Automated Chilling in a No Chill cube

[stux]

My cubes are still quite warm the next morning after a brew night.

Putting them in a fridge hot can't be good for the fridge, but when they're warm it's probably okay. In fact I often put a cube in a ferm fridge at pitching temperature a few hours/days before I pitch.

If you wanted to pitch next day, I think the best thing would be QlsKev's slow chill. Just put the cube in your pool (kiddy pool )

Otherwise, if you want to fast chill use a whirlpool immersion chiller in your BK or a plate chiller on its output.

I'm contemplating the IC or plate chiller question at the moment as I've gotten sick of not being able to get the level of hop aroma I want in my hoppy ales

And doing bigger batches there comes a point when the hassle of cleaning 4 cubes is more than the hassle of cleaning one cooler..... I think

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Sorry for the threadjack but how do you work out when to add the "10 min addition"? Do you have any idea of the average rate of cooling in the cube?

It'd be a bit of trial and error and an educated guess.

Given my cube hopping is about 15-20 minute additions (which is more 'gut-feel' rather than science), you'd probably look at what temp isomerisation finishes and a formula on how to halve the 20 minutes assumption.

Based on http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/68163-hop-isomerisation-temperatures/?p=961895 this post, where isomerisation halves for every 10 degrees below 100, I would say that your first 'experiment' would be to add the hops when your cube hits 90 degrees, which has the added advantage of still being over pasteurisation temps.

That's a bit of educated theoretical guesswork - but you see what I mean.

 

[fletcher]

mods please delete my post

 

[seehuusen]

Putting them in a fridge hot can't be good for the fridge, but when they're warm it's probably okay.

My last batch went straight into my fermentation fridge, probably at about 85c. The fridge started up and ran it down to 14c over night.
My regulator stated 35c inside the fridge.

I'm not a refrigeration guy, and perhaps the prolonged running time for the pump isn't good in the long run. It does not appear to have affected my fridge yet though...

How come some sites doesn't recommend the swimming pool method, does anyone know of ill effects?

 

[Cavemanbrew]

Hot cube and chuck the entire cube into a big esky of ice and a few kg of salt (salt lowers the temp and holds it there a little bit longer) this will keep all nasties out and have the desired outcome

 

[pist]

Hot cube and chuck the entire cube into a big esky of ice and a few kg of salt (salt lowers the temp and holds it there a little bit longer) this will keep all nasties out and have the desired outcome

Wouldn't this have the same dangers as the practice ive heard some using of throwing the cube in the pool? Rapid cooling doesn't allow pasteurisation to occur and greatly increase the risk of infection/growth of bacteria that made it into the cube when capped (keep in mind home brewing is usually done in some of the filthiest places you possibly can brew i.e in shed, basement, outside etc, so the risk of contamination has to be high if your not thorough with your cleaning/sanitation)...an ice bath would lower the temperature even more rapidly. Ive got to agree with everyone else here. Whilst I'm all for trying new methods...in this instance you might as well just chill with an immersion chiller and dump to fermenter as soon as its cooled.

 

[GuyQLD]

When you consider the temperatures most people are cubing at and how long pasteurisation actually takes Slow Chilling actually makes a lot of sense. My wort goes into the cube between 75-80'C - at that temp 10 minutes should be plenty of time to pasteurise it; at which point throwing it the pool should be relatively safe. Cube Hopping in that sense makes lots of sense. Happy to be corrected if anyone has any data around the temps/time - I just pulled these out of a couple of Google searches (in fact, these are well above most practices)

 

[Oakers]

Considering the OP hasn't even done an AG yet I suggest that he just has a go at simple no-chill first. You can get excellent results just keeping it simple. Like GuyQLD I have done some cubing at around 75 degrees C. This means I can do large flameout additions and then another hop addition once the wort is down to about 80 degrees C in the kettle. Plenty of forwardness from this technique I guarantee. Assuming your cube is well sanitised then the risk of infection is low as pasteurisation will occur over the sorts of times we are talking about for the cube to cool. If worried about infection risk then pitch the next day rather than store.