Brewing Master

Question:

I’m a first time homebrewer and I just brewed my first batch last Sat. After I boiled the wort, I put it in a sink full of ice to cool it down. I think I may have cooled it too long, though, and when I added it to the water in my fermenter it didn’t warm it up at all (the temp remained about 60 degrees). Anyway, I pitched the yeast, put on the airlock, etc. Well, after 36 hours no fermentation had started yet and I think it was too cold in my basement (the temp was 55 degrees). To make this horror story worse, I left it in front of the heater vent before I went to bed. Anyway, when I got up in the morning (yesterday) it was fermenting like crazy and continued to ferment. It slowed down last night and right now it’s popping a bubble out about twice a minute. Anyway, I have 2 questions: 1. Is my beer going to turn out nasty? (BTW, I used two LME extracts – John Bull Unhopped Amber and Coopers Real Ale). 2. When first starting out, especially with a kit, should I just pour hot wort into the fermenter, wait ’til it cools until it’s below 80 and pitch the yeast? What are the benefits of cooling the wort? In Papazian’s book he doesn’t even mention cooling the wort until the Advanced Brewing section. Any help would be sincerely appreciated! Captain Roy

Response:

Get the wort as cool as you can absolutely get it.  Ferment at 55 degrees, 60 degrees if it’s an ale yeast.  Cool, long fermentations make very good beer.

Response:

I’m a first time homebrewer and I just brewed my first batch last Sat. After I boiled the wort, I put it in a sink full of ice to cool it down. I think I may have cooled it too long, though, and when I added it to the water in my fermenter it didn’t warm it up at all (the temp remained about 60 degrees). Anyway, I pitched the yeast, put on the airlock, etc. Well, after 36 hours no fermentation had started yet and I think it was too cold in my basement (the temp was 55 degrees). To make this horror story worse, I left it in front of the heater vent before I went to bed. Anyway, when I got up in the morning (yesterday) it was fermenting like crazy and continued to ferment. It slowed down last night and right now it’s popping a bubble out about twice a minute. Anyway, I have 2 questions: 1. Is my beer going to turn out nasty? (BTW, I used two LME extracts – John Bull Unhopped Amber and Coopers Real Ale).

Do you have any idea how warm it got in front of the heater?  If it didn’t get much over 75 F, then it should be fine.  Even if it did go higher than that, it probably isn’t ruined, it just may have a few "funny" flavors.  Some of them will go away if you secondary the beer at a reasonable temperature. 2. When first starting out, especially with a kit, should I just pour hot wort into the fermenter, wait ’til it cools until it’s below 80 and pitch the yeast?

No.  It *is* better to cool the wort to about 70-75 F as quickly as possible and before moving from the kettle (to prevent aerating while the wort is hot) What are the benefits of cooling the wort?

If the wort cools slowly, it could spend too much time in temperature ranges conducive to unwanted characteristics.  There is an organic compound, known by its acronym DMS, that has a cooked corn-like taste. Slow cooling can encourage the production of DMS, so rapid cooling is better.   Slow cooling also encourages the growth of some unwanted microflora (bacteria, fungi, etc.).  Some of these organisms thrive in temperatures that lie between the boiling point and the desired pitching temperature.  The quicker you move through these temperature "regions" and get to the pitching point, the better.  This will keep the populations of the unwanted critters to a minimum and give your yeast its best opportunity to dominate the wort (a good thing). In Papazian’s book he doesn’t even mention cooling the wort until the Advanced Brewing section.

My guess; he was just trying to keep it simple, to not overwhelm the newcomer with too many things to be concerned about. Any help would be sincerely appreciated!

I hope this was of some help. http://www.ix.netcom.com/~maltster.html – come by for a visit!

Response:

I’m a first time homebrewer and I just brewed my first batch last Sat. After I boiled the wort, I put it in a sink full of ice to cool it down. I think I may have cooled it too long, though, and when I added it to [...]

