Cooling The Wort

[donburke]

I'll be doing my first partial soon, and need some advice regarding my self concocted recipe

2kg liquid malt
80g saaz (60,45,30,15)
200g crystal grain
w34/70
ferment volume 14 litres

- steep grains in 2 litres water 70 degrees for 30 mins and put aside
- boil 500 g malt in 4 litres water for the hopping schedule
- with 15 minutes to go, add the rest of 1.5kg malt and grains water
- pour this all into my sanitised fermenter and shove in fridge for a couple of hours to get the temperature down
- when temp has cooled, top up water to 14 litres, shake like crazy and pitch yeast

i used the beer designer spreadsheet and this seems to fit the style well for a german pilsner, a couple of questions;

1) does the recipe sound ok ?
2) is it ok to splash the hot wort when pouring into the fermenter ?
3) is it ok to put the hot wort in the fridge to rapidly chill it to pitching temp ?

thanks for any help, this may be the first step toward all grain

 

[brando]

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is an extract brew, not a "partial". For it to be a partial you would need to mash the grains.

Why only 14 litres?

 

[flattop]

Why shake like crazy? You shouldn't be that nervous....

You need to aerate the wort prior to pitching so splashing is perfect.

I assume you are not putting the wort in a fridge with food as it will raise the fridge temp and spoil your cheeze....

 

[donburke]

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is an extract brew, not a "partial". For it to be a partial you would need to mash the grains.

Why only 14 litres?

i'm steeping 200g grain, is that partial ? if not, i'll move the post into another forum ... whats a partial then ?

14 litres because of existing pot sizes etc, plus if it tastes shit at least thats 14 litres fertiliser rather than 20 odd

 

[raven19]

1) does the recipe sound ok ?
Cant add any beneficial advice on this one - sorry!

2) is it ok to splash the hot wort when pouring into the fermenter ?
Absolutely, you want lots of aeration to help the yeasties eat the fermentable sugars.

3) is it ok to put the hot wort in the fridge to rapidly chill it to pitching temp ?
It wont be 'rapid' as such just putting in the fridge. It will just make your fridge work overtime!

Better option is to prepare an ice bath in the laundry/kitchen sink with a heap of tap water and ice. Once the boil has finished, put pot lid on, and place into ice bath for 15 mins or so, replacing the iced water as required. This shall help bring down the temp a bit.
Then dump it into fermentor
Then add top up cold water from tap to your desired volume
Stir with sanitised paddle
Check temp, then add yeast when ready.

 

[Bribie G]

4L boil is good for that quantity of LDME because you are 'replicating' the strength of wort that you would normally boil the hops in with an all grain brew. However instead of setting aside the steepings from the crystal malt, I would personally recommend doing the hop boil using the two litres of steepings, drained into the stockpot, plus an extra 2L of water. That way you are ending up with 4L of hot stuff, not 6L.

Putting a large quantity of hot wort in a fridge can labour the fridge and can be disappointingly slow in cooling.

I would instead suggest lidding the stockpot (presumably that is what you are using) and cooling by sitting it in cold water in laundry tub for an hour. Then put half a bag of pure drinking quality party ice (I use the Liquorland one) into the fermenter and pour everything in and top up. Instant pitching temperature

It's an extra dollar fifty but gets the brew kicked off very quickly. It's filtered purified water in the ice and I've never had an issue with it.

Edit: you are going to top up with town water anyway and I guess that the party drinking ice has got to be as good as or better than.
Edit 2: Other posters got in first, plus one with Raven's suggestions.

 

[donburke]

Why shake like crazy? You shouldn't be that nervous....

You need to aerate the wort prior to pitching so splashing is perfect.

I assume you are not putting the wort in a fridge with food as it will raise the fridge temp and spoil your cheeze....

i drink lots of coffee and it makes me shake

the fridge is a dedicated fermenting bar fridge, might throw the frozen leg of lamb in there to defrost in time for the sunday roast, it would only help both causes

 

[donburke]

Better option is to prepare an ice bath in the laundry/kitchen sink with a heap of tap water and ice. Once the boil has finished, put pot lid on, and place into ice bath for 15 mins or so, replacing the iced water as required. This shall help bring down the temp a bit.
Then dump it into fermentor
Then add top up cold water from tap to your desired volume
Stir with sanitised paddle
Check temp, then add yeast when ready.

ok, i get it, my rapid cool wont be so rapid,

or chill 10 odd litres of water in a sanitised vessel the night before to add to the hot water in conjunction with the ice bath

 

[mash head]

This last idea looks good. As I understand things though aeration of hot wort is bad and leads to oxidation but aeration of wort at pitching temperature is vital and if not done yeast will go on strike. Cheers Greg :lol:

 

[benno1973]

1) does the recipe sound ok ?

Can't comment, but it's a step up from k&k

2) is it ok to splash the hot wort when pouring into the fermenter ?

No! Don't! Cool it first, *then* splash. You want to aerate your cooled wort, not when it's hot...

3) is it ok to put the hot wort in the fridge to rapidly chill it to pitching temp ?

Yep. Freeze some cool drink bottles and stick them in there too. Help the fridge as much as possible - sit it in an icebath if you can before fridging it.

 

[Sammus]

No it isn't partial, partial involves mashing grain, not steeping it. Partial = partial mash.

