newbie question: chilling wort (sink too small)

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Question:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – : IMHO, HSA is very overplayed. I used to do the same thing without any : noticable off flavors. I read a post on the HBD that the folks at : Siebel said that oxidation after fermentation is about 10 times worse : than HSA. I’ve since stopped pouring hot wort, but only because I’ve : read and been told not to. I don’t think HSA is as bad as everyone : thinks. : My sentiments exactly. For the skeptics, may I suggest an experiment? Plan to take the Anchor brewer tour some day. Either before or preferably right after the tasting find a bottled version of Liberty or Steam that is reasonably fresh and compare the brewery fresh vs the only slightly older bottled version. I can guarantee that this will be an eye opening experience. They are light years apart IMO. This of course is not a controlled experiment and there are undoubtedly many variables involved. However, it has been widely speculated in the brewing community that their lautering technique/equipment, which introduces large amounts of air into hot wort, contributes to their beers very short shelf life compared to other breweries. I have done this experiment myself and I have witnessed a lautering of one of there beers. I am convinced something very wrong is going on here . Kent Townley Richardson,TX

Sounds like a pretty good experiment. Wish I just fly over there and try it . However, it’s been stated at Siebel, that oxygenation after fermentation produces about 10x the affect of HSA. So, one would have to be absolutely sure that the taste you are getting wasn’t caused by oxygenation in the bottling line (or somewhere else for that matter), and that would be a hell of a task! Point well taken. It’s probably not an experiment that could be easily done on the homebrewing level (what with carefully controlled measurements of oxygen and the like), but it’s fun to talk about! tim in Lowell, MA

Response:

IMHO, HSA is very overplayed. I used to do the same thing without any noticable off flavors. I read a post on the HBD that the folks at Siebel said that oxidation after fermentation is about 10 times worse than HSA. I’ve since stopped pouring hot wort, but only because I’ve read and been told not to. I don’t think HSA is as bad as everyone thinks.

My sentiments exactly. cheers, -Alan

Response:

For partial boils, adding ice works — Alan’s suggestion to freeze water in 2L bottles and cut them away is good (milk bottles also work). Be sure the water you freeze is sanitary enough to add to the wort — freezing won’t sanitize it.

I freeze 2 gallons of bottled water and cut them open. A little messy but cheap. Bottled drinking water is usually ozonated and thus poses little risk of infection. — Rob Dewhirst Return address is bogus due to spam. If you reply to this message without changing the address, it will bounce. Use: robd "at" lawrence.ixks.com

Response:

WHY TO COOL There are two major reasons: – Wort is a WONDERFUL medium for growing bacteria. Some of these can cause bad flavors. Yeast change the wort’s chemistry to make it much harder for bacteria to live; you want them in there working for you ASAP. – Wort produces dimethyl sulfide (DMS) when above (I think) about 150F. When the wort is boiling, this boils off. Once the wort is in the range 150-212, DMS is produced faster than it is vaporizing out of your wort. It can give a cooked-corn taste.

I think you get a better break too. Probably not a big deal for the extract folks, but all grainers will get more grain crud to drop out faster with faster chilling. The overnight method should work fine tho. I’ve heard Jack Schmidling mention he does exactly that and has never had a problem. I think he’s been brewin’ longer than a lot of us combined. Personally, water’s cheap and I wouldn’t trade my immersion chiller for anything. But as always, do what works for you. JG in Cleveland,OH — …Sure don’t know what I’m goin’ for, but I’m gonna go for it for sure… [Weir/Barlow]

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hi. So I’ve made one batch of beer, which came out reasonably well. It was a simple kit thing, nothing fancy. I hope to get more ambitious on the next batch. One headache I had was in chilling the wort. I didn’t do a full boil, and instead boiled the water (1.5 gals, I think?) in the pot, while putting 3 or so gallons of cold water in the carboy. when boiling was done I dumped the brewpot contents directly into the carboy containing cold water, as per Papazian’s book. The drag of it was that it took FOREVER too cool down to under 78 degrees. It basically took overnight. I’ve seen suggestions to put the pot in the sink and run cold water around it. But m sink in my pathetic LA appartment is far too small for me to wedge my 20 quart brewpot into it. I’d really rather not carry the thing all the way into the bathroom to stick in the tub, though I guess that’s what I plan on doing for the next batch. Anyone got any smart suggestions for how to cool the stuff down faster, short of buying an expensive wort chiller? Is there a sensible way to use ice somehow? Thanks for any advice! Much appreciated… – Mike Harm — Replace NOSPAM in the above address with "gizmo.usc" to email me. Sorry, I know its a drag…

Some of my friends and I have made wort chillers. Go to your local building supply store (Home Despot, Ace, Eagle, et al) buy some copper tubing, some hose clamps, some tygon hose with the ID same as the OD of the copper tubing, a fitting for your spigot, and assemble. Attach to the sink and voiole, a cheap wort cooler. We can cool a 5 gal batch from boiling to ~70F in about 10 min. Of course cooling time will vary depending on how cold your cold water is out of your sink.

