Cooling Wort

Up to now, I have only made no boil kits. I am going to try my hand at a boil kit. I have read a lot about how important it is to cool the wort down quickly. Is there a time frame on how quickly you should try tocool your wort? I wanted to have an idea before attempting this. I do not have a immersion chiller and will have to use a sink full of ice water to cool it off. Thanks for any help or suggestions, John.

An Ice bath is the only thing for you right now. The immersion chiller should be on the top of your list

An immersion chiller would make everything much easier, but since you don't have one make sure you at least have a thermometer to monitor the temp while you're chilling the wort - and to make sure you end up with a good temp to pitch the yeast in.

Also, if you are NOT doing a full boil, you will actually chill the wort faster by adding the rest of the water at the end. Most kits assume that you will just be boiling about two and a half gallons and then adding water (which would be either filtered water or water you'd boiled and cooled ahead of time) to top it off to five gallons.

So do your boil with an initial 3 gallons of liquid because you'll lose some during the boil (which is usually 60 minutes). At the end, do your ice bath until the temp has dropped significantly (maybe 1/2 an hour or so - I would leave the wort covered during this time to minimize the chance of contamination from the air while it's cooling). Add about two gallons of clean, cold water to your clean, sanitized fermenter. Pour the chilled wort into the fermenter, top it off to five gallons and you should be pretty close to yeast-pitching temp.

I think it was Alton Brown on the show Good Eats that actually froze a gallon of water to add after the boil. Never tried it, as I do have a chiller, but looked like a fairly good idea to those who dont.

Nice. If you do that though, use a sterilized bag or other container that will seal well while it freezes (do NOT use ice cubes). If you allow the water to be exposed to the air in the freezer it can get contaminated with micro-organisms.

Cooling it down as fast as you can will eliminate most of the Di methyl Sulfide which has a buttery taste. It also helps it to clear better by settling the haze proteins plus it will help retain the hop aromas. 1/2 an hour is ok but faster is better! A 16 lb will do the trick pretty good for up to 6 gallons.

Brewgrrrl must have read How To Brew by John Palmer! If so, good Brewgrrl! She offered solid advice. If you do add ice right to the wort, only use ice you made yourself from boiled water that was froze in an airtight, food safe container. I will add to though that if you are brewing in a fairly clean environment you can leave the lid off and stir the wort with a sanitized spoon to speed up cooling with the ice bath. I brew outdoors and when I chilled with an immersion chiller I didn't have a lid on my kettle as it didn't have one.

I've read all of Charlie Papazian's books (which also have awesome recipes in them - I highly recommend the chocolate stout in "Microbrewed Adventures") but not John Palmer's. Michigan has a big brewing community though so I had lots of great people to learn from when I started a few years back.
I agree that it's probably okay to leave the lid off, but I am a paranoid freak when it comes to sanitation so I've always kept it on.

Thanks so much for all of the good advice. I appreciate it. An immersion chiller is on my Christmas list .

Brewgrrrl said:

I've read all of Charlie Papazian's books (which also have awesome recipes in them - I highly recommend the chocolate stout in "Microbrewed Adventures") but not John Palmer's. Michigan has a big brewing community though so I had lots of great people to learn from when I started a few years back.
I agree that it's probably okay to leave the lid off, but I am a paranoid freak when it comes to sanitation so I've always kept it on.

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And John Palmer is from Michigan. Seriously though, I say this all the time. If you want the best brew book out there. John Palmer's Hot To Brew is the best there is. It is my Beer Encyclopedia/Bible. Beginner, advanced, Extract or all grain. It covers it all.

wade said:

Cooling it down as fast as you can will eliminate most of the Di methyl Sulfide which has a buttery taste. It also helps it to clear better by settling the haze proteins plus it will help retain the hop aromas. 1/2 an hour is ok but faster is better! A 16 lb will do the trick pretty good for up to 6 gallons.

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You're thinking of diacetyl Wade. Dimethyl Sulfide (DMS) has a cooked corn aroma and flavor and is eliminated by both a good rolling boil (though this isn't really a big issue for extract beers since theextract has already been boiled before)and cooling the boiled wort down below 140ºF as quickly as you can. Diacetyl is a by-product of the yeast and is reabsorbed by the yeast after fermentation. It can also be produced by pediococcus if that finds it's way into your beer.


Cool your wort as fast as you can with the means you have. You'll be fine I'm sure! In an ice bath it would help to swirl the pot if you can to try and maximize hot wort contact with the colder sides of the pot. Just make sure to keep it covered, especially if you're brewing in your kitchen!


RDWHAHB!

Just to throwin my 2 cents. The first several years that I was brewing I used an ice bath. Was always able to get the temp down quickly. Later I made my own immersion chiller out of fexible copper tubing. I still use it in combination with a ice bath and get temps down within 10 mins easy. A little bit of tubing, 4 - 6 ft of tubing, 3 worm hose clamps, and a addapter for your faucet. Works like a champ !


Pete