# No Chill Hopping



## rich_lamb (16/12/08)

Sorry if this is a repeat - the search engine isn't working for me (links anybody?)

After completing my first no-chill brew I noticed a distinct step up in bitterness from what I'd expected - I was aiming for 32IBU (25 @ 60min, 7 @ 30min) in a beer with an OG of 1.042, but it's fairly intense. Tastes like about 45IBU.

Now I know people have differing no-chill techniques. Personally, I just went straight from flameout into the cube and let the thing cool overnight.

Is there a way to modify the bittering calcs to compensate for no-chill?


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## bradsbrew (16/12/08)

This something I have thought about too. Initially i thought if I no chill then my flavour and aroma additions go out the window and become bittering additions.
But then I thought if i strain the hops off before they go to cube does this not stop them from bittering any further??

Cheers Brad


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## buttersd70 (16/12/08)

there is fairly lengthy discussion in this thread.

In my case, the difference is there, but is very small, possibly due to a/low bittering in the first place, b/small flavour additions, and c/not carrying any hop matter over into the cube. (I use a hopsock).....this is comparing my own beers both chill/no chill, brewed to the same recipe.

It would appear to me from the comments by others in that thread, that the degree to which NC effects bittering appears to increase with the bitterness of the original recipe.


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## browndog (16/12/08)

bradsbrew said:


> This something I have thought about too. Initially i thought if I no chill then my flavour and aroma additions go out the window and become bittering additions.
> But then I thought if i strain the hops off before they go to cube does this not stop them from bittering any further??
> 
> Cheers Brad



Hit the nail on the head there Brad, B&T it won't be an issue if you leave the hops in the kettle and not put them in the fermenter. There are several ways to do this, the most popular is whirlpooling. The way I do it is to whirlpool and when I drain the wort into the cube (fermenter in my case) I have it going though a hop sock so that when I lift the hop sock out of the fermenter, hey presto, no hops in the wort and hence no extra bittering.


cheers

Browndog


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## rich_lamb (16/12/08)

Ah yeah - thanks for the link buttersd,

this hop sock you speak of browndog - wot, like a strainer on the inlet of your fermenter? 
Are you using flowers to do that; I've tried straining to remove pellet residue in the past and found it very messy. Clogs up fast too. There must be a simple way to do this.


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## rude (17/12/08)

Only done 2 AGs but the first was suppose to be 32IBUs but definately more.
As said before I threw the whole lot in trub & all.
So I think I will use a termimesh filter around my kettle pickup tube next time.


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## Thirsty Boy (17/12/08)

I disagree - mostly.

I think hop matter into the cube is far less important than whether you used, how much you used and what variety of hops - were in your late hop additions.

Basically - the alpha acids compounds in the physical hops are not particularly bound up in the plant matter of the hops themselves once they are in the wort (assuming pellet hops) - the amount of bitterness they contribute depends on how much of those alpha acids are isomerised by the heat into a form which is soluble and will stay in your final beer.

So - when you chill a beer - the hops you put in "late" in the boil, contribute their aroma and or flavour, but the alpha acids dont get a chance to be significantly isomerised before the wort is cooled down. ie: not much added bitterness. However if you no chill - the alpha acids are going to keep right on isomerising at a fairly decent rate, till the wort is below about 70ish degrees.

So even if you carefully strain out all the green bits - significant amounts of the alpha acids are still floating around in your wort, happily isomerising away. Sure, less than if you leave the green bits in, but still a pretty high proportion.

So the upshot is - if you stick 30g of late hallertau at 3.3% alpha in at 5 mins to go and carefully strain out all the hop matter, its not going to contribute a lot of bitterness - not many alpha acids to convert. But if you were searching for hop flavour and aroma in the beer - and you shoved in 60g of 14% Galaxy at 5 minutes to go ... well, in your NC cube, no matter how carefully you filter out the green bits, there is going to be significant added bitterness from isomerisation that happens after the cube is sealed. Your original bittering hops do basically nothing even if you get them in the cube, their alpha acids are pretty much as converted as they are going to be by the end of the boil.