Sounds trite, but you really should "Relax, …". 2. When first starting out, especially with a kit, should I just pour hot wort into the fermenter, wait ’til it cools until it’s below 80 and pitch the yeast? What are the benefits of cooling the wort? In Papazian’s book he doesn’t even mention cooling the wort until the Advanced Brewing section.[...]

Boiled yeasties are dead beasties.  Dealing with this for extract brewers is easier, because we’re doing partial volume boils, which means that you can cool down a concentrated wort quicker (like in a sink of cold tap water) and then take it the rest of the way with the diluting water to make up the rest of the volume. That’s the first order effect.  Things like hot side aereation (sp?) also have an effect, people say.  If you don’t like the lag time until blast-off you should try adding more yeast at the beginning.  I too have just recently started playing with starters.  Look for the advice people gave me under

Response:

I just brewed my first non-kit batch yesterday. What I did was sanitize my carboy, fill it with three gallons of cold water, and then set it in my extremely cold garage for several days with a stopper in the top. The water was around 36 degrees when I got ready to pour in the wort. It was down below 78 in about 15 minutes.

May I suggest putting the carboy in a gunny sack and then put the gunny sac and the carboy in a bucket.  That way when the carboy breacks, all beer is caight in the bucket and all the glass in gunny sack.

Response:

I just brewed my first non-kit batch yesterday. What I did was sanitize my carboy, fill it with three gallons of cold water, and then set it in my extremely cold garage for several days with a stopper in the top. The water was around 36 degrees when I got ready to pour in the wort. It was down below 78 in about 15 minutes. May I suggest putting the carboy in a gunny sack and then put the gunny sac and the carboy in a bucket.  That way when the carboy breacks, all beer is caight in the bucket and all the glass in gunny sack.

The air was not below freezing therefore the carboy wouldn’t break

Response:

I just brewed my first non-kit batch yesterday. What I did was sanitize my carboy, fill it with three gallons of cold water, and then set it in my extremely cold garage for several days with a stopper in the top. The water was around 36 degrees when I got ready to pour in the wort. It was down below 78 in about 15 minutes.

Or a better solution would be to line in Minnesota!  I just did my first batch a couple of weeks ago and what I did was placed my 3 gallons of water outside just before I started steeping the grains/boiling the wort, and by the time I added the wort to the water (~ 1.5 hours later) it was cold enough to immediatly cool the wort to around 70 degrees. (did I mention that it was -20F outside…) I am not sure what I am going to do when spring comes… But so far so good, I have my beer in its second carboy and it seems to have a nice slow bubble.  I am anxious to bottle this weekend! Kevin

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||| ||| I’m a first time homebrewer and I just brewed my first batch last Sat. ||| After I boiled the wort, I put it in a sink full of ice to cool it down. ||| I think I may have cooled it too long, though, and when I added it to [...] ||| I just brewed my first non-kit batch yesterday. What I did was sanitize my carboy, fill it with three gallons of cold water, and then set it in my extremely cold garage for several days with a stopper in the top. The water was around 36 degrees when I got ready to pour in the wort. It was down below 78 in about 15 minutes. Joey — /| Joey Gibson – VB/PB/C++ Developer, JAPH , Right-Wing Extremist! || [I]t isn’t so much that liberals are ignorant. It’s just that ||       they know so much that isn’t so. – Ronald Reagan |     Get my PGP key from a key-server. Key-ID: 0×16817A11

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I have a clean, food grade plastic container meant to be used as a "tupperware" container.  It holds a little over 2 gallons (my wort concentrate was right at 2 gallons).  I poured the wort carefully into this sanitized container and placed this into the sink with cold water and ice.  Then I placed into this an aquarium hobby device called a "power head", essentially an impeller-pump which is electric and submersible.

