Cooling the Wort

[sbsmann]

Hello,

I am a new Brewer here so forgive the stupid question. Why do the directions in my extract kit require me to cool "as rapidly as possible" my wort before moving it to the carboy for fermentation? Is the purpose just to minimize the possible contamination of the liquid or is there some other reason? It seems whether it takes an hour or 5 minutes, it's all the same. Not being a chemist or a Brew-Geek (yet) I guess I just don't understand the need for speed here with chillers and ice baths and rushing? Help me understand please.

 

[plazola86]

The faster you cool it down the closer you are to drinking it

 

[beermanpete]

Rapid cooling of the wort serves two purposes, one of which you already mentioned; prevention of contamination. The other is what is called a "cold break". The cold break is the coagulation and precipitation of protein particles and hop debris. This is helpful to improve the clarity of the finished beer but not particularly important to the flavor. If you are cooling the wort by placing the boil kettle in an ice bath you won't get a strong cold break so don't worry too much about it. Chill the wort as fast as practical with the equipment you have and pitch the yeast as soon as get to pitching temp and you will be fine.

 

[meatcleaver]

many of us, myself included, have moved to no chill.
I'm not convinced rapid cooling is really necessary at all, although I do agree the sooner it's fermenting, the better.

 

[BlurryEyed]

I would suggest doing a no-chill batch and a chilled batch, using the same recipe, and comparing the flavors. I will argue its a notable difference and chilling is preferred, but to each his own.

This is an EXCELLENT read on the topic:

http://brulosophy.com/2015/11/09/cooling-the-wort-pt-1-no-chill-vs-quick-chill-exbeeriment-results/

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

The directions on kits are outdated.
It used to be you needed to chill as fast as possible to avoid an infection. It was said the warm wort was at its "most vulnerable" to infection at this point in the brew day. That has been proven false. Many as stated don't chill at all and let the beer naturally drop in temp and pitch the yeast the next day.
The thing you need to worry about is adding unwanted bitterness to your beer. If you don't chill say a high hopped IPA it continues to bitter.
For example if you do a 60/15/5/0 minute hop addition and don't chill all the late flavoring hop continue to bitter as if they were all a 60 minute addition leading to a very bitter less hop flavored beer. If you chill to anywhere under 140 and stop chilling that will stop the hops from adding bitterness and your beer will turn out the expected way...you could then pitch the next day...this helps if doing a ice bath in the sink chill as you wont be burning through tons of ice.

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

Rapid cooling of the wort serves two purposes, one of which you already mentioned; prevention of contamination. The other is what is called a "cold break". The cold break is the coagulation and precipitation of protein particles and hop debris. This is helpful to improve the clarity of the finished beer

This is not true at all.
I suck up every single drop of wort out of the brew kettle. The cold break makes absolutely no difference in clarity or taste or anything elese and makes for more beer. Everything settles out in the primary. Some have even proposed the idea the cold break/proteins in the primary actually help the yeast

 

[SlitheryDee]

Cold break is probably the main reason. I haven't worried about it much so far. Putting the bottles in the fridge for a few days after bottle conditioning probably gets rid of more than cooling the wort quickly does.

I do use an immersion chiller, but that's mostly because I'm impatient. I want my brew day to end with pitching some yeast instead of carrying over to the day after that.

 

[beermanpete]

This is not true at all.
I suck up every single drop of wort out of the brew kettle. The cold break makes absolutely no difference in clarity or taste or anything elese and makes for more beer. Everything settles out in the primary. Some have even proposed the idea the cold break/proteins in the primary actually help the yeast

Keeping the cold break out of the fermenter is not what I meant. A rapid chill rate promotes the formation of the cold beak. If there is no cold break the proteins remain in suspension and contribute to chill haze and turbidity in the finished beer.

 

[Calder]

The directions on kits are outdated.
It used to be you needed to chill as fast as possible to avoid an infection. It was said the warm wort was at its "most vulnerable" to infection at this point in the brew day. That has been proven false.

No it has not been proven false. Between 140 F and 80 F, the brew kettle is an incubator. If you get any contamination in there it is going to grow. It is all a matter of how much can get in, and how long it is until the yeast take-off to start providing alcohol to protect the beer.

Leave the beer sealed (well covered) while allowing it to cool slowly and you should be OK, but leave the lid slightly off, and you are starting to take a gamble with your wort.

Someone else responded to your comment on cod break, so I will not.