Its my suggestion that if you add hops late in the boil and are planning to no-chill, you need to account for the bitterness they will contribute. I assume that late hops in an NC brew will contribute bitterness as though they had been boiled for 10-15 minutes.... if you let the actual hop matter go into the cube, then I would say calculate as though they were a 20-25 min addition.

Personally I no longer add late kettle hops to my NC batches - nothing after 30mins to go. Firstly because I find that the No-chilling process itself diminishes hop aroma from late additions; and secondly to counteract the bitterness problem. Aroma hops are dealt with by Ultra Late hopping during the actual fermentation, or for a lesser effect by deliberately adding a hop bag to the NC cube and making sure I include the bitterness they would contribute as equivalent to a 20 (less because they are contained in a bag) minute addition.

I have done a few little experiments around cube bitterness and thats what I have come up with anyway.

TB


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## matti (17/12/08)

TB.
A great summary and explanation.
I must commend you in your excellent wording.

B & T.
Try add Bittering hops at 45 minutes, Flavour hops at 20 min. and Aroma hop into actual cube.
The times are a rough estimate but it seem to be working for me
You can strain the hops and trub out when transferring into your fermenter(s).

Butter.
How did you find that thread? I was looking for it but the search engines failed me.


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## browndog (17/12/08)

Bitter & Twisted said:


> Ah yeah - thanks for the link buttersd,
> 
> this hop sock you speak of browndog - wot, like a strainer on the inlet of your fermenter?
> Are you using flowers to do that; I've tried straining to remove pellet residue in the past and found it very messy. Clogs up fast too. There must be a simple way to do this.



Some great advice from TB there for you to consider B&T. On the matter of a hop sock, I am refering to one of Craftbrewers hop socks, it is a large sock about 150mm Dia. and about 500mm long. Most people use them in the kettle to keep the hops out of the wort, but I go the other way and use it as a large strainer to keep trub and hops out of the fermenter when draining the wort from the kettle.

cheers

Browndog


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## reviled (17/12/08)

Thirsty, im no chilling in the kettle at the mo untill I get a tap on my pot... 

Ive still been doing FO additions, and 5 min, 10 min additions etc... I never notice a massive increase in bitterness, and I allways get alot of aroma out of my late hop additions?? Is it that im not getting as much aroma as I should be due to the aroma being diminished by the heat? 

For example, I threw in 15g of Galaxy and 15g of Nelson Sauvin into a FO addition on an APA, its quite bitter, but I was aiming for 65 IBU's which is what I think its come out at, but it still has a massive hop aroma??


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## warrenlw63 (17/12/08)

Though I haven't done it for a while I was getting great results using a "no chill hopback". In short exactly the same thing as a regular hopback with the exception being the hot wort ran through the hopback and into the cubes.

To me it was probably the best way to capture aroma without adding any further bitterness whilst the hot wort sat in the cube.

Warren -


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## Thirsty Boy (17/12/08)

reviled said:


> Thirsty, im no chilling in the kettle at the mo untill I get a tap on my pot...
> 
> Ive still been doing FO additions, and 5 min, 10 min additions etc... I never notice a massive increase in bitterness, and I allways get alot of aroma out of my late hop additions?? Is it that im not getting as much aroma as I should be due to the aroma being diminished by the heat?
> 
> For example, I threw in 15g of Galaxy and 15g of Nelson Sauvin into a FO addition on an APA, its quite bitter, but I was aiming for 65 IBU's which is what I think its come out at, but it still has a massive hop aroma??



Kinda hard to say - at 65 IBU all you are going to notice is that it is bloody bitter. If its 55 or 75.. well I certainly couldn't tell the difference.

However if you are talking a nice german lager at say 20 IBU... but you were looking for lovely hop aroma and chucked in a great wad of finishing hops... and that added 10 IBUs, you'd notice the difference in that.

I dont think that NCing kills off aroma completely, I just think you get less than you would if you chilled. Or I do at any rate. And I think that your late hop additions _are_ going to increase your final bitterness due to isomerisation in the cube. But if its not happening to you... then don't worry about it.


