Cooling the wort

[schweitzer22]

Made a pale ale last night, I added the wort to 2.5 gallons of water but it took forever (2 hours) for the temp to get below 80deg. Is it ok for the wort to sit this long before pitching the yeast? I even put the car boy in the sink with cold water but it just didn't want to go down. I'm a little afraid that because it was 1:30 in the morning I may have added the yeast too early. I wanted to wait until it was around 75 deg. but I was battling a cold and just wanted to go to bed. Thanks all.

 

[rhamilton]

You want to drop the temp below 80° as fast as possible because of the risk of oxidization. The longer it sits above 80, the higher the risk. Look into some chilling equipment - you can make an IC chiller for under $50.

As for the yeast, they are probably OK.

 

[homebrewdad]

Odds are that you'll be just fine. Next time, add ice to that water in the sink, and change out the water as it warms up. Even better, invest in a wort chiller - I can drop from boiling to 70 degrees in 15 minutes.

You do want to cut that cool time down; the longer you stay at high temperature (140 degrees +), the longer that DMS is being released - but not boiled off - which could give you some off flavors. The longer the wort is warm, but not boiling (or close), the better chance that wild yeasts or bacteria can grow in the sugary goodness that will be your beer.

But even so, you'll probably have great beer Relax.

 

[schweitzer22]

Yea I get a bit paranoid. I'm hoping the two hours didn't hurt the beer. I did put a loose piece of foil on top to try and keep anything out. Any link on a good wort chiller?

 

[homebrewdad]

You can make a chiller for a little cheaper, but not as much cheaper as you once could (copper has gone up drastically).

Here's a good entry level chiller. Does a great job for me! http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?products_id=12739

 

[Rbeckett]

I found a 20 foot 3/8 chiller on amazon for right around 40 bucks. The tubing from homeless Despot is almost the same price but you have to bend it and add fittings. Thats definately not the way to save any money. Good luck and hope you get one soon so you dont have to toss a batch from contamination. That would be alcohol abuse...
Bob

 

[techbiker]

When I made my first batch, it took me about an hour to cool off 5 gallons of wort. I put the kettle in the sink and ran cold water around it, but I took a break for dinner because I didn't realize there was much of a danger from oxidization. I'm hoping that everything will turn out ok, but we'll see in a week when I bottle my brew.

Since you are only boiling 2.5 gallons, you could always put your brew in one side of a double sink and then channel the water around it and down the drain of the other side. This method seems to work well enough to cool off 5 gallons of wort to around 85 degrees in 30-40 minutes if you keep the water running.

 

[aidan]

You can chill a 2.5 gal pot of wort in the sink in 20-25 mins. Some tips:

1. Make sure the water level in the sink is up to at leas the liquid level in the pot
2. Use loads of ice. I use big blocks that I freeze in ice cream tubs
3. Move the ice water around regularly because otherwise you will just get a layer of warm water next to the pot
4. You can also stir the wort for faster chilling but I personally don't do this as I get fast enough chilling without and I'd be slightly concerned of increasing contamination risk, but if you're carefull I don't see why not.
5. Make sure pot has a good fittling lid to keep wort protected. As an extra precaution I sanitise my cooling water with a little bleach just on the off chance of any contact between the wort and cooling water. When I take the chilled pot out, I dry it off carefully, especially around the handles to reduce chance of drips of cooling water getting in my wort while pouring into fermentor.