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Hi, I'm Mark Emiley on behalf of Expert Village. In this segment, we are going to chill our
wort and get it ready to put our yeast into. To do this, we're first going to take our
wort and put it into the sink. Next, we're going to take our drain plug and put it in
there and start flowing cold water. In the chilling process, we're trying to drop the
temperature of the wort as fast as we can to encourage something called "cold break"
which will precipitate proteins and also get the wort to a temperature at which we can
mix in our yeast as quickly as we can so the yeast has the best chance of establishing
itself since it's the dominant microbe in the wort. While I'm doing this, I'm stirring
the water around the pot in order to break up the boundary layer that's formed of hot
water. Also, you can kind of give the pot a little stir and that breaks up the boundary
layer on the inside so this will encourage a cooler slowing...or a faster cooling. While
you are waiting for your wort to chill, you may want to get a head start on the next step
which is yeast preparation. While we are waiting for it to cool, we are going to start filling
our bucket up with some nice cold water. Now, with these buckets, this typically represents
the halfway mark or (I'm sorry) the five gallon mark. So, we're going to start filling it
to roughly two and a half gallons and then we're going to top off with the wort and then
whatever else we need to get just above five and a half gallons. So grab your water and
start pouring and filling it up. You're going to want to fill your airlock half up with
sanitizing solution or water. This is going to help prevent any microbes or air from getting
in and also allow the carbon dioxide to escape. The hot kettle will heat up your water pretty
quickly, so once its gotten to a pretty warm temperature, you're going to want to drain
it. And then we are going to fill it up and get some ice next time. Now that we've filled
the sink back up with a nice cold batch of water, we're going to make it even colder
by adding a whole bunch of ice from our refrigerator. Then we are going to continue to swirl the
water around it so that it gets nice and cold and breaks up the hot boundary layer. After
a half-hour or so, you should be able to take out your pot, hold your hand here, and if
it doesn't feel hot at all, you are in good shape. If it still feels pretty hot, you're
probably going to want to let it sit in some cold water for a little while longer.