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## reviled (17/12/08)

Thirsty Boy said:


> Kinda hard to say - at 65 IBU all you are going to notice is that it is bloody bitter. If its 55 or 75.. well I certainly couldn't tell the difference.
> 
> However if you are talking a nice german lager at say 20 IBU... but you were looking for lovely hop aroma and chucked in a great wad of finishing hops... and that added 10 IBUs, you'd notice the difference in that.
> 
> I dont think that NCing kills off aroma completely, I just think you get less than you would if you chilled. Or I do at any rate. And I think that your late hop additions _are_ going to increase your final bitterness due to isomerisation in the cube. But if its not happening to you... then don't worry about it.



Maybe it is and I just like the extra bitterness :icon_cheers: Who knows, ive got a couple of low IBU beers cc'ing at the moment, guess ill know then...


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## BusinessTime (17/12/08)

Sorry to cross the threads but could you do a no chill beer and completely leave out the aroma/flavor additions then do something like the french press method outlined here : http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...view=getnewpost

If you did that after ferment wouldnt that give you something quite close to chilling etc .... ??? 

Just an idea nothing to back this up...


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## rich_lamb (17/12/08)

Yes I think that "ultra late hopping" (the french press) method is very useful, and I may use that in future for aroma.

Good discussion TB: Based on my understanding of how hop oils are isomerised - which agrees with yours - I had been a bit confused at how people were getting around this problem by removing the hop matter. It seemed to me that isomerisation of compounds already in suspension would still occur. Also that no matter how fine you strain you'd still get these compounds through.
I think it's actually a blend of the two; you've hinted at this in your suggestion.
- you will get some increase from ongoing reaction of suspended compounds
- you will continue to "extract" compounds from the trub

So here's my suggested improvements - for myself - based on all this great advice:

1) Leave as much trub behind as possible. I like simplicity and don't have anything fancy inside my kettle so I may build a hop-sock-back to catch it on the output. Probably also do some whirlpooling and turn my pickup sideways so I leave more in the kettle too.

2) After the cube's had 10 minutes to nicely sanitise, I'll dump it in a bucket of cold water to cool quicker. "Semi-chill" ?

3) Adjust my hopping schedule to compensate. Probably by 15 minutes for all additions initially, until I dial it in. Might modify my brew calculator (excel sheet) to do this correctly.

obviously aiming for a consistent and repeatable technique - with minimum effort - and best possible beer - etc.

thanks guys


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## BottleBitch (17/12/08)

Ok so I work in the brewing industry and Oh my god!!! I have participated in a few not chill's, its by far not a good idea according to all the studies I have done over the years, but that said its the lazy mans way to brew without a lot of gear and you can still make some decent brews using the no chill, but to balance my position here, my new home brewery that yes I will finish some day I promise Ash, has two plate heat exchangers, so I guess, I can take the higher middle ground on the never ending argument of no chill V's chill, hehehehe 

depending on your brewhouse, the hop utilization rates are roughly as follows and I do mean roughly because this is all from my not so great memory, but you get the idea.

90-60 mins 40% utilization 
60-45 mins 33%
45-30 mins 25%
30-15 mins 20%
whirlpool 15%

So if you add start, middle and end of boil additions and calculate as above, then go to a cube to cool down as TB says the utilization rates will be right out the window and he is also right that the resins that contain most of the bittering compounds in the hop pellets are dissolved very quickly into the wort, so trying to strain out the hop matter will not stop the IBU's of your beer going up, but it is still a good idea, because it reduces trub in your cube which is good for beer flavour stability, but thats another story. So to make your bitterness more predictable, why not add some start of boil for foam suppression, then some at whirlpool and just increase your utilization factour on the whirlpool addition, but the factour I'm guessing could go as high as 33%, but will take some trial and error. because its only home brewing I till reckon throw the hops straight into the cube, I tried this at work this week, by borrowing some hot wort between the kettle and heat exchangers and running it into a 15 liter keg, throw in a large hand full of new cascade pellets because the wort was only 15-19 IBU's and a bit of Sinimar colouring because the wort was only 9 EBC, will be drinking it on friday if the ferm and filter go well, but it tasted great and reeked of cascade when I tasted it last night, a far cry from the donor wort.