Response:

For those of you worried about wasting water while using your immersion wort chiller, buy a small immersible electrical pump, plug your sink, fill it with ice and water. Attach the intake hose of your chiller to the pump and put the pump in the sink of ice water. Put the exhaust hose in the sink too and viola…you have an immersion chiller which will chill the wort a lot faster than just plain tap water and with a lot less water wasted.

I’ve done this many times, albeit with a cooler (rather than sink) full of ice water, since I brew outdoors. The big problem is that if you start with the ice water on boiling wort, the ice will melt almost instantly and leave you with no cooling power to get the wort below ambient. If you live in a water-poor area and plan on doing this, it would be best to have a lot more bags of ice on hand than you think you need. To me (east coast, mid-Atlantic, plenty of water), the best compromise seems to be: start the chilling with tap water, then once it’s down to roughly 40 or 50C (which it will be, fairly quickly) switch over to the ice water/pump affair. The pump needs to have at least some cojones – a windshield washer pump is not adequate. Best of all: do some test runs with boiling water (not wort) to figure out what works best for you. — Chris jchillatdgsysdotcom What would happen if I pulled the plug on the Reality Engine?

Response:

For the skeptics, may I suggest an experiment? Plan to take the Anchor brewer tour some day. Either before or preferably right after the tasting find a bottled version of Liberty or Steam that is reasonably fresh and compare the brewery fresh vs the only slightly older bottled version. I can guarantee that this will be an eye opening experience. They are light years apart IMO. This of course is not a controlled experiment and there are undoubtedly many variables involved.

I personally would go with the other variables. Do they filter goinginto the bottles, for example? I remain unconvinced, but I suppose now I’m going to have to come up with a good experiment here at home. cheers, -Alan — "Brewers make wort. Yeast makes beer". -Dave Miller’s Homebrewing Guide http://www.magma.ca/~bodnsatz/brew/tips/

Response:

: IMHO, HSA is very overplayed. I used to do the same thing without any : noticable off flavors. I read a post on the HBD that the folks at : Siebel said that oxidation after fermentation is about 10 times worse : than HSA. I’ve since stopped pouring hot wort, but only because I’ve : read and been told not to. I don’t think HSA is as bad as everyone : thinks. : My sentiments exactly. For the skeptics, may I suggest an experiment? Plan to take the Anchor brewer tour some day. Either before or preferably right after the tasting find a bottled version of Liberty or Steam that is reasonably fresh and compare the brewery fresh vs the only slightly older bottled version. I can guarantee that this will be an eye opening experience. They are light years apart IMO. This of course is not a controlled experiment and there are undoubtedly many variables involved. However, it has been widely speculated in the brewing community that their lautering technique/equipment, which introduces large amounts of air into hot wort, contributes to their beers very short shelf life compared to other breweries. I have done this experiment myself and I have witnessed a lautering of one of there beers. I am convinced something very wrong is going on here . Kent Townley Richardson,TX

Response:

I used to do the sink bath thing with my partial boils, because the pot was small enough to put in the sink. My new (since Xmas, only three batches so far) 30 quart pot for all grain is way too big and heavy to even consider trying to do an ice bath. So, now all I do is drain to a 7 gallon primary bucket, cover (twice with air-lock, once with just plastic) and let sit over night. Get up in the morning and pitch my yeast starter. Has worked great. I guess the big arguement for rapid cooling is minimizing the risk of infection by minimizing the time that the wort is exposed to the elements without any yeast present to protect. My thinking is that as long as it is covered, and not left more that a day or so, it will probably be alright. What did the first brewers do? I’m sure that they did not have wort chillers and at least some beer had to turn out ok. Anybody else use this method? Maybe I should consider force chilling my wort. The ice from pop bottles won’t work, because I am doing full volume boils, and I don’t like the idea of wasting all the water it would take to chill in an immersion chiller for 15-30 minutes. bw / / _ __ /Try to avoid phrases like "That badge/ / /_| | / /Brian Wooldridge/looks stupid", or "I can prove these / / /_/ / |/ |/ / /’Get Drunk with Dignity’ /

Response:

… and definitely don’t pour *hot* wort through a funnel or (worse yet) a strainer into a carboy. This’ll cause off-flavors due to Hot Side Aeration, which you don’t want.