Oops.  Don’t put the powerhead in the wort, put it in the ice water. Probably obvious but I wanted to clarify Unsolicited Advertising not welcome at this address. *** It may also violate the law. *** I AGGRESSIVELY PURSUE ALL AVAILABLE ACTION AGAINST THE PERPETRATORS OF SPAM TO THIS ADDRESS. –Bernie D. Starchaser<— Cigar Bums: http://www.geocities.com/NapaValley/2251/ ASC FAQ:  http://www.cigargroup.com/

Response:

I’m a first time homebrewer and I just brewed my first batch last Sat. After I boiled the wort, I put it in a sink full of ice to cool it down. I think I may have cooled it too long, though, and when I added it to [...] Boiled yeasties are dead beasties.  Dealing with this for extract brewers is easier, because we’re doing partial volume boils, which means that you can cool down a concentrated wort quicker (like in a sink of cold tap water) and then take it the rest of the way with the diluting water to make up the rest of the volume. That’s the first order effect.  Things like hot side aereation (sp?) also have an effect, people say.  If you don’t like the lag time until blast-off you should try adding more yeast at the beginning.  I too have just recently started playing with starters.  Look for the advice people gave me under

Lurk Mode Cancel: I, too, am a newbie.  I did one kit and then decided to go for a pure extract-based recipe (from Papazian’s book, open on the counter during brew session .  To chill the concentrated wort from boiling down to a reasonable temperature, I did this: I have a clean, food grade plastic container meant to be used as a "tupperware" container.  It holds a little over 2 gallons (my wort concentrate was right at 2 gallons).  I poured the wort carefully into this sanitized container and placed this into the sink with cold water and ice.  Then I placed into this an aquarium hobby device called a "power head", essentially an impeller-pump which is electric and submersible.  Voila’!  Circulating chiller.  In about 20 minutes I was down to around 105 degrees F.  Into the carboy with 2 gallons of cool water and then this cooled concentrate.  Now down to 80 degrees.  10 minutes later I had passed the 75F mark and pitched my ale yeast (pre-hydrated as per Papazian).  By the next morning the little yeastie-beasties were blowing off like there was no tommorrow.  All seems well.  Final results?  We’ll see.  But everything seemed to go the way Charlie said it should go, so I had a beer and a cigar and chilled out (bad pun intended). Power heads are available at any aquarium supply store. Lurk Mode Engaged. Unsolicited Advertising is not welcome at this address *** It Also May Violate The Law *** I AGGRESSIVELY PURSUE ALL AVAILABLE ACTION AGAINST THE PERPETRATORS OF SPAM TO THIS ADDRESS. —Bernie D. Starchaser<—

Response:

One of the benefits of boiling in the first place is to kill bad bacteria. If you pour cold "tap" water into your sterilized wort, you stand a good chance of contamination. I boil everything, even if I have to use several pots.

I tend not to boil the water, just the wort, and so far (four batches) everything has been fine. If your water contains nasty bacteria you should head straight for the majors office. Uwe —  Spam-proof e-mail: Uwe Schuerkamp <hoover at telemedia . de http://www.telemedia.de/~hoover ////// Phone: +49-5241-80-10-66     Best of Scottish Folk: http://home.pages.de/~nsg   Blue Ribbon Campaign:  Support Free Speech on the Internet <<<

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I generally believe that my tap water is safe bacteria wise. The main problem with just adding tap water to the gyle is residual chlorine. Boiling will remove the chlorine. I use a Granulated Activated Charcoal filter to remove chlorine. As far as adding cold water to hot wort, it can be done. But there are a few things that make cooling the wort first a better idea. #1. Adding cold water will cool  down the wort, but not enough. Heat transfer works best with the largest temperature differential. In other words, it is easier to get the heat out of  2 gallons 212 F wort than 5 gallons of 130 F wort. #2. In "The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing", it is suggested to pour hot wort into cold water. This is a bad idea since it can lead to "Hot Side Aeration", which may or may not oxidize your beer, leading to off flavors. I don’t want to get into that debate, but I still think it is a bad idea. Pouring the cold water in, if you are careful might not hurt, but see #1. I have heard that it is bad to cool the hot wort by pouring cold water into it. It was stated that the wort shold be cold before any water was added. One of the benefits of boiling in the first place is to kill bad bacteria. If you pour cold "tap" water into your sterilized wort, you stand a good chance of contamination. I boil everything, even if I have to use several pots. Luke — James Tomlinson Give a man a beer, and he wastes an hour. But teach a man how to brew, and he wastes a lifetime!

