BeerBorg

Now that I'm getting into the 5 gallon batches I was wondering, how quickly should you cool your wort? If I'm still using an extract base and my boils are only 2 gallons can I just leave it to cool on its own, stir it cool or is cooling quickly really that important that I should invest in a wort chiller.

jimmypirate wrote:Now that I'm getting into the 5 gallon batches I was wondering, how quickly should you cool your wort? If I'm still using an extract base and my boils are only 2 gallons can I just leave it to cool on its own, stir it cool or is cooling quickly really that important that I should invest in a wort chiller.

It depends on if you want to be an American Pirate or an Aussie Pirate while you sail the Eerie seas.

Americans would say to cool it ASAP.

If you do not want to chill it then you need to put a sanitized lid on it right at the end of your boil, or transfer it while still boiling hot into a sanitized 5 gallon HDPE container that you can completely seal and roll it around so the boiling hot wort touches every surface to kill any bugs that happened to fall in while you were transferring the wort. And then when completely cool (you can just leave it overnight at that point) toss it into your fermenter. If you put it into an HDPE container you can actually ignore it for a week or more and ferment whenever you want. In effect you are making your own "Fresh Wort Kit" like some of the beer kits you can buy that come as 5 gallon bags of wort instead of concentrated extract.

That's what the aussies call "No Chill" brewing. I have a friend who does this. They invented this process out of necessity, as in some places they can't be wasting hundreds of gallons of water out of their wells just to cool wort.

Americans will say that that process will give you DMS. It will not, that cake is a lie as long as you boiled it vigorously for 60 minutes or more, or are using extracts. It works fine. Just make sure it stays sealed/covered until you are ready to ferment, and if in a pot do it as soon as you can, because it's not really sealed, just mostly... infection is unlikely **** as long as you sanitized the lid and put it on while still boiling hot, but it is possible that while cooling the vacuum created may suck a random bug floating in the air under the lid. The yeast will easily outcompete that random bug as long as you get it in there in a reasonable amount of time. Just leaving it overnight and pitching the next day is a generally safe method I think.

The one caveat is that aroma boil hop additions in effect become FLAVOR additions. (think of a late or even a 0 minute aroma addition as a effectively a 15 or 20 minute flavor addition instead). For aroma you dry hop in the fermenter later. So you need to adjust your recipes accordingly if using that process.

EDIT: *** This low infection risk is all assuming you are doing at least a 15 minute or 20 minute boil even in an all extract or extract + steep batch (especially one of those) to be sure any bugs in your wort are dead, and you are careful about sanitization. ***

jimmypirate wrote:Now that I'm getting into the 5 gallon batches I was wondering, how quickly should you cool your wort? If I'm still using an extract base and my boils are only 2 gallons can I just leave it to cool on its own, stir it cool or is cooling quickly really that important that I should invest in a wort chiller.

Jimmy, I usually sanitize a piece of foil and mash it down around the rim of the kettle, then sanitize
the lid and smash that down on top of the foil to seal the pot.
I have a room in the basement, that this time of year,
is around 58F and even in the summer stays around 65F so I'll set it there with a fan on it until it's
cool enough to pitch the yeast.
Knock on wood, no infections yet.

You don't need a wort chiller for a batch that size. I now routinely do extract batches that start with 2.5 gallons of water and end up around 3 gallons with the added LME. I chill it in the sink with ice, made from Cool Whip containers, and get it down to 95 degrees in 15 to 20 minutes. Take a bunch of plastic containers and fill them 3/4 with water. Two days later empty them into a plastic bag and make more. I find that 18 blocks of ice are more than enough. I start making them a week before so as not to take up too much freezer space for too long.

I have found that the ice bath in the sink is effective for the 3gal boil size, I have an ice maker and if I dump a couple pounds of ice in the sink with cold water it only takes about 10-15 minutes of stirring the ice water to cool it enough to pitch. Also the sub-zero temps really help too, put it outside for a few minutes with the lid on and then ice bath it for a few and its all ready

add salt to the ice & water mix that will lower the temp some more

haerbob3 wrote:add salt to the ice & water mix that will lower the temp some more

This too

FYI, I missed that he was only doing 2 gallon boils. I'd persohally just put jugs of water in the freezer for an hour or two and pour them in when topping up to full volume for that kind of batch. Cools it right down.

All awesome ideas!!! Thanks guys.

I don't know but when I'm just sitting there I am chilling.

mashani wrote:FYI, I missed that he was only doing 2 gallon boils. I'd persohally just put jugs of water in the freezer for an hour or two and pour them in when topping up to full volume for that kind of batch. Cools it right down.

When I mix my 3 gallons (1.5 per LBK) at 95 degrees with a gallon of refrigerated water, I end up in the low 60s. If it was just off the stove, it would be much, much hotter, no?

In your case yeah.

He's only doing 2 gallon boils, so he's not going to end up with 3 gallons of wort, more like 1.5. And I'm suggesting using near freezing temp water to top up, not fridge temps. 3 to 3.5 gallons of near 32 degree water will put a serious dent in the temps. If I do a do a PV boil where I end up with about 2 gallons and top up to 5 with near freezing water, I end up with temps in 60's or 70's depending on just how close to freezing my water is and/or if I did a 20 minute hop stand or something that let it cool somewhat.

Makes sense. You add the water to the pot?

When I do 5 gallon batches yes. My pot only holds 4 gallons, and most of the time when I do a batch that big I've done a BIAB partial mash, so the pot is only "half full" as such by the time I'm done with the boil. So I add water to the pot as much as I can, which gets it cool enough to put into fermenters, and then I top up the rest of the way in the fermenter. I'm not worried about HSA, I find it impossible to get HSA to happen - I'm just worried about not melting my fermenter.

This online calculator comes in very handy for determining water temperature mixing rates:

http://www.onlineconversion.com/mixing_water.htm


Rick