What is bad about long wort cooling off period?

[cooldood]

I guess we can agree to disagree because all of this is anecdotal You are probably right about your driving data but that only supports my position. If 65 % will get in a car wreck and we average 50,000 trips in our lives that means on average 1 out of every 77,0000 trips I will get in an accident.  If I lose 1 out of every 77,000 batches I will be  happy. Since I brew 1 per month that is something like 6,000 years from now.    I deal with microbiology everyday so I have deep appreciation and knowledge of bugs.   There are bugs EVERYWHERE and yet we survive.  I would gladly pour a glass of water and leave it on the counter for a week and still drink it.  The yeast will virtually sterilize the wort in half that time.
 My point is the risk is negligible.  And I would be happy for anyone to prove me wrong with real world results.   I will make you a deal use the ice method and if you get a bad batch I will pay for it  and buy you a beer.

[tom_hampton]

Since you don't seem to be the type to believe what the more experienced tell you....do the experiments yourself.

Make two containers of STERILE wort. Use a pressure cooker to sterilize it.  After it cools, put one ice cubes in one container, leave the lids on, but loose. 

See what happens.

I bet the ice cube batch will spoil, while the control will not.

Smell it, decide if you want that in your beer.

It is not a myth.

[cooldood]

That is a good idea.  I do take a lot of advice and glad others have helped me so much.  I do have a lot of experience with micros and that is why I question the science behind it.  I could do just like you say, I could do a quick experiment  I could take an extract kit and split it in half and do a TVC count on the ice versus cooled.

[philm63]

+1 to smelling the results from the proposed experiment.

I had a pint recently that just flat had something wrong with it - a sour smell and taste, and it wasn't a Sour; it was a commercial Pale Ale from a well-known brewery here in the South and when I took a look at the bottle, sure enough - the signature ring in the neck told me there was an infection. It can happen to anyone.

This was a commercial beer, not a homebrew. I didn't get sick from drinking this beer, I DID get sick of that particular brewery, though.

It's mostly about the quality of the brew, not necessarily about the risk of foodborne illness. Folks just tend to like their beers better when they smell and taste right.

[jomebrew]

I drafted a substantial reply full of statistical data gathered from large commercial brewers, food producers, government agencies and brewing publications.  Then, I deleted it.   You are going to do what you want anyway.  That is what we all do.  Some of us can apply best practices without having to have deterministic testing on each process to determine the statistical likelihood of infection or whatever the process is supposed to achieve.   A few will question the processes because it interferes with their own and how they want to make beer.

For other brewers interested in the subject, the risk of  infections colonizing and affecting the beer quality from letting wort cool slowly is real and not worth the loss of your time spent and beer made.  There are at least a half dozen ways to cool wort safely and quickly.  Find one that you can afford and works for you and enhance it over time.

[durrettd]

I see that CoolDood  has -1 karma. I disagree with his evaluation of the risk of using unsterilized water or ice, but to penalize him - even with something as trivial as karma points - for disagreeing with the majority opinion stifles the free exchange of ideas. We benefit from open discussion. We suffer when everyone is pressured to agree with the party line. Columbus had the stupid idea that he could reach the far East by sailing West.

Please, let's express our opinions and suggest ways to confirm or refute those opinions. Then lets relax and have a homebrew while we let the discussion continue.

Dan

[KernelCrush]

I will make you a deal use the ice method and if you get a bad batch I will pay for it  and buy you a beer.

Cooldood, I tried your method on an Eisbock.  It didnt work.  You owe me 50 bucks.  And when I do drink beer I prefer Dos Equis. 

Not really, make it a Pilsner Urquell.

[cooldood]

Stop on over I have a wicked good stout that is about 4 months in the bottle right now. 

I was trying to be respectful when I proposed the question, and did not want to come across as bullheaded but I obviously I failed.
Now I have to go  sacrifice a keg to the beer gods to get my Karma back.   

I do a lot of process engineering in my job and you would be surprised how many times I hear " that's the way we have always done it"
they have no idea why and when tested sometimes you find out they are right but sometimes you also find out what they are doing is not adding benefit and only cost money.

It is easy to quote data but quoting REAL WORLD data from actual REAL WORLD experience is not so easy.  I am not going to get rich or gain fame by being the guy that got rid of wort chillers. I am just asking the question

HB has changed  A LOT over the last 10 years and it has all come from real world experimentation.  Many myths such as using a secondary to clear beer, table sugar for priming tastes like cider, have been dispelled and we as a community are all better for it. 
John Palmer said in his last book that he has changed his opinion on such things so if you are still reading V1 you are still doing things the "old way". 

Maybe we we should start a thread on HB myths and get some volunteers to test them? 
Or we could do a poll asking how many people boil/not boil their make up water?  ( The same water they would make ice with)

[KernelCrush]

I am with you on the myths...there are plenty.  I do some things in my process that I would probably get blasted for.  If you listen to Gordon Strongs recent podcasts and read his work he seems to be challenging some of them.  He has a pretty good track record. 

