Time to chill man

[Abrayton]

For the math/science people (I teach history so this is out of my wheelhouse). Can the time to chill to 70° be figured out with the info available:

5.5 gallons of boiling wort in a ten gallon aluminum pot, set outside with ambient temp at 4°, no wind. No stirring.

I would hate to wake up to a frozen pot of wort!

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

I don’t know a formula, but I think if you leave it outside until morning it will be frozen. My temps are in the 20s 2 gallons cooled to pitching temps in 3 hours. Maybe get it started outside, then bring it in to a cooler area of the home.

 

[Pkrd]

More info is required before we tell you to go out and check it when you get up to pee.

Is the lid on? What grade of aluminium? What are the dimensions of the pot? Is it cloudy? Is there tree cover? Might a breeze pick up at midnight? What is it sitting on? Is a small animal likely to cuddle up to it for warmth?

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

4 degrees...Are you kidding. You don't need a formula to tell you it's F'n cold...Whats possessing you to stick you beer outside overnight in 4 degree weather.

Stick it in you your 70 deg house and pitch the next day...thats how long it takes at room temp. If it takes a little long so be it. You say its boiling so I'm assuming a plastic fermenter thats now sanitized by the boiling water

4 degrees for 8 hours sleep and my stick your big toe out the door the next day formula tells me your going to be way under 70

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Put a gallon outside in a small sanitised container. It'll freeze solid. That's no problem. Leave 4 gallons inside. It'll probably still be about 80 to 90F by the next morning. Drop the 'ice' block in and you should be somewhere near ideal ale pitching temperatures.

 

[Abrayton]

Update: yes 4° is cold but not compared to the -27 the day before! Instead of using my chiller I wanted to see how quickly cold temps would chill. It wasn’t technically boiling anymore but I had just killed the flame and put the kettle outside. I got up a few times to check the temperature and by 4:30am it was down to about 60° so I put it in my bigmouth in the ferm chamber. Will pitch yeast soon. Experiment over and all is good.

 

[mongoose33]

A huge part of this has to do with what the kettle is sitting on. Is it snow? A table?

Is there a formula? I'm sure there is, somewhere. You'd have to account for what the kettle sits on, the surface area of the kettle, whether the space is open or closed (a small closed space will warm up some).

If you were so inclined, you might get a wireless thermometer with a probe, put it in the wort (after sanitizing of course), and monitor it from inside the house. Keep track of outside temp and the temp of the wort. You'd be able to build a little model of the rate of temperature change that would get you close.

As for a guess: I don't know if it would quite freeze, but I'll bet it would have dropped to 32 degrees. It takes a lot to move water from 33 to 31 degrees, so it's possible it wouldn't have quite frozen, but I'd bet it would be well under 70 degrees.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Update: yes 4° is cold but not compared to the -27 the day before! Instead of using my chiller I wanted to see how quickly cold temps would chill. It wasn’t technically boiling anymore but I had just killed the flame and put the kettle outside. I got up a few times to check the temperature and by 4:30am it was down to about 60° so I put it in my bigmouth in the ferm chamber. Will pitch yeast soon. Experiment over and all is good.

Well, I guess it would not have frozen, unless you like to sleep in on the weekend... maybe.