Belgian White and Wort Chiller

Yesterday Mo and I started the Belgian White at my house.

Ingredients:

4lb can Edme wheat hopped extract kit (with yeast sachet)
3lb bag wheat (60% wheat, 40% barley) extract
Orange peel from 2 oranges
Corriander

We did a split 15 minute boil - 3 gallons in Jeremy's pot and 2 gallons in my stock pot. At the end of the boil, the orange and corriander were infused in the smaller pot.

We built a wort chiller and used it for the first time. 20ft of 0.25 inch ID copper tubing, with plastic hoses, one end connected to the cold tap, the other going emptying into a bucket. This device worked very well indeed, cooling the wort in less than 30 minutes, instead of 4 hours. The warm output water was put in the washing machine!

We aerated by pouring between the big pot and a bucket several times.

The dried yeast was rehydrated for 10 minutes, then woken up with a cup of cooled wort for 30 mins - the yeast showed it was happy by fizzing. Wort and yeast were funnelled into my 6.5 gall carboy.

Six hours later, the fermentation was already very active, with 88 bubbles/minute. The metabolisation has significantly increased the temperature of the wort - over 78degF.