Cooling unpitched wort overnight

[TheMerkle]

I'm having a bit of a problem getting my brews down to pitching temps as they go into the fermentor down here in Florida. I am wondering if it should be okay to boil wort, cool to ~100 degrees and rack to a fermentor where it will sit overnight to cool to pitching temp before I aerate with 60 seconds of pure o2 and pitch yeast?

 

[wilserbrewer]

Not a problem, quite a few do this.

As always good sanitation is wise.

 

[Sammy86]

Definitely not a problem...I do it for the majority of my brews in the summer because my ground water is way too hot...never had an issue!

 

[soccerdad]

Do it often. No prob. If you sit the fermenter in an iced sink overnight it will go well below 65.

 

[splyn]

i do it on almost every batch. i cool it down to about 80F, which at that point the law of diminishing returns activates my "do not waste water" OCD. I transfer to fermenter, add O2 and pop it into my fermentation chamber (along with my starter) set to Approx 60F. The next day, both the starter and wort are at a good pitching temp.

 

[rekoob]

+1 to all above.
clean and sanitize and should have no problems.

 

[Jwin]

Another option is to use a pond pump(~$15 on eBay/harbour freight) . Place it in a bucket of ice water. Once your ground water has chilled your wort the best it can, recirculate the ice water. I put a 3 gallon bucket in my deep freezer and freeze it, pull it out when I start chilling. Once ready to use it, it has melted enough around the edges to pop it into a 5g bucket. I don't recirculate at first, usually until I drop in the low 80s. Then just kill the water source and move the out hose of the chiller to the ice bucket. Garden hose QDs make it a pretty quick process.

I've also experimented with freezing my old 25' cooper IC into said 3 gallon bucket, but the trouble is making sure that I get all the liquid out from the previous session. I'm going to recoil it and replace the hoses with compression fittings. Once that's done, I should be able to store it inverted where it will drain properly. Effectively making it a prechiller. In theory, I'll have to have a high flow rates at first to make sure the water doesn't instantly freeze when initially passed through it.

The only issue with not pitching quickly is the chance of infection. While you can sanitize effectively, you can't get rid of all of the bugs in the headspace. That's why the Aussies that do no chill
1) don't chill at all and use the hot wort to sanitize thier cubes
2) press all of the headspace out of the cube so nothing can live in there.
But there's no rules, do what you want and have fun. Just another perspective. Cheers!

 

[IslandLizard]

i do it on almost every batch. i cool it down to about 80F, which at that point the law of diminishing returns activates my "do not waste water" OCD. I transfer to fermenter, add O2 and pop it into my fermentation chamber (along with my starter) set to Approx 60F. The next day, both the starter and wort are at a good pitching temp.

I hear you on not wasting water. I sometimes use a small pre-chiller coil in a bucket of ice to get it down from 80-90F to pitching temps. Or chill it in the fermentation fridge like you do. But why chill to 60F instead of your actual fermentation temp? I'd rarely ferment at 60F, more like 63-65.

Aren't you're better off adding O2 right before adding the yeast, not a day before. Won't most dissipate during that time?

 

[splyn]

I hear you on not wasting water. I sometimes use a small pre-chiller coil in a bucket of ice to get it down from 80-90F to pitching temps. Or chill it in the fermentation fridge like you do. But why chill to 60F instead of your actual fermentation temp? I'd rarely ferment at 60F, more like 63-65.

Aren't you're better off adding O2 right before adding the yeast, not a day before. Won't most dissipate during that time?

I thought the general consensus was to pitch slightly cooler than ferm temps.

As for aeration, i use pure O2 and out of pure convenience (i already have all my brew contraperatuses out) i aerate before i put it in ferm chamber to finish cooling down. I regularly get vigorous fermentations within 12 hours with this method.

 

[ruger988]

Another option, for summertime brewing especially, figure out your volumes so that at the end of boil you need a gallon of top up water.

Have a frozen 1 gallon jug of pre-boiled/sterilized water and drop the big ice cube in to melt. Enough thermal mass there to get you to where you need to be pretty quick.

 

[TheMerkle]

I use pure O2 and out of pure convenience (i already have all my brew contraperatuses out) i aerate before i put it in ferm chamber to finish cooling down. I regularly get vigorous fermentations within 12 hours with this method.

How long do you aerate. Normally I use 60 seconds of pure o2 (90 seconds or longer for big beers) when the wort is ~65 degrees. O2 is considerably less soluble in water at 100 degrees.

 

[splyn]

i bring the wort down to about 70-80F before i aerate. i usually use O2 for about 60 seconds.