First brew - cooling the wort

[sumdumgai]

I've read several ways to cool the wort quickly, the most important point always being the avoidance of introducing air (oxygen) when the work is at a high temperature.

Some people say add the 2 gal. of hot wort to the fermenter which already contains 3 gal. of chilled water and immerse the fermenter in chilled water.

Some people say immerse the brew pot with the hot wort in a sink full of ice water (some say lid on and others say lid off), then dump the cooled wort into the fermenter and add the remaining room temperature 3 gal. of water.

Does it make a difference, and how do you measure the temperature of the wort while it is colling down without exposing to air? Am I making too big a deal out of this? Thanks.

 

[BlindLemonLars]

If you're just boiling 2 gallons, you should be able to chill it down pretty easily in an ice bath. I'd leave the lid on, but stir gently and frequently with a sanitized spoon to keep keep hot wort circulating. (Not a wooden spoon, they really can't be sanitized properly.) Adding chilled water to the fermenter works fine, but you still want to drop the wort temperature first. Never add hot wort first...you can melt a plastic bucket or carboy, or shatter a glass carboy.

Don't sweat the hot-side aeration, it's not as big a deal as you think. As long as you're not splashing hot wort around, you should be fine. Once your wort is cooled, you WANT to introduce oxygen/air, by shaking or other means.

I leave a floating glass dairy thermometer in the kettle as it cools, but my next kettle will have a built-in thermometer.

 

[sumdumgai]

Thanks. I'll do the brew pot ice batch with the lid on and occasiionally gently stir watching the thermometer in the pot. When 70 degrees, I'll dump in into the fermenter and then add room temperature water to bring it to 5 gal. Then I'll dry pitch the Nottingham.

 

[shayner]

I use a meat thermometer to test the temp of my cooling wort in the ice bath. Yes, i wash it off an do a quick sanitization between each time i put it in there, but it's not that painful.

 

[WBC]

Important Point:
Anything you add to the cooled wort like chilled water must be sanitary. So water if added should be boiled 15 to 20 minutes and then cooled in a sanitized container and placed in the refrigerator. This water can be added directly to a boiled wort to cool it. Never add unboiled tap water.

 

[nugget]

Important Point:
Anything you add to the cooled wort like chilled water must be sanitary. So water if added should be boiled 15 to 20 minutes and then cooled in a sanitized container and placed in the refrigerator. This water can be added directly to a boiled wort to cool it. Never add unboiled tap water.

What about adding ice cubes?

 

[sumdumgai]

Oops!

I did add the cooled wort to 3 gal of filtered (non-boiled) tap water that had been placed in the fermenter. Now what? What signs do I look for that something is either going good or going bad?

Thanks.

 

[HOOTER]

Important Point:
Anything you add to the cooled wort like chilled water must be sanitary. So water if added should be boiled 15 to 20 minutes and then cooled in a sanitized container and placed in the refrigerator. This water can be added directly to a boiled wort to cool it. Never add unboiled tap water.

I was under the impression that it was alright to use water strait from the tap to top off a carboy. Is this wrong?

 

[Cheeto]

I would not worry about it

if it becomes a problem then use bottled/boiled water

most city water sources are safe for brewing

 

[bethlehembrewer]

I have used tap water for all of my batches so far. I think it depends on your water and how particular you are.

I cool the wort in the bathtub of cold water then add it to the 3 gallons of cool water in the carboy. The only problem I have been having is I forget the water in the carboy is going to cool it down. I put the wort in when it has cooled to about 90. So when its all mixed the real temp is about 60. The yeast dont like this and it takes longer to get going.

 

[sumdumgai]

Right. Same thing happened to me. The batch cooled down to about 60 when I added the wort to the 3 gal in the fermenter. I'll bet this is an easy thing to calculate. Fo rexample, you have 3 gal of chilled water at 45 degrees in the fermenter. You want a final batch of 5 gal at 70 degrees. At what temperature should you remove the hot wort from the ice bath (will be something between boiling point and 70 degrees).

Would this calculation work?

Fermenter chilled water: 3g X 45d = 135gd.
Final batch desired: 5g X 70d = 350gd.
350gd - 135gd = 215gd (needed from hot wort).
215gd / 2g = 107.5d

Or, when the hot wort reaches 107.5 degrees (should be fairly quick while in the ice bath), dump it into the chilled water in the fermenter to get nearly instantaneous cool down to 70 degrees.

Anybody see this as an invalid assumption?

 

[bethlehembrewer]

I see what your saying, I am also not all that great with calculations, but what you did looks like a valid one. I would rather put the wort in too hot and have to let it cool then have to bring it up to temp.

 

[Shaggy]

I ran into the same issue (wort temp after adding to the top off water in carboy was like 63 at pitch) a couple weeks ago doing my first batch.
I'm pretty paranoid adding anything "too" hot to my glass carboys lol...
Next time I will put my tap water in the carboy a while before I brew so it gets to room temp before I add the boiled wort. My cold tap water pours in the 50s!

 

[videoman]

From my experience, taking a two gallon boil and adding three gallons of cold water usually put me under 90 degrees....

In regard to someone's question about ice cubes... I would not put store bought ice cubes into the wort... I would think your chances of some sort of contamination would be high.... ice cubes you made... well it would depend on how clean your cube tray was and freezer... bottom line, my primary concern would be contaminating the wort...

I never had the need to add ice cubes...

 

[Junebug]

I recently purchased a wort chiller and used it for the first time yesterday and I have to say I wish I'd gotten that thing way sooner! It got my wort down to 75 degrees in ten minutes. Even when I used every ice cube in the house, I never got the wort cooled that quickly.

 

[WBC]

What about adding ice cubes?

Ice cubes or Ice from the store would not be any better than tap water and in most cases would be worse because the inside of ice machines and ice cube trays are open to the whole interior of the refrigerators contents.