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Author Topic: Cooling Wort  (Read 1849 times)

Offline wamille

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Cooling Wort
« on: August 19, 2016, 11:26:30 pm »
I have a Blichman Therminator, but since it's hot as balls where I live, I can only get the wort down to around 80F.  I have a dedicated fermentation fridge that's controlled to 64F... that's the temp I want for another beer that has been fermenting since last Saturday.  So, I stuck today's batch into into the fridge to cool to pitching temperature.  How long would it take for five gallons of wort to go from 80F to 70F in this situation?  I've been scouring the internet for some kind of calculator, but I'll be damned if I can find one.  Any advice would be appreciated.

Offline Erik_Mog

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Re: Cooling Wort
« Reply #1 on: August 20, 2016, 06:18:04 am »
I have the same situation.  Right now I can only chill to around 80F with my immersion chiller and well water.  I then transfer it to a fermenter and put it in my ferm chamber to finish chilling.  My last brew it took just over 3 hours for it to drop from 80F to 55F.
Bottled/Drinking:  Born Again Heathenweizen, Mongrel Belgian
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Future:  Undecided...too many to choose from

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Offline majorvices

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Re: Cooling Wort
« Reply #2 on: August 20, 2016, 06:38:01 am »
It's common practice in the brewing industry to cool for up to 12-14 hours before pitching yeast. It's really just not a big deal to cool over night.

Offline wamille

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Re: Cooling Wort
« Reply #3 on: August 20, 2016, 07:57:54 am »
Thanks guys for the info.  I waited just over six hours and then I pitched the yeast.  I had a pretty active, big yeast starter that is already working another six hours later.

Offline Steve L

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Re: Cooling Wort
« Reply #4 on: August 21, 2016, 07:37:05 am »
I've had the same problem with my plate chiller. I have started using my immersion chiller as a pre-chiller by dropping it in a bucket of ice water. Usually gets me about 10 degrees cooler. But like everyone else, have to put it in my cool box for an hour or more prior to pitching.
« Last Edit: August 21, 2016, 07:39:36 am by Brewtweak »
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Offline Steve Ruch

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Re: Cooling Wort
« Reply #5 on: August 21, 2016, 10:06:57 am »
A couple of batches ago I ended up with close to a half gallon (out of three) under my planned volume with the temperature higher than I wanted. So I added a little over a half gallon of 34 degree distilled water which got my volume up and the temperature down. The beer turned out great.
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Offline Lazy Ant Brewing

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Re: Cooling Wort
« Reply #6 on: August 25, 2016, 04:51:21 am »
I have the same problem with cooling the wort because the water coming from the local water tower is 76 F.

I got to about  100 F and then added 2 gals of chilled drinking water, then let it cool overnight before pitching the yeast.

I aerated pretty well at the time I put it in the fermenter, but did not aerate it again when I pitched the US05.
Now I'm wondering if I've got enough oxygen in the wort.

Please chime in with your thoughts on this and thanks in advance for your advice.
It's easier to read brewing books and get information from the forum than to sacrifice virgins to appease the brewing gods when bad beer happens!

Offline 69franx

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Re: Cooling Wort
« Reply #7 on: August 25, 2016, 05:00:54 am »
THE 05 does not have the same O2 needs as liquid yeast due to the way it is propogated, you should be fine
Frank L.
Fermenting: Nothing (ugh!)
Conditioning: Nothing (UGH!)
In keg: Nothing (Double UGH!)
In the works:  House IPA, Dark Mild, Ballantine Ale clone(still trying to work this one into the schedule)