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

No it has not been proven false. Between 140 F and 80 F, the brew kettle is an incubator.

I could have worded that better.
I hasn't been proven false that it cant get infected at those temps. Its been proven false that it almost guarantees an infection if you don't chill in record speed and pitch right away. I've heard some here don't even transfer out of the BK sometimes.They just cover the pot and leave it till the next day with no issue.

I stand by my cold break comment. Every beer I make I suck it all up into the fermenter without issue. I've also been getting into lagers lately and they're crystal clear.

 

[SlitheryDee]

I could have worded that better.

I hasn't been proven false that it cant get infected at those temps. Its been proven false that it almost guarantees an infection if you don't chill in record speed and pitch right away. I've heard some here don't even transfer out of the BK sometimes.They just cover the pot and leave it till the next day with no issue.



I stand by my cold break comment. Every beer I make I suck it all up into the fermenter without issue. I've also been getting into lagers lately and they're crystal clear.

Well I think his point about the cold break was that once it solidifies, it doesn't matter if you suck it all into the fermenter. It just settles to the bottom of that then. Once formed, it stays formed more or less. Quickly cooling the wort is supposed to get at least some of the stuff that would hang around in solution until the beer gets chilled out of solution before it even gets packaged.

It's not something I really worry about because chilling for long enough seems to get rid of it anyway. Cold crashing and fining can also get rid of it before packaging. Even lacking those things it doesn't make the beer taste bad, so I'm not going to sweat it until I get down to tweaking the finer details of my brewing. Right now I'm still working on the broad strokes.

 

[Lefou]

Cold break, schmold break. There are a lot of ways to skin the cat.

If you have a highly fermentable wort without a large, significant amount of wheat or adjuncts with protein, clarifying wort is easy. For five gallons of wort or less, one half tablet of Whirlfloc into the boil for 5-15 minutes before flameout is a great addition. As your wort cools down to room temperatures, coagulated proteins will visibly flocculate out of suspension and it will be very evident in the lighter colored beers, especially so in non-wheat beers.

I love wheat beers and usually don't care about cloudiness or hazing, unless it's that rare time I want a clarified beer.
Why bother, really? The hop oils bind to the proteins and make great foam, and I feel the more protein a beer has, the better nutritional value it has ..and I like foam.

 

[crunch1224]

I cool rapidly with a combination of a immersion chiller and frozen water bottles. I start cooling with the immersion chiller then drop two frozen water bottles inside of the coils and then I swirl them around. 5 gallon batches btw. It only takes me about 10 minutes or so to drop the temp to 70f. Of course I take the pot off the burner because it will remain hot and slow down my cooling.

 

[sbsmann]

Cold break, schmold break. There are a lot of ways to skin the cat.

If you have a highly fermentable wort without a large, significant amount of wheat or adjuncts with protein, clarifying wort is easy. For five gallons of wort or less, one half tablet of Whirlfloc into the boil for 5-15 minutes before flameout is a great addition. As your wort cools down to room temperatures, coagulated proteins will visibly flocculate out of suspension and it will be very evident in the lighter colored beers, especially so in non-wheat beers.

I love wheat beers and usually don't care about cloudiness or hazing, unless it's that rare time I want a clarified beer.
Why bother, really? The hop oils bind to the proteins and make great foam, and I feel the more protein a beer has, the better nutritional value it has ..and I like foam.

Good idea...I will try that on my next boil.

 

[sbsmann]

I cool rapidly with a combination of a immersion chiller and frozen water bottles. I start cooling with the immersion chiller then drop two frozen water bottles inside of the coils and then I swirl them around. 5 gallon batches btw. It only takes me about 10 minutes or so to drop the temp to 70f. Of course I take the pot off the burner because it will remain hot and slow down my cooling.

Brilliant. On Saturday, I was boiling a Kolsch and I didn't have enough ice for my cooldown so it took about 45 minutes to get the temp down. The irony is I had several cooler packs in my freezer just sitting there. I never thought about using those, but now I will. Thanks for the tips. I like the frozen water bottle idea as well.

 

[sbsmann]

Cold break is probably the main reason. I haven't worried about it much so far. Putting the bottles in the fridge for a few days after bottle conditioning probably gets rid of more than cooling the wort quickly does.

I do use an immersion chiller, but that's mostly because I'm impatient. I want my brew day to end with pitching some yeast instead of carrying over to the day after that.

Impatient...ha. I know exactly what you mean.