Can you explain a little more about Hot Side Aeration? I’ve made seven batches so far and have always poured my hot wort through a strainer into a primary fermenter (plastic bucket). I don’t think I’ve had any off-flavors, that I know of…I hope I would notice if I did. Or is your comment more about the carboy vs. bucket? What process do you use? Jim

Response:

The drag of it was that it took FOREVER too cool down to under 78 degrees. It basically took overnight. Anyone got any smart suggestions for how to cool the stuff down faster, short of buying an expensive wort chiller? Is there a sensible way to use ice somehow?

Assuming you have a big enough brewpot, here’s what I do when I do extract brewing. My boil size is about 10 litres (quarts). A few days in advance I sanitize the insides of some 2 litre pop bottles, fill two of them with water, then freeze it. When the boil is done I carefully cut the plastic away from the ice, and even more carefully place the ice into the brewpot. Let the ice melt, then add to cold water in carboy. Bingo! There wort is cool enough to pitch. cheers, -Alan

Response:

I saw this in a bookstore while trying to figure out which recipe guide to buy. Use 2 liter soda bottles. Clean off the outside. Fill them with water and freeze. Sterilize the outside before use and just drop them in your brew pot when you are ready to cool. I wouldn’t think more than two would be needed for the volume of wort you mentioned.

So close yet so far away! Sanitize the insides, freeze your water, then cut the plastic off and carefully place the blocks of ice into the brewpot. I will cool far faster than putting pop bottle in there. cheers, -Alan

Response:

Simply put, HSA is aerating hot wort. When this happens, there are components of the wort that get oxidized. These oxidized components *can* later cause off flavors. The level to which they produce those off flavors is a function of perhaps several other things, like how the beer is stored and handled, how quickly it’s consumed, etc. But, IMO, it’s better to play it safe and cool your wort down to pitching temp before aerating too much. My procedure is to cool with an immersion chiller right in the pot, before racking the beer through a siphon setup into the fermenter. — Mark Nelson Windhund Brauerei Atlanta Georgia * Return e-mail spam-proofed – delete the obvious — – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – … and definitely don’t pour *hot* wort through a funnel or (worse yet) a strainer into a carboy. This’ll cause off-flavors due to Hot Side Aeration, which you don’t want. Can you explain a little more about Hot Side Aeration? I’ve made seven batches so far and have always poured my hot wort through a strainer into a primary fermenter (plastic bucket). I don’t think I’ve had any off-flavors, that I know of…I hope I would notice if I did. Or is your comment more about the carboy vs. bucket? What process do you use? Jim

Response:

Greetings. One headache I had was in chilling the wort. I didn’t do a full boil, … when boiling was done I dumped the brewpot contents directly into the carboy containing cold water, as per Papazian’s book. The drag of it was that it took FOREVER too cool down to under 78 degrees. It basically took overnight.

I’ll cover how to cool, then why to cool (which someone else asked in this thread). HOW TO COOL From your reference to a "20 quart brewpot" I assume you’ll be moving up to full-volume boils soon. For partial boils, adding ice works — Alan’s suggestion to freeze water in 2L bottles and cut them away is good (milk bottles also work). Be sure the water you freeze is sanitary enough to add to the wort — freezing won’t sanitize it. You can freeze 2L bottles and use them as icebergs, removing them as they melt. This takes a while — plastic doesn’t conduct heat real well, and once the ice starts to melt it’s surrounded by water in the bottle, which ALSO doesn’t conduct heat real well. What you want is convection constantly moving wort over the ice (or a good heat conductor, like metal). That’s why gently stirring the (metal) pot as it sits in cold water cools the wort rapidly. However, it’s dangerous to lug around a pot with 5 gallons of boiling-hot wort, to stick it into a sink or bathtub. What I do is simple, cheap, effective, and doesn’t waste a lot of water. I guess that’s why few other people do it… I have a heavy foil pan that fits into my brewpot (disposable roasting pan). A normal pan works too, but a little slower (Foil is a very good conductor of heat.) I float that on top of the wort after the boil and put about an inch of water into it — that sinks it enough to sanitize it in the hot wort. After maybe three minutes, the foil is heat-sanitized, and the water is steaming. After that, I dump out the water, put some ice into the pan, let it melt, and repeat. I generally get 5 gallons of wort below 100F in less than an hour, with one bag of purchased ice. Another option is a wort chiller, which is basically a coil of copper tube that you stick in the wort and run water through. Many people swear by these, but it means running your water tap for 15-30 minutes. At least one person fills up the washing machine while cooling wort, so as to not waste the water and heat. WHY TO COOL There are two major reasons: – Wort is a WONDERFUL medium for growing bacteria. Some of these can cause bad flavors. Yeast change the wort’s chemistry to make it much harder for bacteria to live; you want them in there working for you ASAP. – Wort produces dimethyl sulfide (DMS) when above (I think) about 150F. When the wort is boiling, this boils off. Once the wort is in the range 150-212, DMS is produced faster than it is vaporizing out of your wort. It can give a cooked-corn taste. Best, Sam Mize — Multi-part MIME message: " ", " ", " " (hands waving) Fight Spam – see http://www.cauce.org/