Cheers 

Brett


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## PostModern (17/12/08)

Has anyone got actual data on utilisation rates at different temperatures? I'm sure the data you've listed is valid at 103C, but does isomerisation continue to occur at below 80?


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## Adamt (17/12/08)

I picked this journal article up a while back... haven't really gone through it in a lot of detail but it covers isomerisation and degradation reaction kinetics.

J. Agricultural and Food Chemistry, vol. 53, 2005,
Isomerization and Degradation Kinetics of Hop (Humulus lupulus) Acids in a Model Wort-Boiling System
Malowicki M.G., Shellhammer, T.H.

View attachment Iso._and_Degrad._Kinetics_of_Hop_Acids.pdf


EDIT: Only seems to look at 90C as a minimum... a good rule of thumb for reaction rates for any reaction is "the reaction rate doubles for every increase of 10C".


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## BottleBitch (17/12/08)

PostModern said:


> Has anyone got actual data on utilisation rates at different temperatures? I'm sure the data you've listed is valid at 103C, but does isomerisation continue to occur at below 80?




As I said it is all from my memory, but yes isomerisation still occurs at below 80, its just at a slower rate. At a brewery that I once worked at, we carried out and experiment to see just how quickly the hopback's IBU where formed, and the wort passing throw the hopback was far from boiling, because of transfer to whirlpool time and stand time once in whirlpool, it was 40mins after boil and the wort was now approx 80-85 degrees. we took 1min interval samples after the heat exchanger and found that pretty much all the utilization occurred in the first 15mins, then plateaued from there on in. we were all very surprised with the results.


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## PostModern (17/12/08)

Adamt said:


> I picked this journal article up a while back... haven't really gone through it in a lot of detail but it covers isomerisation and degradation reaction kinetics.
> 
> J. Agricultural and Food Chemistry, vol. 53, 2005,
> Isomerization and Degradation Kinetics of Hop (Humulus lupulus) Acids in a Model Wort-Boiling System
> ...



I skimmed it and looked at the graphs. Seems like isomerisation at 90C is greatly reduced compared to boiling wort. (Dangerously) extrapolating data of the graph on page 4437, I think isomerisation at 80 and less would be negligible. Unless you add 100g of flameout additions or use very high AA hops at flameout, I don't think the additional bitterness due to their isomerisation will amount to much. My house ales get about .8g-1.5g of whirlpool hops (where the whirlpool is performed in the kettle with a big SS paddle), depending on what variety I've got at the time, so perhaps that is why this is not much of an issue for me. I can see how it would if you finished with Warrior (15%AA) or even Nelson Sauvin (12%) in large quantities, but not with 1g/l of 5%AA hops. There just isn't enough alpha acid there to make a difference, even if 30% of it isomerised.



Herbstoffe said:


> As I said it is all from my memory, but yes isomerisation still occurs at below 80, its just at a slower rate. At a brewery that I once worked at, we carried out and experiment to see just how quickly the hopback's IBU where formed, and the wort passing throw the hopback was far from boiling, because of transfer to whirlpool time and stand time once in whirlpool, it was 40mins after boil and the wort was now approx 80-85 degrees. we took 1min interval samples after the heat exchanger and found that pretty much all the utilization occurred in the first 15mins, then plateaued from there on in. we were all very surprised with the results.



I wonder if I'll notice a difference in my own setup between Summer and Winter brewing. Surely a 20 degree difference in ambient temp will slow down the cooling in summer time leading to more isomerisation over the slower cooling period?


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## rich_lamb (17/12/08)

Well it's certainly a complex formula anyway - although the reaction may proceed half as fast, in my case (which is probably the worst case) the wort went straight into the cube at flameout and would have cooled rather slowly. So the time above 80deg would have been "significant", but is unknown.

Also, that document references research showing significant losses of hop compounds to trub and spent hops. This seems to bear out in people's experience - leave out the hop matter and get rid of most of the problem. 
I doubt you can say all of the alpha acids dissolve quickly - my impression was that they are not altogether soluble until they are isomerised...