 

[donburke]

However instead of setting aside the steepings from the crystal malt, I would personally recommend doing the hop boil using the two litres of steepings, drained into the stockpot, plus an extra 2L of water. That way you are ending up with 4L of hot stuff, not 6L.

this is a good idea, and has prompted me to do this;

steep grains, in 2 litres, calculators tell me i then need to add 145g malt to this to give 1.040 and use this for my hop boil, in the last 15mins add the rest of the malt

this should yield around 4 litres of hot wort, then add the 10 litres chilled water should get me much closer to pitching temp

thanks

 

[Adamt]

Just to back up and highlight what Kaiser said...

You DO NOT want to splash hot wort. Syphon it out with sanitised tubing into your fermenter. Add the rest of the water before you put it in the fridge (that'll help cool it down quicker)

 

[Steve]

... whats a partial then ?

This is a partial

http://www.elogicmedia.com.au/homebrew/

It involves mashing grains and adding a tin of goop towards the end of the boil
Cheers
Steve

 

[donburke]

Just to back up and highlight what Kaiser said...

You DO NOT want to splash hot wort. Syphon it out with sanitised tubing into your fermenter. Add the rest of the water before you put it in the fridge (that'll help cool it down quicker)

adamt, what do you think if i did this ...

sanitise the fermenter the night before, fill with the 10 odd litres of cold water i need for my recipe and stick it in the fridge

the next day after i have boiled my wort, throw it straight in to the fermenter, if my ratios of hot / cold water are correct, i should be at pitching temp and would be wanting to aerate the wort at that point

... would splashing still be an issue ?

thanks

 

[Gavo]

You don't want to splash hot wort unless you want the beer to end up tasting like carboard. I threw out a brew due to this. Check out HSA Hot Side Aeration.

To cool your Wort go with BribieG's suggestion of putting a lid on the pot and sitting it in the laundry tub with iced water. I used to get 9lt to cool down to 40C in about 10 min by doing this.

Also I would be boiling the liquid from steeping the grain with the small amount of malt extract for the 60min. I would only add the rest of the malt at the very end of the boil in order to dissolve it.

You will need to aerate the wort for healthy yeast production but do this when it is cooled to pitching temp.

Cheers
Gavo.

Edit: Spellink

 

[King Brown]

You should boil the broth from the specialty grain steep with the rest of your wort so it can reach the hot break (proteins contained in the grains that need to be boiled in order to separate from the wort) after your boil dunk the pot in an ice bath with the lid on as the others suggested to crash chill and get a cold break (which will help clear the beer by separating the cold break proteins out of the wort) You can speed up the chill by removing the lid and stirring the wort GENTLY with your brew spoon (which you should stick in the wort while it is still boiling in order to sanitize it.) You should only take the lid off and stir if you feel you can do this without splashing the hot wort or spilling any water from the ice bath into your brew pot.

Then when it is chilled under 40 degrees, you can whirlpool the wort and siphon it off the break material into the fermenter, splashing to your hearts content to aerate it. If you splash while it is hot you will probably oxidize your beer to a degree.

I should probably note I have never actually whirlpooled and siphoned, I normally crash chill then poor the wort into the fermenter through a sieve, the sieve quickly clogs with hop particles and wort only poors very slowly through it. As the liquid that comes out the other end is usually quite clear im certain the hop sludge must be enough to filter out the break material, though I could be wrong.

I would recommend reading John Palmer's how to brew, its filled with loads of helpful info and best of all its free online. its available [post="0"]here[/post]

 

[pint of lager]

To cool the wort while it is in the boiler, pop it in a sink or large tub with the lid on. Fill tub with water up to about the same level as the wort (stops the boiler form floating.)

Leave for a few minutes, then come back and very gently swirl the boiler. Wait a minute, then change the cooling water.

Once the wort has reached about 40-50 degrees, change the cooling water again and then add your ice.

Use plain tap water at the start for cooling, then start using your ice. This makes more efficient use of your ice, unless you have an unlimited suply.

Do avoid any splashing around the lid of your boiler.

As the others have pointed out, splashing of hot wort is bad, splashing of cool wort is good.

 

[donburke]

well thank you everyone for your input, it helped a lot

last night i brewed this beer,

i had around 3.5 litres of hot wort at the end of my boil, and i did the sink, tap water, then change water, add frozen water bottles

took around 20 mins to get the wort to 40 degrees, added the rest of my chilled water and pitched the slurry from my previous batch

the sink, frozen water bottle method worked wonderfully

thanks

 

[b_thomas]

Good to hear it all went well.

I should probably note I have never actually whirlpooled and siphoned, I normally crash chill then poor the wort into the fermenter through a sieve, the sieve quickly clogs with hop particles and wort only poors very slowly through it. As the liquid that comes out the other end is usually quite clear im certain the hop sludge must be enough to filter out the break material, though I could be wrong.

I would recommend reading John Palmer's how to brew, its filled with loads of helpful info and best of all its free online. its available [post="0"]here[/post]

+1

Definitely a good way to avoid the need to drill holes through your pot when you're starting out. I go one step further and add a few layers of sanitised (Napisan is perfect) Cheese cloth in to the sieve.

+1

For the reference to John Palmer's how to brew.