Response:

Here’s a couple of easy quickie solutions: 1. Go ahead and bring your wort to the bathtub. A bathtub full of cold water works great for me. One potential down side: Bathrooms have a lot of bacteria in them, but I haven’t had any infection problems. 2. Buy a $7, 25-gallon plastic tub at your local Wal Mart. It’s really handy. You can put cold water/icewater in here to cool down your wort; you can use it as a sanitizing bucket; it holds kegs nicely; fill it with beer and bottles for a party.

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – … and definitely don’t pour *hot* wort through a funnel or (worse yet) a strainer into a carboy. This’ll cause off-flavors due to Hot Side Aeration, which you don’t want. Can you explain a little more about Hot Side Aeration? I’ve made seven batches so far and have always poured my hot wort through a strainer into a primary fermenter (plastic bucket). I don’t think I’ve had any off-flavors, that I know of…I hope I would notice if I did. Or is your comment more about the carboy vs. bucket? What process do you use? Jim

Response:

the carboy. when boiling was done I dumped the brewpot contents directly into the carboy containing cold water, as per Papazian’s book. The drag of it was that it took FOREVER too cool down to under 78 degrees. It basically took overnight. I’ve seen suggestions to put the pot in the sink and run cold water around it. But m sink in my pathetic LA

appartment is far too small for me to wedge my 20 quart brewpot into it. I’d really rather not carry the thing all the way into the bathroom to stick in the tub, though I guess that’s what I plan on doing for the next batch. Anyone got any smart suggestions for how to cool

the stuff down faster, short of buying an expensive wort chiller? Is

there a sensible way to use ice somehow? Thanks for any advice! Much appreciated… – Mike Harm — Replace NOSPAM in the above address with

"gizmo.usc" to email me. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -Sorry, I know its a drag…

Response:

Can you fit your brew pot in an ice chest? If so use an ice water bath in the ice chest and boil at least 12 quarts of wort. Once the wort is cooled (below 80 F) transfer it to the carboy WITH MUCH splashing, Yeast NEED O2. Top off to 5 gal. Relax etc. Roy

Response:

Hi. So I’ve made one batch of beer, which came out reasonably well. It was a simple kit thing, nothing fancy. I hope to get more ambitious on the next batch. One headache I had was in chilling the wort. I didn’t do a full boil, and instead boiled the water (1.5 gals, I think?) in the pot, while putting 3 or so gallons of cold water in the carboy. when boiling was done I dumped the brewpot contents directly into the carboy containing cold water, as per Papazian’s book. The drag of it was that it took FOREVER too cool down to under 78 degrees. It basically took overnight. I’ve seen suggestions to put the pot in the sink and run cold water around it. But m sink in my pathetic LA appartment is far too small for me to wedge my 20 quart brewpot into it. I’d really rather not carry the thing all the way into the bathroom to stick in the tub, though I guess that’s what I plan on doing for the next batch. Anyone got any smart suggestions for how to cool the stuff down faster, short of buying an expensive wort chiller? Is there a sensible way to use ice somehow? Thanks for any advice! Much appreciated… – Mike Harm — Replace NOSPAM in the above address with "gizmo.usc" to email me. Sorry, I know its a drag…

Response:

