No Chill 'Cubes' - passive chilling wort

sharingan

I use the Brew in a Bag method for making beer, and I don't use active chilling to bring it down to pitching temperature (no Immersion or Plate chillers). We are metered, and I am not a fan of the waste of water.

I used to let it cool down in the kettle, but that approach isn't working for me now - the kettle lid doesn't seal as good.

I have seen a lot of US brewers use food grade plastic water containers to transfer hot wort into and let it passively cool, but I cant find those kind of products here. Camping Jerry cans are often used too.

Does anyone use a no chill 'cube' and where did you get yours?

3dsteel

I saw these in Woodies and was thinking of getting one. I haven't yet though.

Alpack.ie also have sealable buckets up to 30 litres (like a fermenter bucket with no hole in the lid).

oblivious

I have not used the above, but have done no chill brew in the boiler. Just let it sit over night and run into the fermenter with no ill effects

twerg_85

You could try freezing a 2L bottle of water and popping that into the kettle after sanitising ?

F.

loyatemu

3dsteel wrote: »

I saw these in Woodies and was thinking of getting one. I haven't yet though.

Alpack.ie also have sealable buckets up to 30 litres (like a fermenter bucket with no hole in the lid).

nice find - here's same with tap, they also have 5 & 10L containers (though if you want a 5L containers you're better off buying a 5L bottle of water from Lidl for €1.40).

sharingan

Thanks for the product links guys, especially for reminding me about alpack, which is the closest to what a lot of the Oz & US BIABers do.

oblivious wrote: »

I have not used the above, but have done no chill brew in the boiler. Just let it sit over night and run into the fermenter with no ill effects

Well I had my first ill effect:
http://thesumofallbeers.tumblr.com/post/56698921670/home-brewer-no-chill-nightmare-when-you-dont

I have let it rest in the kettle, but sealing isn't enough - there is a lot of vacuum pressure, and when I left it too long, it still sucked in a lot of air, and whatever caused the infection. I am eager for something that will prevent this.

Also I am wanting a more practical solution - all my brewing clusters around fermenter and kettle availability. Would like to brew and store the wort until it is convenient to pitch.

twerg_85 wrote: »

You could try freezing a 2L bottle of water and popping that into the kettle after sanitising ?
F.

Would probably need a lot more than 1, to take 25 - 30 L of wort at 95C down to pitching temp. I only have a freezer compartment, so I may not be able to make enough. Good idea though - its just maths in the end, and a chest freezer would be able to make enough I am sure.

Knifey Spoony

Just thinking out loud here, but would leaving the wort to chill over a long period of time have any ill effects on any late additions of hops in the boil, since these hops would be in a much hotter environment while waiting to chill naturally? Wouldn't this cause more bittering than was intended?

Also, would any of those plastic vessels mentioned above have to food safe or would the contact time with wort be so short that it wouldn't matter?

I'll also add that I'm fairly new to brewing, so my thoughts on this might be wrong.

sharingan

Knifey Spoony wrote: »

Just thinking out loud here, but would leaving the wort to chill over a long period of time have any ill effects on any late additions of hops in the boil, since these hops would be in a much hotter environment while waiting to chill naturally? Wouldn't this cause more bittering than was intended?

You are bang on. Your late additions turn into bittering hops. For me 2 beers in question suffered. Still drinkable, and solid beers, but a serious waste of good hops (Cascade, and others).

You need to recalculate your late additions, with time offsets to arrive at the same hop profile with No-Chill. Or you remove your hops at 0 (which is technically underhopping I guess), or some No-Chillers dispense with late hop additions and hop directly in the cube.

Also, would any of those plastic vessels mentioned above have to food safe or would the contact time with wort be so short that it wouldn't matter?

I'll also add that I'm fairly new to brewing, so my thoughts on this might be wrong.

No you are quite astute. And I would definitely go with Food Grade, and robust (people recommend HDPE).

3dsteel

Check the triangle symbol on the plastic to see if its food grade. The Alpack buckets are PP, this is the same as any of the FV buckets you'd get from the home brew shops.

lang

To be honest, one of the main reasons I have not progressed to extract brewing is the need for a wort chiller. I know it is a simple enough concept but just don't want to fork out for one (or to make one myself). The area I use to put my brews together is really small with little space so not wanting to add to the clutter really.

This whole 'no chill' method may change my mind. If anyone that has done this method successfully could answer a few questions for me:

1. Is there really a need to buy a 'Cube' in order to store the wort to allow it to cool?

2. If there is no real need for the cube, can you transfer the wort to an already sanitised fermenter and seal it up overnight to cool? This would prevent the formation of little nasties?

3. I only have a pot that will take about 4-5 litres for the boil. Is this big enough for a partial brew?

I have spare fermenters so could transfer from one to other if needed.

Thanks in advance.

BeerNut

Can't help you with the no-chill stuff, but I started with an 8L stockpot and found it really difficult and annoying for 20L partial-boil batches. I'd definitely recommend trading up to a bigger pot. If you're in Dublin, check out Living Island on Talbot Street for cheap ones.

Also, with partial boil, if you have your top-up water well chilled in advance, there's no need for any other cooling method.

lang

BeerNut wrote: »

Can't help you with the no-chill stuff, but I started with an 8L stockpot and found it really difficult and annoying for 20L partial-boil batches. I'd definitely recommend trading up to a bigger pot. If you're in Dublin, check out Living Island on Talbot Street for cheap ones.

Also, with partial boil, if you have your top-up water well chilled in advance, there's no need for any other cooling method.

