Chill-out Wort

The wort is in it's "cooling-off period." The wort has to go from rolling boil to 80 degrees ASAP. Ideally you would use a wort-chiller, which is a several feet of coiled copper tubing you immerse in cold water. The wort travels through the tubing and cools to quite quickly, 20 minutes. The ice bath took around 45 minutes to get to a yeast safe 80 degrees. If I start brewing regularly the wort chiller will be added to my collection of equipment. You want to cool the wort quickly so you can get it into the sealed fermenter and away from any evil airborne bacteria that want to foul the taste of the beer.