question about preboiling water?

[baddagger]

ok i dont have a big enoff pot to be able to do a 5 gallon boil and add all the beer stuff into it .. so i normal do liek a 2.5 gallon boil then cool it and put in in the carboy then do the rest right after..

so my question is i already just did my 2.5 gallon boil and it is cooling off now but i dont have enoff time to do the the rest of the beer.. if i was to put that 2.5 gallons of boiled water into a sterile carboy with air lock in the water should be fine for tomorrow right?

 

[DrummerBoySeth]

I am not sure I understand your question. You boiled the wort, but you do not have time to boil your top-off water? Is that correct? Are you trying to wait until tomorrow to add your top-off water and pitch your yeast? I need more information to help me understand your situation before I can help answer your question.

 

[baddagger]

I am not sure I understand your question. You boiled the wort, but you do not have time to boil your top-off water? Is that correct? Are you trying to wait until tomorrow to add your top-off water and pitch your yeast? I need more information to help me understand your situation before I can help answer your question.

no i boiled the top off water frist cause i only have one pot to boil in.. so i boild the top off water frist then put it in the carboy then boil my wort and add it to the top off water.... but i dont have enoff time to boil my wort and i already did my top off water.. so my question is if i leave it in the carboy that has been cleaned and used five star on it .. will the water still be ok for tomorrow to add the wort i will boil tomorrow wiht out the risk of getting a infection ?

 

[DrummerBoySeth]

I think it will be fine. If you cleaned and sanitized the carboy before adding the boiled water, then there should be no problems at all. Keeping an airlock or cork in the top of the carboy will prevent any nasties from getting into your top off water. You may even want to put the carboy in the refrigerator tonight so that your top-off water is cold. This will help you get to yeast-pitching temperature even more quickly when you boil the wort tomorrow...

 

[bruceb07]

To save time I boil water ahead and store in clean , sanitized 1gallon water jugs. Works great and have never had a problem.

 

[ludomonster]

Don't put hot water in the carboy. I just use filtered water straight from the tap.

 

[william_shakes_beer]

If you put the topoff water in the fermenter first, what do you do if you have more wort then projected? You can do whatever you want, but IMHO its called topoff for a reason, because it goes on top of the wort to provide the finished volume. I know some brewers boil and cool their topoff water, and I respect them all. However, I just run a hose straight from the kitchen faucet to the fermenter to top off the the desired volume. If there were significant bacteria in the city water it would probably be making me sick. If I am pitching immediately and using a healthy starter, the yeast has a strong advantage over the bacteria that will always be present in other than a lab environment.

 

[YeastHerder]

I do something similar. I'm a noob at brewing, but I've been having to maintain sterile working environments for about 20 years now.

To avoid the problem of overfilling the carboy, I have the carboy marked off in 0.5 gal increments and make sure that what I've already put in there will leave me a little under-filled. Then, I have an extra medium-sized pot (~1 gal, but I only wind up using about half of it) boiled alongside the wort for that last bit of actual topping off.

Getting back to the OP question, as long as you keep anything non-sterile from getting into that freshly boiled water, it will stay sterile. If you put hot water into the carboy (or any other container), don't seal it until it reaches room temperature. As it cools, it will create a vacuum within and when you break that seal it will pull non-sterile air in from outside -- a potential source of contamination. If you have to let some boiled water sit before doing something else with it, let it cool slowly with a good-fitting lid that will block air currents but that is still not air-tight. Once it is at room temp, you can crank those caps tight. I would also advise doing this in a location with as close to zero air movement as possible (away from ventilation ducts, fans, open windows, etc). Get a sense for what the air currents are in your work space and avoid areas carrying stuff downwards into your beer/water). Hope that is useful!