Basic brewday questions

[hlm123]

Last weekend I brewed this Christmas Ale recipe and went through the standard routine for 5-gal extract brews, which is what all my brews have been so far. I noticed I keep running into the same uncertainties.

The first one is right when I'm getting started. I find my brew kettle, sometimes soaking in old Star San solution or water or soap/cleaner of some kind, and each time it seems to have a different color to it (it was snow white after soaking with OxiClean, now it's burnt black with splotches all over it). I'm never sure it's been cleaned or rinsed out properly, and the discoloration seems not quite right.

After that, smooth sailing until I'm done with the boil. For the next 30 minutes to an hour I'm trying to figure out how to cool down the wort faster, mix the wort so I can get a good gravity reading, figure out how much water I need to top off to 5 gal, and what to do with the dry yeast that I'm rehydrating and is open to the air. What I do is wait until the temp is down, pour into the 6.5-gal glass carboy (sturdy kind, not made in China or Mexico) (I always lose a few splashes worth of wort from the pour), top off with spring water, use the racking cane to suck out enough wort (mouth suction) to fill the hydrometer tube, take the temp. of that sample and the OG reading. But when it's in that glass tube, I'm thinking 1) the temperature is plummeting 2) how well mixed could this wort be, so that the OG reading has any worth?

As I'm writing this, it occurs to me that I could bring in the 6.5 gallon bucket to 1) facilitate pouring and aeration 2) easy temperature and gravity measurements after topping off with water 3) keep well mixed. It's a little more work, but seems to make the most sense for the process. Last question: does it make sense to drain the bucket from the spigot into the filter/carboy at this point, or would I still want to pour/siphon it to the carboy?

 

[agrazela]

I do partial boil. I cool my 5gal kettle in an ice bath in the sink (to about 80-85 F if 2 gal, 70-75 F if 3 gal boil). Then I put that cooled wort into my sanitized bottling bucket, top that up to 5 gal with refrigerated water, and stir with a big sanitized plastic spoon. Like you say, then it's well-mixed for OG reading. And at those temps the final mix comes out about 55-60 F, just right for yeast pitching. I do then fill my sanitized carboy from the bucket's spigot, using a sanitized funnel, and that aerates the wort pretty good.

 

[tooblue02]

I just used my 6.5 gallon bucket instead of the carboy as it was much easier when starting out and doing partial boils and adding top off water. I finally got tired of the ice bath and cooling issues on my 4th batch and found a decent 10G kettle and a propane burner to do BIAB and built a DIY wort chiller using parts from Lowes (copper has gone up some so I don't think I actually saved but my chiller works awesome!). The pot will get discolored but the best thing you can do is clean it right after the boil and store it properly, the outside will get discolored due to the heat but that's nothing to worry about.

I would def use the bucket to aerate as agrazela stated above, the chilled top off water will help with lowering temps the most.

 

[unionrdr]

If you're using an aluminum kettle,you have to boil water in it to get that oxidation coating on the inside. Stainless steel,just keep it clean. don't use acidic sanitizers like Starsan in them,as it eats into the metal,especially if left to soak. Keeping the kettle clean & boiling wort in it is enough to sanitize it.
And an auto siphon would be better than putting the germs from your mouth on anything touching the beer. Besides,auto siphons are easier to use.
I use an ice bath in the kitchen sink to get the hot wort in the kettle down to 75F or so. Then strain into the fermenter to get out gunk & aerate it pretty good. Then top off with local spring water that's been fridged a day or two to recipe volume. Then stir roughly for 3-5 minutes to mix wort & top off well for the OG reading.
When rehydrating yeast,I put 400mL of boiled/cooled water around 70-75F in my flask & sprinkle yeast in so it covers the surface of the water. Wait 15 minutes,the use a sanitized skewer to stir it in. Wait another 15 minutes,then stir again,cover & waoth 30 minutes more. Always cover the hydrating yeast to keep wild yeasts,etc out. I do it this way per a PDF I read on US-05 rehydration proceedure. Works fine for me,since the hydrate temp is close to the 64F initial wort temp. They should be within 10 degrees of eachother for a healthy pitch.
Draining the bucket through the spigot into the fermenter will help aerate it even more.