For reference, the only hops I used were EKG; nothing high alpha.


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## Damian44 (17/12/08)

Would anyone care to take a stab at turning this hop schedule into a no-chill?

20.00 gm Green Bullet [13.40 %] (60 min) Hops 26.0 IBU 
25.00 gm Green Bullet [13.50 %] (20 min) Hops 19.8 IBU 
25.00 gm Green Bullet [13.50 %] (15 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Brewer said.... 15 mins is how long he waits till i start chilling


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## Pumpy (17/12/08)

Great post but I No Chill but use a Hop Stoppa to prevent the hops and break going into the cubes very effective . Pumpy


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## buttersd70 (17/12/08)

PostModern said:


> My house ales get about .8g-1.5g of whirlpool hops (where the whirlpool is performed in the kettle with a big SS paddle), depending on what variety I've got at the time, so perhaps that is why this is not much of an issue for me. I can see how it would if you finished with Warrior (15%AA) or even Nelson Sauvin (12%) in large quantities, but not with 1g/l of 5%AA hops. There just isn't enough alpha acid there to make a difference, even if 30% of it isomerised.


I'd be interested in knowing the experiences of other brewers that hop with similar rates, particularly NC 'converts' that have made no (significant) changes to their hopping schedules between the two methods....personally, I hop my usual bitter with fuggle 0.75g/L 20min, and styrian 0.75g/L at flameout...both of which are in the 4-5% range.....and as I said, I get sfa difference on expected bitterness between chill/no chill....however, when I did a smurto GA NC, it was a lot more bitter than I expected (I expected it to be more bitter than my usual, obviously)....but I don't have a chill version to directly compare to (that I have done myself exactly the same)


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## kram (17/12/08)

Damian44 said:


> Would anyone care to take a stab at turning this hop schedule into a no-chill?
> 
> 20.00 gm Green Bullet [13.40 %] (60 min) Hops 26.0 IBU
> 25.00 gm Green Bullet [13.50 %] (20 min) Hops 19.8 IBU
> 25.00 gm Green Bullet [13.50 %] (15 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Brewer said.... 15 mins is how long he waits till i start chilling


What are you making? Personally I would move the aroma hop-steep hops to dry hopping and consider modifying the time on the flavour addition.


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## Damian44 (17/12/08)

Sorry kram, here's the full recipe.....


Type: All Grain
Date: 24/06/2008 
Batch Size: 25.00 L
Brewer: DrSmurto 
Boil Size: 33.55 L Asst Brewer: 
Boil Time: 90 min Equipment: My Equipment 
Taste Rating(out of 50): 35.0 Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 
Taste Notes: 

Ingredients

Amount Item Type % or IBU 
5.25 kg Pale Malt, Traditional Ale (Joe White) (5.9 EBC) Grain 80.15 % 
0.30 kg Barley, Flaked (3.3 EBC) Grain 4.58 % 
0.25 kg Amber Malt (Bairds) (100.0 EBC) Grain 3.82 % 
0.25 kg Carafa Special II (Weyermann) (817.6 EBC) Grain 3.82 % 
0.25 kg Chocolate Malt (886.5 EBC) Grain 3.82 % 
0.25 kg Roasted Barley (Thomas Fawcett) (1199.7 EBC) Grain 3.82 % 
20.00 gm Green Bullet [13.40 %] (60 min) Hops 26.0 IBU 
25.00 gm Green Bullet [13.50 %] (20 min) Hops 19.8 IBU 
25.00 gm Green Bullet [13.50 %] (15 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops - 
0.50 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min) Misc 
1 Pkgs Ringwood Ale (Wyeast Labs #1187) [Starter 2500 ml] Yeast-Ale 



Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.057 SG
Measured Original Gravity: 1.056 SG 
Est Final Gravity: 1.016 SG Measured Final Gravity: 1.018 SG 
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.26 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: 4.96 % 
Bitterness: 45.9 IBU Calories: 534 cal/l 
Est Color: 84.0 EBC Color: Color 


Mash Profile

Mash Name: Single Infusion, Light Body Total Grain Weight: 6.55 kg 
Sparge Water: 6.11 L Grain Temperature: 10.0 C 
Sparge Temperature: 82.0 C TunTemperature: 20.0 C 
Adjust Temp for Equipment: TRUE Mash PH: 5.4 PH 

Single Infusion, Light Body Step Time Name Description Step Temp 
90 min Mash In Add 18.00 L of water at 74.5 C 66.0 C 
10 min Mash Out Add 16.00 L of water at 93.8 C 78.0 C


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## Fourstar (17/12/08)

I would have to agree allot with Thirsty.

