Brewed a batch the other day, and I’m at it again today. I think I pitched at too high of a temp before being able to get the wort down.
I just purchased a Cool Brewing Bag which that first batch is sitting in, and it works great. If I were to take the new batch, put it in there until tomorrow morning to get the wort down into the 60s, would I then be able to pitch? Or is it not a good idea to wait that long?
As long as your sanitation is good, no problem at all. No chill brewing is a technique used by some brewers. The wort is sealed up and the the yeast pitched later when it has cooled. Later can be two to three days in some climates.
The critical time when an infection can occur is between cooling the wort and the start of fermentation. That said there is something called the “Australian method” where the wort is cooled over time in a sealed container. Sometimes kegs are used so the O2 can be flushed out with CO2 to help prevent anything bad from growing. The key to the whole process to me would be to make sure everything is sanitized very well.
IMHO the best bet is to find some way to chill as quickly as possible by some kind of chiller or ice bath.
EDIT: Flars types faster than I do :lol:
I don’t use the product you reference (which, by the way, looks intriguing), however on a few occasions I have waited to pitch my yeast until the following morning.
I certainly won’t claim there is no risk in doing so and recommend doing it only when absolutely necessary. However I can confidently say that in the dozen or so times I’ve needed to do this for various reasons, it has never negatively affected the quality of the finished beer. Having an active starter ready to go is certainly a plus, but a few times I didn’t even do that.
If you’re confident about your sanitation in handling the wort and the cleanliness of the environment in which you brew, I’d say just go for it.
I acknowledge that some of the more meticulously detail oriented brewers among us may disagree with the above, but in the end it’s simply one of those “do what you need to do and try not to worry” kind of situations.
:cheers:
I have a chiller, but the water this time of year when the temps have been 90 or so, aren’t quite as cool as in the winter or spring months. I’ll see how the chiller works this time and go from there.
Thanks for the replies.
I had read about recirculating, with a chiller, through a tub of ice water. Not sure how it is done. Would need a Google look up.
I run my seasonably warm tap water through my old immersion chiller that I have sitting in an ice bath in a cooler. Then it flows into my CFC. Works good for ales this time of year. Never cold enough for a lager, so they sit in the ferm fridge overnight before pitching.
You would need a second chiller to do this, but basically you’re chilling the cooling water itself by flowing it inside one IC that’s submerged in ice water, and then into your IC in the hot wort. It’s best to wait until the wort is moderately cool, like 120-130F or so, and then add the pre-chiller to the bucket of ice water. It works really well. The pre-chiller doesn’t need to be more than a $20 coil of copper flex tubing that you can get from most hardware stores, with some hose clamps to tighten your hoses to the ends.
Put ice and water in a container, drop a cheap submersible pump in the container, run the outlet of the pump to your immersion chiller (which has been sanitized by dropping it in the boiling wort for 15 minutes) and run the exhaust from the immersion chiller back into your ice water container.
I pre-chill the wort with tap water down to about 80 - 90F before I switch to ice water.
A March pump works great for recirculating the ice water, and can also be used to hold temps and get very clear wort by recirculating the wort during mashing.
+1 on good sanitation and no problem.
I’m too cheap to buy a pump for anything and in my new space I can’t chill down lower than about 90. I throw my sealed fermenters in my keggerator and pitch yeast the following morning. Have done this several times without issue, but again, good sanitation procedures are key.
I also have done the same. IC in ice before the CFC when city water supply gets too warm. That won’t be for another month or two at the rate the weather is going.
[quote=“Old_Dawg”]Put ice and water in a container, drop a cheap submersible pump in the container, run the outlet of the pump to your immersion chiller (which has been sanitized by dropping it in the boiling wort for 15 minutes) and run the exhaust from the immersion chiller back into your ice water container.
I pre-chill the wort with tap water down to about 80 - 90F before I switch to ice water.
A March pump works great for recirculating the ice water, and can also be used to hold temps and get very clear wort by recirculating the wort during mashing.[/quote]
I’ve been doing Ice right off the bat but of course most of the ice is gone before I get really low, didn’t think about using just tap water first. How long would you say it takes you to get down to pitching temps. I can’t get that low usually down to 100ish in about 20-30min before I transfer to the bucket and let the fermentation freezer take it the rest of the way.
My tap water is about 70-75F during the summer. If I stir the wort while running tap water through the IC it will drop to 100F in about 15 minutes (I think - never timed it). If I’m reading, it takes till I get to the end of a chapter - probably about 30 minutes.
After I switch to recirculating ice water, (I think) it takes about 15 minutes to get to 60F if I stir or 30 minutes if I’m reading. The smaller the difference between the temperature of the ice water and the wort, the slower the temperature of the wort falls. The last fifteen degrees getting to 45F (for lagers) is very slow.
The smaller the pieces of ice, the more rapidly they cool the water. A 20-pound bag of crushed ice works faster than the same weight of 1-quart chunks - I think.
Please take my time estimates with a grain of salt. I haven’t timed the process. I’m retired and not brewing on a schedule. Yes, life is good!
[quote=“Old_Dawg”]My tap water is about 70-75F during the summer. If I stir the wort while running tap water through the IC it will drop to 100F in about 15 minutes (I think - never timed it). If I’m reading, it takes till I get to the end of a chapter - probably about 30 minutes.
After I switch to recirculating ice water, (I think) it takes about 15 minutes to get to 60F if I stir or 30 minutes if I’m reading. The smaller the difference between the temperature of the ice water and the wort, the slower the temperature of the wort falls. The last fifteen degrees getting to 45F (for lagers) is very slow.
The smaller the pieces of ice, the more rapidly they cool the water. A 20-pound bag of crushed ice works faster than the same weight of 1-quart chunks - I think.
Please take my time estimates with a grain of salt. I haven’t timed the process. I’m retired and not brewing on a schedule. Yes, life is good![/quote]
Speaking of a grain of salt, if you put a cup or two of salt in with your ice water you’ll be surprised how much difference it makes in cooling. Just make sure your chiller doesn’t have any leaks. :cheers:
