Chilling the wort--Lid on or off

[swackattack]

I guess this is more of a lesser of the evil question. I know boiling wort with lid on with lead to bad taste. I know leaving lid off after the boil will could lead to "nasties" with the co2 barrier/fermentation not yet being present. Wort Cool...Lid on or off?

 

[Yooper]

I don't even have a lid, so mine is always "off", I guess!

 

[lowtones84]

I leave it on so there's less chance of stuff getting into the wort, but for the first 10-15 minutes I "vent" it occasionally by tilting the lid quite a ways to let a lot of the heat out. No scientific reasoning here, just seems to make sense. No wort chiller here.

 

[beergolf]

I leave it off. I figure it will cool faster that way.
Never had a problem

 

[blitz10035]

I've been cooling with no lid. Haven't had any issues thus far.

 

[unionrdr]

I usually put the lid on after the flame out extract additions to steep for 10 minutes. This time,I had the lid on for only a couple minutes to steep before the ice bath. In the ice bath,took the lid off to see if it was faster. Then the damn sink strainer would stay sealed,so that got messed up.
Had to put the lid back on till it finally cooled. Oh,well there's always next time...

 

[teaser452]

I leave my lid off now. Only brewed 5 batches so far. All Full boil But the last two , I left the top off. Cut my cooling time from 30 minutes to 15. No wort cooler I just don't talk and clean the kitchen real well beforehand. We'll see. But leaving that lid in sure does keep a lot of heat in.

 

[ReDim]

I use the lid to control volume and evaporation (since I like doing higher gravity) boiling off like 2-3 gallons is preferable...

But I don't have any rules in fearing invisible enemies, just practically it works out to:
getting to a boil - lid on (faster)
boil - lid off (evaporate down)
Heat off (lid on) transfer to the ice bath (lid helps with the splashing, then I run cold water over the lid (water does not get inside though)

I am thinking about a chiller, but I do not like my options right now...

Speaking of chillers... has any-one here considered "whiskey stones" ?

 

[pjj2ba]

I have no problems with a closed system. For me, immediately after the flame is off, I transfer the hot wort to a modified corny (takes about 5 min.) I then hook this up to my plate chiller and pump. I modified the corny so I can recirculate back to it to chill all of the wort at once. I like it as it is now a totally sealed system so there is no chance of external contamination. Plus if something comes up, I can always just leave the cooled wort there and transfer it to the fermentor later.

 

[brew2enjoy]

Lid off for me. I use an immersion chiller and stir to keep a whirlpool going. Chilled my last batch from 212 down to 68 in less than 10 minutes.