Hey all – I gloriously came out of semi-retirement this weekend and brewed a Deadringer. But I clearly am rusty & made a rookie mistake. When I was done with the brew and pulled the kettle off the heat, I intended to cool the wort down… but I poured it into the carboy to sit in the ice bath, instead of keeping it in the kettle.
The plastic is clearly not responding the same way aluminum does… the temp is slowly creeping downward but to get under 70 where I can add yeast, at this pace will probably take ~3 hours. I’ve got a sanitized thermometer sitting in there, but otherwise just need to wait.
I have read several posts about no chill brewing, it’s actually used quite a lot in Australia from what I’ve read. The idea is to put the boiling wort into an airtight container and let it naturally drop down to pitching temp which can take 24-28 hours. The most important thing is keeping it airtight while it cools. I don’t know if you will get a good clean cold break with this method, but as long as it’s been airtight, you should be fine.
Seems there are more peeps down south that can’t chill to pitching temp, so they put the warm wort into a freeze-mentor or something as such… DWHAHB Sneezles61
Good news is that I already had two gallons of cold water in there, so by the time I added the wort the mixture was about 120 F. Not ideal but not hot enough to mess with the plastic. Anyway, 3-4 hours outside in the autumn chill did the trick… thanks everyone!
