Now I'm really confused about cooling wort

[grem135]

Minds?

 

[jwetzler]

Thanks everyone. Whether the batch turns out badly or not, relaxing can only help! I should chill-out-and-have-a-beer (COHAB).

But for my future attempts, what's the view on John Palmer's comment about not aerating the wort UNTIL it's already cooled else you risk "oxidation"?? I've never seen this concern before browsing thro forums.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter7-4.html

I like to put about 2 gallons of store bought spring water/drinking water into the fridge about a day before I brew.

About 10 minutes before my Boil is over, fill the sink up with water and ice, and put the stock pot into the cold water.

Then I'll dump about a gallon of the cold water that I had in the fridge into it and stir.

Then dump it all into the fermenter and top off with the other jug of cold water. Normally gets the wort temp down to about 66F in about 15 minutes.

As far as aerating the wort after it's cooled...idk the science behind that. But I would rather spill cooled wort on me than 140F wort lol...if using the dump back and forth method. I think the main risk of oxidization is after fermentation has completed...as the yeast won't be able to use the oxygen that it has been exposed to, and could result in a stale kind of taste.

 

[kh54s10]

I made a double section chiller from 2 coils of 3/8? I think copper coil. 20 feet each from Home Depot. I got a 10' section of black vinyl tubing, 4 hose clamps and a hose to nipple connection for about $40 total. One section goes in the wort, the other in a bucket with cold water/ice. In the summer it takes 30 - 40 minutes, in the winter 10-15 minutes. I do not sweat how long it takes and have not noticed any big difference.

And for once I somewhat disagree with Yooper. I think hot side aeration , before fermentation has started, is a myth and nothing to worry about. YMMV.

 

[WileECoyote]

As far as aerating the wort after it's cooled...idk the science behind that. But I would rather spill cooled wort on me than 140F wort lol...if using the dump back and forth method. I think the main risk of oxidization is after fermentation has completed...as the yeast won't be able to use the oxygen that it has been exposed to, and could result in a stale kind of taste.

Hello, there are 2 times when you don't want to introduce oxygen into your brew, hot wort aeration=anything over 100 deg. and after fermentation.

As far as the science behind these, lots of threads explain these in great detail, simple answer it can make your beer taste bad, like cardboard.

Cheers

 

[tre9er]

I used my IC setup last night and it took me 25 minutes with 65* tap water to go from boiling to 70* wort. I have a 25' 3/8" pre-chiller that goes in a bucket of ice water, then it feeds a 50' 3/8" immersion chiller. Then racking takes another 5-10 minutes. Honestly, call me lazy but this is just too long, and I'm still not where I want to be for pitching temp. I can take that 25' pre-chiller and turn it into a CFC and rack the wort plus chill it at the same time, all in 5-10 minutes, and get it cooler than 70*. 5 hour brew days tend to suck after a while, especially when they're on a weeknight. Shaving 25 minutes off my day is worth a lot at midnight.

 

[BetterSense]

Do you do 10gal batches?

I have a 50ft chiller and it does not take me that long with 5gal batches. I start with warm tap water and switch to ice water. The most important factor is continuous stirring. I ignore HSA and stirr continuously because it makes it take half the time.

I also think pre-chillers are not nearly as good as pumping ice water directly.

 

[tre9er]

Do you do 10gal batches?

I have a 50ft chiller and it does not take me that long with 5gal batches. I start with warm tap water and switch to ice water. The most important factor is continuous stirring. I ignore HSA and stirr continuously because it makes it take half the time.

I also think pre-chillers are not nearly as good as pumping ice water directly.

9-9.5g batches. The input side of the IC is very cold throughout the process due to the pre-chiller, which does make a difference albeit not the same as pumping ice-water. I stir probably 10 times in those 20 minutes, basically every few minutes I'm stirring inside and outside of the IC, counter to the flow of water within the IC. I also stir the pre-chiller ice-water counter-flow, too.

 

[BetterSense]

That doesn't sound too far off. I figure it takes me 10 minutes to cool down a 5gal batch and think that's pretty good. Stands to reason a 10gal batch would take 20 min or so.

 

[Tippsy-Turvy]

I've just finished brewing a hefeweizen and I'm soooo pumped as i managed to cool the wort to the low 60's within 10 minutes without any wort chiller. In fact, the method was so effective that I had to stop the chilling as the wort was chilling too quickly! Nothing ground-breakng mind you, I just improvised after getting inspiration from you guys on this forum.

Essentially, I froze bottled mineral water for over a week before brew day to get the ice as close as possible to the -18C (~0F) setting on my freezer. I used several 1 liter plastic containers (see pic) with screw tops and were conical shaped so that after a little thawing the ice blocks would just drop out. The containers were all sanitised before being filled 90% (water volume expands ~10% when frozen).

After flame-out, I put the pot in a basin of water and ice and whilst I waited for the frozen water containers to thaw slightly I stirred the wort and iced water gently. With just the ice bath, the wort temp seemed to fall at a snail's pace, even after 5 minutes, but when i dunked only half of the iced water blocks in and stirred gently, my goodness, the temp plummeted and within a few minutes the temp had fallen to ~60F yet the blocks had not even half melted (I'm referring to the liquid temp, not ice against the thermometer)! So i had to remove the blocks and scamble to find any remaining bottled water at room temperature.

Anyway, it felt great and I just wanted to share. Now for the clean up.....sigh.

 

[Tippsy-Turvy]

FYI, I've just brewed a Big River Amber and I managed to cool the hot wort down to ~68F WITHIN 5 mins using the same technique mentioned in my last post except the ice blocks were slightly thawed in advance and therefore were ready to be thrown in immediately. As per last time, the ice blocks were barely half melted by 68F and I had to remove them before the wort became too chilled.

I doubt there's any added benefit chilling so quickly except that it feels great!

 

[C-Rider]

Sounds interesting, but you are adding water of an undetermined amount. How does that affect your OG? Well I know how, it will lower it. So how do you calculate so you reached the desired OG?

 

[Tippsy-Turvy]

All amounts are fully determined beforehand and inputted into Brewer's Friend to estimate the OG.

The ice blocks are 900ml each. The target final boil volume is achieved with finessing (up the heat to reduce/top-up water to increase). Put together, I can reach the exact target batch volume. The amount of fermentables used is based on the target final batch volume and the OG I want. So far, I'm always +/-0.001 points from the expected OG.