week if the weather allows (it's no fun standing over a pot with boiling water with 38-40 oC temperatures).
Luckily the forcast is for slightly cooler weather soon!

@Zambezi Special
Not sure where you live, but if you use tap water as your brewing water (to make beer from), make sure it does not have chlorine or chloramines in it. It will ruin your beer!
Most water companies add one of those to keep the drinking water sanitized to the delivery points, the customers, you! You can sometimes smell it, but not always.

If you use chlorinated tap water as brewing water, dissolving a pinch of K-Meta or 1/4 Campden tablet (crushed) per 20 liters to neutralize the Chlorine or Chloramines.

No issue with chlorine whatsoever!
I am actually using Zambezi riverwater and it's been tested and found ok for drinking. Guess I am very lucky in that respect

 

[IslandLizard]

Thanks all for all the tips/hints/advice.
I will be brewing sometime this week if the weather allows (it's no fun standing over a pot with boiling water with 38-40 oC temperatures).
Luckily the forcast is for slightly cooler weather soon!

I'd still prefer that over brewing outdoors when it's -38°C.

No issue with chlorine whatsoever!
I am actually using Zambezi riverwater and it's been tested and found ok for drinking. Guess I am very lucky in that respect

Doesn't that make you wonder what else could be in there?
But at least you're boiling it.

 

[Jag75]

-38*

 

[Zambezi Special]

You might have a point. I rather deal with +38 than - 38 oC
So, no more excuses and today will be the day.
Fermentation fridge is working
Got a spare gas bottle, just in case
Ice packs are frozen

So the only excuse is that I want to use the little fermenter (10 litre) first, to bottle my freestyle berry cider. Good way to check how the bottling pipe etc works

 

[Soulshine2]

I managed to get a small amount of ingredients to make summer blonde ale.
It's all grain and biab and just a 7 liter batch.
I got some other materials on order but I don't have them yet (inclusive of wort chiller)
I do have my one fridge set to 21 oC (70 F) and it stays nicely between 20 and 22 oC (68-72 F), which I think is good enough as there will be a delay in the fermenter reacting to the outside temperatures (instructions say 18-24 oC (64-75 F))

But now to get my wort to cool down quickly to about 23 oC (73 F) (as stated in the instructions)? My daytime temperatures are around 35-38 oC (95-100 F) , my cold water temperature are around 25 oC (77 F).
Do I:
- put the brew kettle in an ice bath (as per instruction)? But the ice will melt in no time
- put it into a a big tub (on a trivet) and keep running cold water through it, making sure that the lid is above water level? (I got no lack of water)
- use less water for boiling and add ice to the wort?
- put the whole thing in the 4 oC (39 F) fridge?
- pour the hot wort into shallow oven trays to cool down (more surface area)?

I am tempted to use the second method till it gets to 40 oC or thereabouts (105-110 F), then pour into fermenter, put into the cold fridge and remove when it's to the required temp and then add the yeast.

I cannot do the no-chill method as I don't have a fermenter that closes perfectly and is food-safe and can handle boiling temperatures

Any advice/insights?

if im reading this right, you have an immersion chiller on its way???
I would think given the options you listed , put it in the 39*F fridge , just be very careful you dont temperature shock the shelf if its glass.

 

[devilssoninlaw]

I work at a hospital and have access to ice packs that are used to keep things cold during shipping. I have about a dozen of them and use them in the kitchen in our double basin sink, I can get it down to temp with 2-3 water changes, 2.5 gallons.
There's no reason you couldn't make your own ice packs with old plastic bottles. Good luck!

 

[Zambezi Special]

Thanks all,
I got ice packs, so will use those. Normally I have a whole lot of frozen water bottles as well, but not currently. My attempt at eating my freezer empty is not really working.

My fermentation fridge is an old beast. Metal plastified shelves only.

Major thunderstorms yesterday, so had to delay. I'll make sure to report back once the brew has taken place

 

[Zambezi Special]

I did make my first beer yesterday. It was an all grain pack (from S-Africa) for 7 liters of beer (BIAB)
Most went fine, although I lost quite a bit of volume while cooking or when removing the grains, but that's a whole other story.

Point is: Cooling went fine. I used a big coolbox with a rack inside. Placed the pot in it and filled with cold (coolish) water. When the water got hot, I drained and refilled. I did this 4 times. The 4rd time the water didn't really heat up much and I drained and put ice blocks in water for the last stage.
It brought the temperature down to 26.7 oC and I poured it into the fermenter. That's when I found out I didn't have 7 liter and I added (drinking) ice to the fermenter)
So, it does work

Thanks All!

 

[deadwolfbones]

Hopefully the ice was made using sterilized water...

 

[S-Met]

Hopefully the ice was made using sterilized water...

Not necessary unless you have a contaminated water source. Pour out a new water bottle (500ml) into a glass and reill with your tap (or filtered) water. Cap it and leave it on the counter for a month. Pellicle? Off smell? Taste it, anything out of place? If its good, you are good to go.

I'm not advocating to take risks, but I am advocating to think about what and why someone does something.

 

[Zambezi Special]

The ice was made from boiled water.
Unfortunately, a bit of unboiled came with as I was stupid enough to try get it out of the plastic by using "normal" water. I was going to dunk it in the sanitising solution, but I didn't.
I suppose you can't really expect a first attempt to go perfect.

Our water is fine. I've had water in the kettle (unboiled) for more than a month. No smell, no pellicle, no issue (same with water in bottles on the counter at 30-47 oC)

Currently, I see no activity in the waterlock, but there is foam on top, so I probably have one of those non-airtight fermenting buckets.