When Adding hot wort to Cool water he ment through a HOSE, not just pour it in.  That will to all kinds of uncertainties!!  Not to mention fucking up your beer!!      I Will never do that!  Not if i’m in a hurry, or desperate!!NEVER!!     Harsh    (Why Risk It)

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cold water or vice versa because of two reasons: 1) you can avoid the temperature shock which could crack a glass carboy from the hot wort 2) the cold water + hot wort won’t cool the resulting wort down to pitching temp so now you have twice as much wort to chill or wait to cool off before pitching.  Ever try to cool 5 gallons of wort, can’t do it in kitchen sink.  It’s feasible to cool 2-3 gallons in a brewpot in kitchen sink if you had to.

I’m in the lucky situation that our tap water here is very cold (about 12C), so what I do is pour the water used for sanitizing the carboy into a large bucket and float the pot with the boiling wort in it, maybe exchanging or adding cold water once or twice. This usually brings down wort temperature to about hand-warm in 15-20 minutes, conserves water and is fun pushing the floating pot around in the water (with its lid on of course, just occasionally lifting it to let the steam escape and taking some additional heat with it . Regards, Uwe —  Spam-proof e-mail: Uwe Schuerkamp <hoover at telemedia . de http://www.telemedia.de/~hoover ////// Phone: +49-5241-80-10-66     Best of Scottish Folk: http://home.pages.de/~nsg   Blue Ribbon Campaign:  Support Free Speech on the Internet <<<

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Some will argue that this will contaminate the wort….no freezing will not kill all the critters (if any)…..the ice is the same water I would top off with anyway, whats the difference I ask?  None.  THis has worked fine for me for years, not a single bad batch.  I can go from boiling to pitching in 15 minutes, no expensive wort chillers, no problems, just ice. T

The difference is that the ice has been sitting around in your freezer for several days, more than enough time for it to have frozen bacteria sitting on it, plus your frig is full of bacteria. As far as wort chillers being expensive, my immersion chiller can be made from 20 ft of copper tubing ($14), A solder in reducer ($1) and a solder in Hose connector ($2). If you need to add a facuet to garden hose adapter, add $2 and a modified short peice of hose (a couple of bucks). Generally, I cool my wort outside now, and just hook my garden hose up to the connector and an outside faucet. — James Tomlinson Give a man a beer, and he wastes an hour. But teach a man how to brew, and he wastes a lifetime!

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– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hello I have heard that it is bad to cool the hot wort by pouring cold water into it. It was stated that the wort shold be cold before any water was added. I fail to understand the reason for this. Actually my immediate reaction was that it would be good to pour the tap water into the wort with a bit of pressure as the water would transport a considerable amount of oxygen into the wort. Then I thougt that it might have something to do with the wort being so hot… I realize that that cloride (and a bunch ofother things) is a problem with unboiled water, but it was not said that the water should be boiled, only that the wort should be cooled before the tap water was added. Any reactions to this? T. I. A /peter

You don’t want to splash hot wort around very much, this is the reason.  What I’ve done for years as a partial boil extract brewer is just chunk in a few trays of ice to the hot wort after boiling.  After the wort cools to around 85 degrees, siphon to the fermenter, top up with water and pitch. Some will argue that this will contaminate the wort….no freezing will not kill all the critters (if any)…..the ice is the same water I would top off with anyway, whats the difference I ask?  None.  THis has worked fine for me for years, not a single bad batch.  I can go from boiling to pitching in 15 minutes, no expensive wort chillers, no problems, just ice. T