[tom_hampton]

The very first two batches of beer I ever made (12 years ago) used the ice method. Both were so badly infected they were undrinkable.  I almost gave up brewing.  I read how to brew (v1), and decided to try again, but without ice, doing a full boil instead.  The batch came out great.

Since you are a process Engineer you should know the difference between scientific data and anecdotal information (I refuse to call it data).   Your so called "real world data"  is nothing more than anecdotal.  Very few Homebrewers know how to do a properly designed controlled experiment. 

There is a method for letting the wort chill naturally.  It's called "no chill".  This method transfers the boiling wort to a heat proof container, and seals it while still near boiling temperature.  The wort is sterile, it's hot enough to sanitize the container, so infection risk is low. It's not low enough for me, unless you use a sterile air filter to allow the container to breath as it cools. Otherwise, it draws in unsanitary air and those yeasts and bacteria get lots of time to multiply once the wort drops below 150 or so.... Many, many hours before it reaches pitching temp.

[tom_hampton]

Hit, submit too soon. The "myths"  you refer to aren't really myths, but are outdated information that came from a time when ingredients were different.  As ingredients have improved, they have made the process steps that were in place to compensate unnecessary. 

Besides, chilling rapidly has benefits for the beer, regardless of sanitation concerns.  Halting Hops isomerization being a big one. Halting volatilization of hop oils, as well. 

[tom_hampton]

I guess we can agree to disagree because all of this is anecdotal You are probably right about your driving data but that only supports my position. If 65 % will get in a car wreck and we average 50,000 trips in our lives that means on average 1 out of every 77,0000 trips I will get in an accident. 

Your math is wrong, you know.  It assumes that everyone only gets in one accident.  In order to do the math you just did you need average number of accidents per person that gets in an accident in their lifetime. 

In addition, it assumes that accidents are a purely random phenomenon.  But, we all know the area not. The driver has substantial control over their specific probability.  We don't have total control, though.

It is much the same in brewing.  I can't sterilize everything, and I can't ensure a 100 pct sterile process. So, I use every practical process steps that I can to minimize my risks.   

Yeast do NOT sterilize beer. They decrease the ph down to about 4.1. That is low enough to be inhospitable to most life threatening organisms, but not to many off flavor producers. Lactobacillus, pediococcus, acetobacter, and all manner of wild yeasts are quite happy in beer, as are many others whose flavors aren't so popular.   Even still, I don't want Brett flavors in my stout.

So, if you are going to present yourself as a process Engineer with a "deep" knowledge of microbiology, you owe it to the reading population to ensure your facts are correct.  If you just want to be one of the masses spouting an opinion, then keep you credentials to yourself. 

[tom_hampton]

I see that CoolDood  has -1 karma. I disagree with his evaluation of the risk of using unsterilized water or ice, but to penalize him - even with something as trivial as karma points - for disagreeing with the majority opinion stifles the free exchange of ideas. We benefit from open discussion. We suffer when everyone is pressured to agree with the party line. Columbus had the stupid idea that he could reach the far East by sailing West.

Please, let's express our opinions and suggest ways to confirm or refute those opinions. Then lets relax and have a homebrew while we let the discussion continue.

Dan

True. But, he never succeeded in making it to Asia either.  In fact, he was eventually arrested and spent a large part of the remainder of his life in litigation.  :-P

All in all, the karma smite seems more in line.   :-D

[cooldood]

I work in a food processing plant and yes I deal with micro everyday.  I did not mean for this to become a technical paper. And quite frankly I am not going to put that kind of effort into it.  My math is obviously flawed I was just trying to make a general point about risk.  There is no real sterile food nor perfectly sterile environment.  I am a clean freak and I am sure I go over board.  I am sure people here run the gammet of trying to create a hospital operating room to working in the shed.  I am sure somewhere inbetween is the right answer. 

I find it amusing watching YouTube of HB and pros both "sanitizing" the heck out of things for fear of infection yet I have never seen
a hair net, beard net, color coded utensils,proper garb (not the same clothes they mowed the lawn in), hand washing, gloves (seldom).  I have seen many many times people taste the wort from the stirring spoon.  Take gravity samples and dump them back in.   
I personally would correct most if not all of those before I would worry about ice.  (The same ice I eat without fear of food poisoning).

I am not telling anyone how to run their brew that is their choice.  Bust since I can see this is not the place to have an open exchange of ideas I will not be back.

[tom_hampton]

Cooldood=

There is a difference between "open exchange" and agreement.  Several of your basic facts and claims are wrong.  "open exchange"  doesn't mean the prohibition from point pointing out inaccuracies. 

Having had two batches,in a row, go bad due to using infected ice, I would put ice on par with other basic sanitation practices.  Perhaps your local ice supply IS bacteria and wild yeast free. But without plating it out, I wouldn't bet on it and risk a batch of beer to it.