I do nothing but NC and have found from my early beers (which were chilled) there is a distinct loss in hop aroma. I have tried endless ways to increase this but it is almost not possible. My next brew i will go to the efforts of pitching my aroma addition into the cube, @ no more than 70 deg and resealing. 

Currently im drinking a CAP that had 20g at whirlpool (approx 10 mins after flameout) with very little hop aroma. Flavour and bitterness are awesome however. All of my beers seem to be lacking in the aroma department no matter how much hops i add at flameout. E.G. my SNPA clone had 40g of cascade at flamout with only a low hop aroma and high flavour/bitterness. I agree that all end of/post boil additons end up losing their aroma and contribute signifigant flavour and bitterness properties.

Will i change from No-chill anytime soon? Probably not. Convenience + time saving are on my side with no chill. If im opting to win competitions and brew to style with kick-ass aroma i might need to consider investing in a coil. At this stage im happy with the quality of beer im producing.


Only time will tell if i take the swan dive.



Edit: there was a BIG space in my post for some strange reason


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## browndog (17/12/08)

buttersd70 said:


> I'd be interested in knowing the experiences of other brewers that hop with similar rates, particularly NC 'converts' that have made no (significant) changes to their hopping schedules between the two methods....personally, I hop my usual bitter with fuggle 0.75g/L 20min, and styrian 0.75g/L at flameout...both of which are in the 4-5% range.....and as I said, I get sfa difference on expected bitterness between chill/no chill....however, when I did a smurto GA NC, it was a lot more bitter than I expected (I expected it to be more bitter than my usual, obviously)....but I don't have a chill version to directly compare to (that I have done myself exactly the same)



I would have to agree Butters, I've not found my NC beers to be overly bitter, even when adding 50g of chinook or NS at flame out. The only thing that problem that I have found with NC is lack of aroma. 

cheers

Browndog


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## MHB (18/12/08)

I would have thought that putting the aroma hops into the cube would be analogous to using a hop back; the aroma cant escape before the beer cools down.

The only thing that comes to mind is that maybe the aroma compounds are broken down by the long time spent at high temperatures.

I would be very careful opening a cube at under 80 C as from there down there is very little pasteurisation going on and the risk of getting an infection will go through the roof.

The attached is something I was playing with a little while ago looking at the effect of PU temperature and time, effectively NC brewing.
I wanted to get a quote from my insurance company with specific reference to the risk of botulism if I started making Fresh Wort Kits, graphing it makes it obvious where you need to start being very careful.
As it happens my insurer decided not to put up my product liability cover big risk right.

View attachment 23334
EDIT See Sheet 2
The PDF is a pretty good explanation of Pasteurisation Units

View attachment 23335


MHB


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## Thirsty Boy (18/12/08)

Herbstoffe said:


> . . . Ok so I work in the brewing industry and Oh my god!!! I have participated in a few not chill's, its by far not a good idea according to all the studies I have done over the years, but that said its the lazy mans way to brew without a lot of gear and you can still make some decent brews using the no chill . . .



Ohhh - poke the no-chill brewers to make them angry then... I'm afraid I cant resist.

I will say simply this: Read this thread - which details a selection of no-chilled competition winners from this year's comps - and see if you can still justify referring to no-chill as "not a good idea" or a lazy man's way of brewing" - the truth of the matter would seem to be inconveniently contrary to your assertions.

I'm afraid that anyone with no-chill angst these days must only be able to maintain it by shutting their eyes, sticking their fingers in their ears and repeating the words lah lah lah I dont want to hear you, very loudly over and over again. BIAB might still have to prove itself with results - but no chill has won the argument, won the comps and walked away laughing with a bag full of trophies over its shoulder with which to bludgeon the remaining doubters.