Response:

- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I generally believe that my tap water is safe bacteria wise. The main problem with just adding tap water to the gyle is residual chlorine. Boiling will remove the chlorine. I use a Granulated Activated Charcoal filter to remove chlorine. As far as adding cold water to hot wort, it can be done. But there are a few things that make cooling the wort first a better idea. #1. Adding cold water will cool  down the wort, but not enough. Heat transfer works best with the largest temperature differential. In other words, it is easier to get the heat out of  2 gallons 212 F wort than 5 gallons of 130 F wort. #2. In "The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing", it is suggested to pour hot wort into cold water. This is a bad idea since it can lead to "Hot Side Aeration", which may or may not oxidize your beer, leading to off flavors. I don’t want to get into that debate, but I still think it is a bad idea. Pouring the cold water in, if you are careful might not hurt, but see #1.

Just a couple of thoughts here (and past experience)  For my extract brewing (just starting all grain) before brewing the beer I boil three gallons of water and place it in the freezer.  Then I start my wort and by the time I’m ready to place it in the primary the water in the freezer is down to about 32 degrees with only a small rime of ice.  I mix the two and the usual resulting temperature is between 80 and 90 degrees.  I pitch, I seal, and I have less time exposed than if I used my wort chiller… I do not recommend this with a glass carboy, BTW I have not had any problems with aeration using this method.  If I areate for 15 minutes after mixing I get quicker results but never anything that tasted oxidized… – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I have heard that it is bad to cool the hot wort by pouring cold water into it. It was stated that the wort shold be cold before any water was added. One of the benefits of boiling in the first place is to kill bad bacteria. If you pour cold "tap" water into your sterilized wort, you stand a good chance of contamination. I boil everything, even if I have to use several pots. Luke — James Tomlinson Give a man a beer, and he wastes an hour. But teach a man how to brew, and he wastes a lifetime!

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As the wort cools, contamanints of sorts found in tap  water could potentially effect your beer.  I do add my cooled wort to the fermenter and then add spring water to it, which helps aerate, but with no ill effects, yet anyway…. I just tested  a 10 minute wort cooler that I dreamt up.  When my 2.5 gallons of wort is done boiling in my 20 quart pot,  I place  a smaller 1.5 gallon stainless steel pot inside and let it sit for few minutes to sanitize, I then fill that sumbitch full of ice.  As the ice  melts I siphon out the melt-water and keep adding  more ice.  I only used two bags of ice, a record for me,  and the wort reached 85 degrees in under fifteen minutes. john – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hello I have heard that it is bad to cool the hot wort by pouring cold water into it. It was stated that the wort shold be cold before any water was added. I fail to understand the reason for this. Actually my immediate reaction was that it would be good to pour the tap water into the wort with a bit of pressure as the water would transport a considerable amount of oxygen into the wort. Then I thougt that it might have something to do with the wort being so hot… I realize that that cloride (and a bunch ofother things) is a problem with unboiled water, but it was not said that the water should be boiled, only that the wort should be cooled before the tap water was added. Any reactions to this? T. I. A /peter

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The reason is the airation of the hot wort causes off flavors.  Acetyls become oxygenated causing skunk flavors.  The bes way to cool in a simple fashion is to fill your sink with water and some ice and rotate your pot in it.  Change the water three times over 30 minutes and you’ll find for five gallons your wort is cool. Graphic Brewer http://graphics-brew.hypermart.net/ Free graphics, design, and virtual postcards of an unusual nature.

