| The Double Luck Brewing Process: |
| Cooling |
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Cooling |
The bitter wort is now cooled as rapidly as possible. You need to be aware that once the temperature drops under 180°F, various micro organisms will find the brew to be both safe and irresistible. To prevent the beer from getting infected by these foreign micro organisms, from this point forward, care must be taken so that everything that comes in contact with the beer has been thoroughly cleaned and sanitized. The best way to prevent an infection by other organisms is to get a strong healthy yeast population in the brew, since the yeast and their waste products (alcohol) will suppress other organisms. We want to minimize the amount of time it takes to get the brew cooled so that fermentation can begin.
The obvious way to cool the wort is a very bad idea indeed! Several micro organisms that will spoil the beer are not killed by freezing. How do you propose to sanitize ice - boil it? Those of us living in and around the Houston area are familiar with a television journalist who made his reputation (among other ways) by announcing the list of local restaurants that have been cited that week by the public health inspectors, making famous the phrase, "Slime in the ice machine!" This slime is caused by a micro organism that will just love your beer. Ice, especially that purchased at the corner convenience store, is a substance that should not be allowed anywhere near your beer.
There are three commonly accepted methods used to cool the wort. The simplest method is to place the vessel containing the boiled wort into a bath of cold water. As it sits in the bath, heat will transfer out of the wort and into the water. Occasional stirring will speed the process. But this method is impractical where a large volume of wort is involved. It is difficult to transfer the hot, heavy pot into the sink or bath tub. Further, having to stir the wort occassionally increases the risk that an air-born infection will be introduced. This method is simply too slow to cool a large volume of wort, but might be useful for the relatively small volume needed when using kits or malt extracts.
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