Oh and it can save hops too...

so there


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## reviled (18/12/08)

Thirsty Boy said:


> Ohhh - poke the no-chill brewers to make them angry then... I'm afraid I cant resist.
> 
> I will say simply this: Read this thread - which details a selection of no-chilled competition winners from this year's comps - and see if you can still justify referring to no-chill as "not a good idea" or a lazy man's way of brewing" - the truth of the matter would seem to be inconveniently contrary to your assertions.
> 
> ...



Completely agree that both BIAB and No-Chill are perfectly good practices and as far as im concerned neither need to prove themselves to me in any way because they have both allready done that!

I have been AG'ing for about 5-6 months, I recently went to the Auckland Brewers Guild end of year BBQ, which also had the SOBA (Society of Beer Advocates) there as well, and when I was told by more than a few people that they thought my beer was the best one there, and one that was no chilled in the kettle overnight, and BIAB'd, my mind was made up  

Double so there  haha


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## RagingBull (5/12/09)

Fourstar said:


> I do nothing but NC and have found from my early beers (which were chilled) there is a distinct loss in hop aroma. I have tried endless ways to increase this but it is almost not possible. My next brew i will go to the efforts of pitching my aroma addition into the cube, @ no more than 70 deg and resealing.



Can anybody vouch for this working well? Fourstar, did you end up doing this? I would be skeptical due to the chance of infection..


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## seemax (5/12/09)

The two options as I see them...

1/ Cooling my wort at flameout with a copper coil chiller, whirlpooling, then draining into fermentor, then pitch yeast.
2/ Flameout, whirlpool, drain into cube, seal and straight into fridge.

In my case, option #2 actually cools the wort faster than #1 and saves a lot of water. It's more of a cube chilled (CC) method as it's not left at ambient. End result is the same though. Generally I don't use a hopsock, and leave most of the hops/trub behind when draining.

In regards to late additions, bitterness, etc I struggle to see the difference...both methods chill fast and reduce isomerisation. I haven't noticed any apparent difference in bitterness. In addition, aroma levels in my IPA's are acceptable (for me at least anyway). I do mostly dry hop though.

The benefit of #2 is I can brew when I feel like it and pitch the yeast when it suits me or whenever the starter is ready.


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## Fourstar (8/12/09)

RagingBull said:


> Can anybody vouch for this working well? Fourstar, did you end up doing this? I would be skeptical due to the chance of infection..



just a copy of the PM i sent to RagingBull incase anyone else was interested.



> Hey mate, from 51 NC beers and actually my AG count too! (Crap, just realised my 50th beer was a Light, Ha!) i'd say 40% where reopened and hopped at 70deg~. Now days, to avoid having to reopen i just wait until the wort gets to 70deg in the kettle and dump the 'flameout/whirlpool' hops into the cube and rack ontop. Simple.
> 
> No cube infections yet.
> 
> ...


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## Ellaine (9/12/09)

I assume that late hops in an NC brew will contribute bitterness as though they had been boiled for 10-15 minutes. 

Surendettement

If you let the actual hop matter go into the cube, then I would say calculate as though they were a 20-25 min addition.




Ellaine


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## clean brewer (9/12/09)

Ellaine said:


> I assume that late hops in an NC brew will contribute bitterness as though they had been boiled for 10-15 minutes.
> 
> Surendettement
> 
> ...


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## smiffypr (3/10/11)

Adamt said:


> I picked this journal article up a while back... haven't really gone through it in a lot of detail but it covers isomerisation and degradation reaction kinetics.
> 
> J. Agricultural and Food Chemistry, vol. 53, 2005,
> Isomerization and Degradation Kinetics of Hop (Humulus lupulus) Acids in a Model Wort-Boiling System
> ...



Thank you for providing that. I have taken some data from that paper, and generated the attached spreadsheet.

"The graphs" shows the known data points (from the above pdf) in red, the rest is based on those, but that is reasonable as the known data points fit the formula perfectly. 