===clipage==

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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hello I have heard that it is bad to cool the hot wort by pouring cold water into it. It was stated that the wort shold be cold before any water was added. I fail to understand the reason for this. Actually my immediate reaction was that it would be good to pour the tap water into the wort with a bit of pressure as the water would transport a considerable amount of oxygen into the wort. Then I thougt that it might have something to do with the wort being so hot… I realize that that cloride (and a bunch ofother things) is a problem with unboiled water, but it was not said that the water should be boiled, only that the wort should be cooled before the tap water was added. Any reactions to this? T. I. A /peter

        The problem is that aerating hot wort produces some very nasty flavours.  You want to cool the wort, then add to the carboy, then aerate well.  The problem with Cl in your water is a real one.  If your water supply is Clorinated you can let your water sit out for a day or two prior to use, and this will drive off the Cl in the consentrations used in water supplies.  Another problem with adding hot wort to a carboy then the cold water is Thermal shock to the glass, which could cause it to shatter.  Not a pleasent prospect.  Five gallons of wort is a damn hard mess to clean up.  Also, (as if it weren’t enough) adding cold water to a larger volume of hot water is a very inefficient way of cooling the bulk liquid down.  You are better off cooling in the brew kettle in a water bath or using a wort chiller.

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I have heard that it is bad to cool the hot wort by pouring cold water into it. It was stated that the wort shold be cold before any water was added.

One of the benefits of boiling in the first place is to kill bad bacteria. If you pour cold "tap" water into your sterilized wort, you stand a good chance of contamination. I boil everything, even if I have to use several pots. Luke

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Hello I have heard that it is bad to cool the hot wort by pouring cold water into it. It was stated that the wort shold be cold before any water was added.

Yes, unless you can add the cold water without aerating (very difficult to do). I fail to understand the reason for this. Actually my immediate reaction was that it would be good to pour the tap water into the wort with a bit of pressure as the water would transport a considerable amount of oxygen into the wort. Then I thougt that it might have something to do with the wort being so hot…

That’s exactly the reason.  Once the wort is cool, you want to get plenty of oxygen dissolved in the wort, as the yeast will use it up as it reproduces, and it won’t have time to react with the wort. However, when the wort is hot, oxidation reactions occur much more quickly; this can result in off-flavors often described as tasting like wet cardboard.   So, simply, the only time you want to aerate is immediately after cooling.  You can pitch the yeast before or after you aerate, it makes little difference. Mark —- The email address above is wrong. To reply via email, please change "NoSpam" to "ItsMark" (No quotes)

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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hello I have heard that it is bad to cool the hot wort by pouring cold water into it. It was stated that the wort shold be cold before any water was added. I fail to understand the reason for this. Actually my immediate reaction was that it would be good to pour the tap water into the wort with a bit of pressure as the water would transport a considerable amount of oxygen into the wort. Then I thougt that it might have something to do with the wort being so hot… I realize that that cloride (and a bunch ofother things) is a problem with unboiled water, but it was not said that the water should be boiled, only that the wort should be cooled before the tap water was added. Any reactions to this? T. I. A /peter

All things being equal, it’s better to pour cold wort into cold water or vice versa because of two reasons: 1) you can avoid the temperature shock which could crack a glass carboy from the hot wort 2) the cold water + hot wort won’t cool the resulting wort down to pitching temp so now you have twice as much wort to chill or wait to cool off before pitching.  Ever try to cool 5 gallons of wort, can’t do it in kitchen sink.  It’s feasible to cool 2-3 gallons in a brewpot in kitchen sink if you had to. MHO, FWIW. Paul

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Hello I have heard that it is bad to cool the hot wort by pouring cold water into it. It was stated that the wort shold be cold before any water was added. I fail to understand the reason for this. Actually my immediate reaction was that it would be good to pour the tap water into the wort with a bit of pressure as the water would transport a considerable amount of oxygen into the wort. Then I thougt that it might have something to do with the wort being so hot… I realize that that cloride (and a bunch ofother things) is a problem with unboiled water, but it was not said that the water should be boiled, only that the wort should be cooled before the tap water was added. Any reactions to this? T. I. A /peter

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