Thanks for the advice. May have to take a trip there when next in the Big Schmoke.

sharingan

lang wrote: »

This whole 'no chill' method may change my mind. If anyone that has done this method successfully could answer a few questions for me:

1. Is there really a need to buy a 'Cube' in order to store the wort to allow it to cool?

I used to just seal up the kettle, and I got away with it until ambient temperatures went up. The problem is that as the wort cools, the liquid contracts a bit, but the headspace contracts massively. Air *will* get sucked in, along with ambient microorganisms.

When ambient/room temperature is low (e.g. 14-16C) those critters dont metabolise very well. At 22-28 they will munch through your wort like crazy. You can get away with the infection for a while at least (up to 48 hrs), until good temperatures hit, or you start living in your house during the day, and have heating on.

2. If there is no real need for the cube, can you transfer the wort to an already sanitised fermenter and seal it up overnight to cool? This would prevent the formation of little nasties?

The key issue is that you need to match the wort volume to the fermenter volume. Otherwise the pressure will force its way in through whatever you are sealing the airlock with. It can also crack fermenters.

Cubes are cheap, and pliable at high temperature (so that they wont crack). They have other practical benefits, like being storable, and allowing the cold break to settle out. I usually siphon out the wort leaving the cold break and hops behind.

You need to adjust your hop schedule though. Most recipes that you see online, presume that chilling process starts shortly after 0.

lang

@sharingan Thanks very much. Much food for thought there. Will give it some consideration.

rubadub

sharingan wrote: »

The problem is that as the wort cools, the liquid contracts a bit, but the headspace contracts massively. Air *will* get sucked in, along with ambient microorganisms.

I have made properly sterile liquid broths/cultures before, I had a perfect seal on my container and an air intake with a synthetic filter on it so any sucked in air was clean.

I would have thought the frozen 2L bottle trick is the easiest. People use this trick to cool down fermentation of large volumes of turbo yeast brews.

loyatemu

are 2 litre plastic bottles safe to turf into boiling wort though? they're designed for holding cold liquids.

you'd also need quite a lot of spare capacity in your cauldron/boiler as you'd need to add several of these giant icecubes

rubadub

Good point, might want to be PP5 plastic, the PET bottles do shrink with boiling water and the caps would probably leak. Many ice cream tubs are sturdy these days with a perfect seal and can be PP5.

You don't have to put them all in at once.

John_C

I currently transfer my hot wort into a corny and then chill and ferment it in there. I'm planning on trying a no-chill for my next brew. I can pressurise the keg so I don't need to worry about the back pressure of cooling liquid/gas.

I'll let you know next week how I get on.

loyatemu

as somone who is interested in moving up from kits to small batch extract brewing, is there anything inherently wrong with boiling a smaller volume of wort and topping up with cold water?

BeerNut

Nope. It's a bit fiddly, you're advised to add half your fermentables during the boil to aid hop utilisation, but the beer turns out fine. It's how I started, but I've been so much happier since I moved to full boils -- it's just less hassle.

loyatemu

BeerNut wrote: »

Nope. It's a bit fiddly, you're advised to add half your fermentables during the boil to aid hop utilisation, but the beer turns out fine. It's how I started, but I've been so much happier since I moved to full boils -- it's just less hassle.

the other half of the fermentables go in when your topping up?

also - how do you cool your wort when doing a full boil Beernut?

BeerNut

loyatemu wrote: »

the other half of the fermentables go in when your topping up?

You start with half, then add the second half during the boil.

loyatemu wrote: »

how do you cool your wort when doing a full boil Beernut?

Whisko

What about aroma hops though, surely they get destroyed in the no chill?

Anyone do a side by side comparison?

John_C

Hi all,
I did my first no-chill brew yesterday and it seems to have gone well. After the boil, I transferred 12L of hot wort directly into a corny keg. I left it co cool overnight pitched the yeast today.

I was a bit surprised by how log the cooling took. It was at 38C when I went to bed last night (about 11 hours after the boil finished) and it was still 28C this morning. I cooled it to 16C using a small ice bath before pitching. If I left it outside, I could probably skip this step.

After filling the keg yesterday, I gave it a shake and opened the airlock to allow the steam to force out any air in there, in case the oxygen caused spoilage overnight. I pressurised it to 1 bar to prevent any back pressure when the steam condensed again. I think I'd use 1.1 bar in future as there was a slight back pressure when I went to pitch the yeast.
My only concern with this method is that I didn't oxygenate the wort at any point. I'm hoping this will be ok since I'm using dried yeast (Nottingham) and over-pitching a whole packet into a half sized batch.

Overall I'm very happy with the process. It has removed a good length of time (as well as a messy step) from my brew day. I'll post again in a few weeks with an update on the taste.

Carawaystick

If you're only brewing 12 l of wort, why not brew a stronger wort and dilute down with cold water to chill it a bit?
Also oxygen is good for wort, once it's cool enough, about 60 dregs or so

John_C

Carawaystick wrote: »

If you're only brewing 12 l of wort, why not brew a stronger wort and dilute down with cold water to chill it a bit?
Also oxygen is good for wort, once it's cool enough, about 60 dregs or so

Thanks for the tips but I'm happy with my 12L system. I have a 10L corny so the size suits me fine.

I used to brew bigger batches but space was an issue and I found that I got a bit bored of drinking the same beer after a while.

HMD

For my last couple of extract brews i boiled about 14ltr for the wort. I froze 4 - 5 ltr of water that i added to the fermenter to bring the wort temp down and then topped it up to 23ltr with cold water. It was ready to pitch within half an hour.

John_C

John_C wrote: »

I currently transfer my hot wort into a corny and then chill and ferment it in there. I'm planning on trying a no-chill for my next brew. I can pressurise the keg so I don't need to worry about the back pressure of cooling liquid/gas.

I'll let you know next week how I get on.

I had that brew over the new year and it came out very well. A corny keg makes a very good no chill vessel if you have the gear to work with them.