risk to wort after the boil while cooling?

[jhudson3030]

Hello, as of this point I have not had any problems but for some reason this question arose. How vulnerable would you say the wort is after the boil during the aprox. ten minute cool time (using a wort chiller)? For this question I say that the lid would be off due to having your chiller in the brew pot so the cooling wort will be exposed to the atmosphere. I would just assume it would be easy for your wort to be exposed to some kind of airborne bacteria or wild yeast while the wort is exposed to the atmosphere and cooling to a temperature range that will allow bad stuff to grow. Also you may take into consideration the transfer from the boil pot through the strainer to a bucket and then from the bucket to a car boy.

 

[freisste]

Same as food prep, there is a "danger zone" as you cool. It starts at ~160f. The danger starts to minimize as you cool below a certain point. Not sure what the most dangerous temp range is.

As long as you are careful about sanitation, it's not a huge concern. Be careful and be practical and you shouldn't have any issues.

 

[JonM]

This time of year, there are lots of yellow jackets buzzing around the garage and I noticed some fruit flies in the outdoor garbage. If one of those guys gets into your chilling wort, it could ruin the batch. So, once the temp gets around 180, I take a big sheet of wide aluminum foil, spray it with starsan, and cover the top of the kettle. I was able to kind of fold it around the inlet and outlet of the chiller, and it kept the bugs away.

 

[soccerdad]

I am sure that others who are both more knowledgeable and more experienced than I can answer your (very good) question. What I have heard - as it relates to wild yeast - is that the several billion cells that you intentionally pitch into your wort will overpower and dominate the few hundred wild yeast cells that may find their way to your exposed wort .. not sure on the bacteria side, but this is why I never brew in the outhouse. A question though - what is the thinking behind going from the kettle through a strainer to a bucket and then to a carboy? Why not kettle to carboy?

 

[jhudson3030]

I feel like you could be 100% on sanitation and still have to worry about airborne contaminates. Unless you were to have an air filtration system and excluding your household furnace filter, I feel that most home brewers don't have other means of air filtration to airborne contaminates

 

[jhudson3030]

I go from the brew pot through the strainer to a bucket and then to a carboy for two reasons. One: to aerate the wort and. Two: because with the strainer I have it would be impossible to position it to where I could pour straight from the brew pot to the carboy.

 

[peterj]

I guess it depends on your personal brewing conditions, but I've never had a problem with an infection being introduced while cooling. For almost every brew I do it takes me at least 30 minutes to cool and I leave the lid off the whole time and stir pretty much constantly. And this is all outside. And in the summer I just cool to around 85-90F, transfer to the fermenter, and put it in the fridge for a few hours until it cools to pitching temps.

I guess I would be a little more concerned if I had a bunch of bugs flying into the kettle though. But I would say generally it doesn't happen very often and I wouldn't be too worried about it. Especially if you are cooling and pitching in 10 minutes!

 

[Ski12568]

I cool my wort in an ice bath then transfer to the carboy with a siphon. I whirlpool the wort once it's cooled then let it rest a few minutes before I siphon. Going to look into some kind of strained on the end of my siphon, maybe a muslin bag or panty hoes

 

[flars]

There is always a risk of infection when the wort is not covered. The only thing we can do, if we want to brew beer, is minimize the risk. You don't say if you are cooling and transferring your wort inside or outside, so this will cover some of the risks for both.
The two greatest risks come from air movement and the amount of particles in the air. An uncovered wort outside on a windy day offers greater risk than a calm day because of more particles in the air. A furnace/air conditioner fan will put more particles in the air when the fan is running than when it is not. Vacuuming in the house or sweeping out the garage, on brew day, will put more particles in the air.
We just need to minimize the risks as much as possible and hope the minor risk conditions, for infection, don't all come together at the same time to raise havoc with our brew.