Take the brewpot itself and put into a tub of cold water. Since your wort is about 1.5 gallons, the brewpot only has to be in the cold water for about 10-15 minutes. Then pour wort into sterilized fermenter and top off with 3.5 gallons of cold water. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hi. So I’ve made one batch of beer, which came out reasonably well. It was a simple kit thing, nothing fancy. I hope to get more ambitious on the next batch. One headache I had was in chilling the wort. I didn’t do a full boil, and instead boiled the water (1.5 gals, I think?) in the pot, while putting 3 or so gallons of cold water in the carboy. when boiling was done I dumped the brewpot contents directly into the carboy containing cold water, as per Papazian’s book. The drag of it was that it took FOREVER too cool down to under 78 degrees. It basically took overnight. I’ve seen suggestions to put the pot in the sink and run cold water around it. But m sink in my pathetic LA appartment is far too small for me to wedge my 20 quart brewpot into it. I’d really rather not carry the thing all the way into the bathroom to stick in the tub, though I guess that’s what I plan on doing for the next batch. Anyone got any smart suggestions for how to cool the stuff down faster, short of buying an expensive wort chiller? Is there a sensible way to use ice somehow? Thanks for any advice! Much appreciated… – Mike Harm — Replace NOSPAM in the above address with "gizmo.usc" to email me. Sorry, I know its a drag…

Response:

… and definitely don’t pour *hot* wort through a funnel or (worse yet) a strainer into a carboy. This’ll cause off-flavors due to Hot Side Aeration, which you don’t want. — Mark Nelson Windhund Brauerei Atlanta Georgia * Return e-mail spam-proofed – delete the obvious — – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Take the brewpot itself and put into a tub of cold water. Since your wort is about 1.5 gallons, the brewpot only has to be in the cold water for about 10-15 minutes. Then pour wort into sterilized fermenter and top off with 3.5 gallons of cold water. Hi. So I’ve made one batch of beer, which came out reasonably well. It was a simple kit thing, nothing fancy. I hope to get more ambitious on the next batch. One headache I had was in chilling the wort. I didn’t do a full boil, and instead boiled the water (1.5 gals, I think?) in the pot, while putting 3 or so gallons of cold water in the carboy. when boiling was done I dumped the brewpot contents directly into the carboy containing cold water, as per Papazian’s book. The drag of it was that it took FOREVER too cool down to under 78 degrees. It basically took overnight. I’ve seen suggestions to put the pot in the sink and run cold water around it. But m sink in my pathetic LA appartment is far too small for me to wedge my 20 quart brewpot into it. I’d really rather not carry the thing all the way into the bathroom to stick in the tub, though I guess that’s what I plan on doing for the next batch. Anyone got any smart suggestions for how to cool the stuff down faster, short of buying an expensive wort chiller? Is there a sensible way to use ice somehow? Thanks for any advice! Much appreciated… – Mike Harm — Replace NOSPAM in the above address with "gizmo.usc" to email me. Sorry, I know its a drag…

Response:

Before I broke down and bought a wort chiller (which is an absolute dream), I used to also brew relatively small batches of wort. Having the same problems, I quickly learned to put a jug of the water we get from Alhambra (3 gallon) into the fridge the night before. That got it down to about 35F +/-. When added to the wort, it brought the total temp down pretty quickly. If memory serves, it averaged out to the high 70’s, low 80’s. Now the chiller is a different story! As previously mentioned in many other posts to this NG, it normally takes very little time to bring down the temp. For me (on the last batch) I chilled the wort in about 10 minutes (in all fairness, I did add a bit of water to bring the wort up to 5 gallons…but not that much). Before I bought it, I had a hard time ponying up the dough, but now that I have…it is a treat! Keep in mind, the big argument for the wort chiller is that the cooling time is much less, minimizing the contamination risk (also an argument for making a yeast starter). Good Luck! David Brazeau San Jose, CA – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hi. So I’ve made one batch of beer, which came out reasonably well. It was a simple kit thing, nothing fancy. I hope to get more ambitious on the next batch. One headache I had was in chilling the wort. I didn’t do a full boil, and instead boiled the water (1.5 gals, I think?) in the pot, while putting 3 or so gallons of cold water in the carboy. when boiling was done I dumped the brewpot contents directly into the carboy containing cold water, as per Papazian’s book. The drag of it was that it took FOREVER too cool down to under 78 degrees. It basically took overnight. I’ve seen suggestions to put the pot in the sink and run cold water around it. But m sink in my pathetic LA appartment is far too small for me to wedge my 20 quart brewpot into it. I’d really rather not carry the thing all the way into the bathroom to stick in the tub, though I guess that’s what I plan on doing for the next batch. Anyone got any smart suggestions for how to cool the stuff down faster, short of buying an expensive wort chiller? Is there a sensible way to use ice somehow? Thanks for any advice! Much appreciated… – Mike Harm

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