"The calculation" allows you to put in the start and end temperatures and the elapsed time, and on the basis of a constant rate of cooling, will give you the equivalent boil time to put back into the IBU calculator. 

For example, you add hops at "flame out", i.e. 100C, then cool for 60 minutes, and during this time the pot cools to 20C, put 100, 20 and 60 into the calculator and get an answer of 9.2, so treat that as a 9 minute boil in your IBU calculations, and add 9 minutes to all your other times in the IBU calculator too. If cooling takes place at different rates, e.g. standing for a while then using a cooling coil, do two calculations and add the results together.

The actual formula (in excel format) is
=Time*((0.000294*(POWER(1.08472257,Upper Temp))/(LN(1.084722579))) 
-(0.000294*(POWER(1.08472257,Lower Temp))/(LN(1.084722579)))) 
/(Temp difference)


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## MarkBastard (3/10/11)

I just did upper temp 85 minutes, lower temp 20 minutes, time 1440 minutes (24 hours)

I chose this because I rack from my boiler to my cube, and then add hops to the cube just before putting the lid on. I then allow to cool to about 20 degrees and that takes about 24 hours.

According to your spreadsheet that's like doing an 80 minute hop addition.

I'm not sure that's right, that seems way too high. Didn't someone here do a test by doing a brew that only used cube hopping?


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## smiffypr (3/10/11)

Mark^Bastard said:


> I just did upper temp 85 minutes, lower temp 20 minutes, time 1440 minutes (24 hours)
> 
> I chose this because I rack from my boiler to my cube, and then add hops to the cube just before putting the lid on. I then allow to cool to about 20 degrees and that takes about 24 hours.
> 
> ...



You are right, the problem is that I had to assume the rate of cooling to be constant, but over your 24 hours the rate of cooling tails off to almost nothing.
From the data, the isomerization is negligible below 60C, so if you had the time at which it reaches 60C, you could use that, for example, if it took 120 mins to go from 85 to 60C, that gives an equiv boil time of 15 minutes.

The more time/temperature data points you had, the more accurate it would be, (making calculations for each period). 

If you could supply a set of data (time vs temperature), it might be possible to "automate" the calculation, but the real rate of cooling will depend on so many variables, it might be difficult.


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## MarkBastard (3/10/11)

Fair enough.


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## jasonharley (3/10/11)

Has anyone tried placing their cube (after hot racking with aroma hops from the kettle) into their swimming pool, half submerged? Surely this can get the temp down quickly to below 70 deg within say 20 mins ?

5 eyes


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## MarkBastard (3/10/11)

Five Eyes Brewing Company said:


> Has anyone tried placing their cube (after hot racking with aroma hops from the kettle) into their swimming pool, half submerged? Surely this can get the temp down quickly to below 70 deg within say 20 mins ?
> 
> 5 eyes



Yes it's been done before, best placed near a filter outlet so that the water is moving.


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## RdeVjun (3/10/11)

Five Eyes Brewing Company said:


> Has anyone tried placing their cube (after hot racking with aroma hops from the kettle) into their swimming pool, half submerged? Surely this can get the temp down quickly to below 70 deg within say 20 mins ?


Yes, aka "slow chill", some AHBers have tried it. I myself would be after the pasteurising effects of no chill, but I can see why it would be attractive.


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## jasonharley (3/10/11)

Mark^Bastard said:


> Yes it's been done before, best placed near a filter outlet so that the water is moving.



Did you get the temp down below 80 deg fairly quickly by doing that?



5 eyes


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## MarkBastard (3/10/11)

Five Eyes Brewing Company said:


> Did you get the temp down below 80 deg fairly quickly by doing that?
> 
> 
> 
> 5 eyes



I've never done it.

Have heard you can get the whole brew down to pitching temps quite quickly (within an hour).


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## felten (3/10/11)

I did some measure on the last few brews and my wort is at/below 80c by the time I've transferred it into the cube.

15 min convection rest after flameout, 88c in the kettle -> 30min whirlpool rest, 80c in kettle -> transfer into cube and it's below that by a few.


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