Adding water

[rooster_442]

I am curious what would happen if the wort wasn't at 70 degrees or less and you added water to cool it down? It says in my directions to cool the wort down as fast as you can so why not cool it with cold water? I also thought what if I cooled it down to say 80-90 degrees before adding water what would happen? I looked at you tube for videos on how to cool the wort but all I found was a wort chiller and ice. Please let me know any opinion thank you!

 

[Happywanderer]

Yep. Until very recently, I bought 2-gallon jugs of spring water to add as my top off water. I'd put it in the fridge to get it cold. When water hits about 100, I add it. This drops the temp fairly quickly. There are complex computations for change in heat....but that is too much math for me (I did it once...which is how I came up with waiting till 100 degrees to add 2-gallons of 40 degree water).

I didn't sanitize this water first. I did spray the outside of the bottle with Starsan first before pouring in. No foul infections.

My ice bath method has now been upgraded to an immersion chiller and submersible pump in a cooler of ice water. Much better.


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[jtratcliff]

If you're doing extract and adding top-off water to reach your final gravity anyway, it might as well be cold and/or frozen water.

If your wort is already where it should be, gravity wise, adding water of any temperature will mess things up.

 

[steelsoldier77]

What I've done that I found worked really well, was I had two tuppeware containers that I sanitzed, filled with boiled water, closed, and froze overnight. My boil for extract batches is about half the final amount (8-9 liters) so it would fairly quickly cool to about 80 degrees celsius. Then I add my two ice blocks and it cools down fairly quickly from there. Then it's just a matter of adding more top-off water.

 

[skinnyb1981]

From what I've read, chilling the wort down quickly helps the end clarity of your beer. My first batch didn't cool down quick, was like 3 hours with cool water and ice bath. It still turned out well.

 

[Happywanderer]

3 hours?!!? Was that a full 5 gallons?

If not, try changing out the water every 10-15 minutes and giving the pot gentle swirls. Add fresh ice with each water change. This will help with heat dissipation. I was cooling 3.5 gallons from boiling to 70 degrees in 35-40 minutes.

As far as beer clarity goes - I've had great success with Irish Moss. Dirt cheap and it works really well.

 

[skinnyb1981]

Hey was my first batch and I forgot that plastic insulates. I dumped my boiling hot wort into the primary. I bought a wort chiller right after because of that. My pot couldn't contain 5 gal and wasn't thinking when I did it. Whirlfloc can be added to the boil if clarity is what you're after.

 

[9mmruger]

I never do a full boil, usually about 3 gallons and with about a gallon of boil off it leaves me with approx two gallons. I have my fermenting bucket with 2.5 gallons of cold water - pre-sanitized. I use a wort chiller to drop the temp of the wort in about 15 minutes, then pour the wort into the bucket. Top off to 5 gallons, stir, and pitch the yeast. Beer always turns out tasty.