Wort Chilling - Beginner Question

[Marshach]

Hi All. New to homebrewing and this forum, but hope to brew my first batch this coming weekend or next. I have a quick question about wort chilling. I purchased a wort chiller, but also intend on adding additional water to my wort when I move it to my carboy to bring it up to the 5 gallon mark.

I guess I am afraid that I will cool my wort too much with the chiller and then when I add my additional water I will end up below the desired temperature for pitching my yeast. Any thoughts on how you have handled this in your brewing experience? This may be a dumb question, but I don't want to butcher my first batch by doing something that may be easy to avoid.

Just curious. Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[cercueil]

Hi and greeting from Central NJ! You dont have to worry about this too much unless the water is really cold. You can keep the extra water at room temp and when you chill down to about 85 lets say you can throw the room temp water in there. If you are using really cold water you would have to stop earlier. You can pitch the yeast anywhere from 70-85 or so and the yeast should be ok.

 

[Marshach]

Greetings from Northern NJ. Thank you very much for the feedback! I really appreciate your help.

 

[JVD_X]

Welcome to the hobby!

Also - if you do go a little under temp... say 58-60 degrees for an ale... it may actually improve the flavor. Just don't go to low and shock the yeast.

However, as cercueil pointed out you may want to let the top-off water sit out overnight. This will also help release some chlorine which your water is probably treated with and you don't want in your beer (too much of it and it might bind with the wort and give an off-taste). It may or may not help depending on the type of chlorine and how much is used by the water company.

 

[Marshach]

Thanks JVD_X.

I was planning to boil the water addition prior to preparing my wort and then let it cool down to room temperature and sit until I needed to add it to my carboy. Not sure if it is necessary to boil this water addition, but thought it couldn't hurt. Good to know that if I do go a little low, it will still be ok, but I will try to make sure that the temperature doesn't fall too far.

Thanks again for your help.

 

[cercueil]

I'm scared of NJ water so I used bottled..lol..You can also use a campden tablet. I've never used this but it removes chlorine from the water and inhibits certain wild bacteria from growing in the water.

 

[carnevoodoo]

Hi and greeting from Central NJ! You dont have to worry about this too much unless the water is really cold. You can keep the extra water at room temp and when you chill down to about 85 lets say you can throw the room temp water in there. If you are using really cold water you would have to stop earlier. You can pitch the yeast anywhere from 70-85 or so and the yeast should be ok.

I would really suggest against pitching at 85 unless you are cooling it down below 70 in another hour. Optimal yeast pitching temps are around 68 degrees.

 

[Marius]

I always have two litres of boiling water ready for if I get lower that 70, another two litres at room temp for if I hit 70-77 degrees, and another two liters of ice for if I get higher that 77.

 

[johnnyc]

Honestly NJ summertime ground water temp probably isn't cool enough worry about. Granted I'm in GA but my ground water is in the low 70s now. I stop using my chiller around 80-85º because to get lower than that takes forever and uses a ton of water. I switch to an ice bath which takes it down to pitching temp, around 65º. Unless you're adding ice (which generally isn't recommended) I think it's unlikely that you'll cool it off too much whatever you do.

Try to keep your temp around 70º for the first week of fermentation for the best results. (Mid-60s is even better but a little advance for your first beer)

Above all have a good time and don't stress out too much. RDWHA(Craft)B!

 

[Arkador]

if my wort is off of my pitching temp, i wait to pitch. as long as my sanitation is in line, there is no reason not to wait for my wort to cool or warm 10 degrees before pitching.