Corny Instead Of A No-chill Cube.....

[warrenlw63]

Well, Im with Ross, I dont like the idea of using plastic at all. And when I can replace my fermenters with something else other than plastics I will be happy. I dont really care what the MSDS says for HDPE, I still dont trust it especially at higher temps.

This has been an interesting thread though. Apologies to the mods if they feel this topic is stale, but like any forum new people join all the time, and the old topics will continue to resurface. As long as we are all nice...
(Im a mod at another forum BTW so I understand the problem)

Cheers,
Jake

Heya Jakechan... Love yer avatar. Are you a fan of Pink Floyd or George Orwell's Animal Farm? Gotta love Napoleon.

Oh and good to see yet ANOTHER NC thread. <_<

Warren -

 

[dr K]

I do not NC, leave it at that.
If I were to do so I would use a keg, apart from anything else carefull selection of spear length would allow me to draw the wort off the trub. What annoys me though is the so-called advatage from a pasteurisation point of slow chill v fast chill.
Bollocks.
Pasteurisation occours in 20 secs at about 72C, that is 99.999% of the nasties are killed, in fact a normal 66C mash for 60 minutes will effectively pasteurise the wort. The beer from the boiler is almost sterile, I assume that no-chillers take the same sanitary precautions with their re-used cubes as they do or should do with everything else.
Sorry, you cannot have some something that is more pasteurised, it is or it is not.
Fresh Worts Kits are the greatest innovation in home brewing kits ever (why Coopers did not continue with them back in the early 80's I cannot say nor can I say if they were hot packaged) you are not going to get Botulism and the beer you produce from them is so many streets ahead of the concentrated malt extract diverted from Mars Bars derived kits that it really is a no-show for the old goo.
They do have their compromises though and one of those is inferior cold break and colloidal stability when compared to rapidly chilled wort though given the fact that the beer will be relatively quickly consumed and the myriad of other problems introduced by the home brewer that are toatlly of control of the wort kit manufacturer this can be effectively discounted.
Transferring this technology to home brewing though is curious.
Commercial breweries have the luxury production aids such as highly efficient whirl pooling, in a batch of 50 kits the first and last cubes can be easily sacrificed, however NC does have its advocates and it works for them so as I said I will leave it that., but arguing that it is better because the slow cooling offers some better form of pasteurisation rather weakens the other arguments put foward, as the slow chill better pasteurisation is patent bollocks how much faith can one put in their other arguments.

K

 

[sav]

you could take it to a river ,in the rapids and have a swim with it.
just being a d!@$ head.

 

[haysie]

I dont no chill, I always plate, but if I were too, kegs are a little more robust and has more variable use`s than a kube. I dont accept "food grade" status as being the be all and end all. Not knocking the plastic, past linky`s assure us n/c is viable.

 

[Jakechan]

Heya Jakechan... Love yer avatar. Are you a fan of Pink Floyd or George Orwell's Animal Farm? Gotta love Napoleon.

Oh and good to see yet ANOTHER NC thread. <_<

Warren -

Yeah, the Floyd is a favourite from my youth. Animals is a ripper (especially on vinyl) .


Edit: added gratuitous mention of vinyl

 

[rude]

Done only 2AGs n/c if I had a plate chiller I would have quick chilled for sure.
If I had kegs would definately give it a go plus a pool.
Plastic definately puts me off.
Oh well at least Im sucking a beer out some people cant drink jeez
Cheers to you all anyway.
Oh heres to the inventor who can get the wort into the fermentor from boiling to 20 or less in no time quickly , easily & cheaply.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

OK - so we know that lot of people who don't actually no-chill, think that no-chilling in a keg might be a good idea... not so much from the people who actually do no-chill, but enough so that its an idea that might benefit from being explored.

dr K -I am fully aware of the theory of pasteurization - and yet... in actual practice.. there was a bit of a trend some time ago amongst people who actually no-chill, where those who used techniques to speed up the nonetheless slow chilling, were suffering anecdotally greater incidence of swollen/infected cubes. It was theorized that perhaps one of the reason might well be that this was because the heat had less time to act as a sterilizing agent.... theoretically right or theoretically wrong, it seemed to win general agreement and also seems like good advice to me - more heat for longer = more insurance against germs. If they are all dead anyway, hell, you get to dance on their graves. When its balanced off against achieving nothing at all in the case of putting a hot cube into a fridge.... go on, you tell him what he should do, you know best. Leave the cube to cool naturally, or stick it in the fridge? and why. After you provide us with advice, I will say nothing because I cant compete with all the stuff that you know that I don't.

Oh, and your statements about the formation of cold break and the colloidal stability of fresh wort / no-chill beers are based on which studies? Or are they perhaps based on inferences you have made from classic brewing theory. I'm not saying you aren't right ... but I don't see any proof apart from your say so. So its more than possible that this is bollocks... and what would that do for the credibility of the rest of your arguments?

As for thinking that someone needs to be qualified to innovate.. who the hell said that? If some of you people think that new brewers should be encouraged to go beyond methods that have a bit of experience behind them... then thank Christ you weren't the ones giving me advice when I first started brewing. New brewers can innovate - they just shouldn't need to if they are getting decent advice.

Plastic cubes cool down within the hour in a big tub/swimming pool of water.. don't need surface area equations nor heat transference figures... actually watched it happen.

I've had enough of this thread - if people think that trying to steer a newbie towards the safe and well trodden bit of the path he has chosen is a bad thing, then I don't know what the hell is a good thing. Sorry for thinking I might know a thing or two about things I actually regularly do. I'll shut up now so the people who don't no-chill at all can go on giving advice about how it should best be done.

 

[Ross]

Jeez thirstyboy, not like you to get het up so easily...

read Poks 1st post

If you were to do as Jakechan (here) did and fill the keg and then purge with CO2 this should keep infection at bay nicely??? Then place in fridge to cool down for ferment....

Anyway what do others think??

At the moment I have a bundle of empty cornies and using them would be great instead of having to source cubes

.

He states quite clearly he has a bundle of empty cornies & would rather use than source cubes if suitable - The fact is, kegs are quite suitable & there's really little reason not to use if you wish - plastic cubes maybe better or maybe not, I've personally only ever used cubes or fermenters & regularly "no chill", but that wasn't the question - also Pok is not a newbie, even if he is doing his first AG, having been around for several years as a regular poster.
It was a good question & has certainly given me food for thought....

cheers Ross

 

[PostModern]

...and what exactly does "food grade" mean? Safe to consume?

Food grade plastics contain only non-toxic plasticisers. ie, as the plastic breaks down, you only get eg citric acid out.

What annoys me though is the so-called advatage from a pasteurisation point of slow chill v fast chill.
Bollocks.
<snip>
Transferring this technology to home brewing though is curious.

Knowing that the wort is pasteurised and hermetically sealed in a cube means that it can be stored until needed. There are instances of very old (6 months plus, I believe) cubes of wort being dumped into fermenters and great beers produced.

The advantage for me is that I rarely get the hours needed to make AG beer, so when I find myself with the time, I can bang out a dozen cubes in a week and ferment them as I need.

Not sure how all the others treat their cubes, but I look after them in terms of cleaning as well as my fermenters. I also have a friendly local brewer who supplies me with plenty of single-use cubes (ex commercial wort packs), so I can retire cubes if for whatever reason I consider them suss, or as more fresh ones come in.

This technology has traversed from commercial to home brewing successfully and has many advantages, few disadvantages, many practitioners and more detractors.

 

[imellor]

Pok
Seems your plan is a great topic. Only problem I can see as I think someone else has stated is that after ferment will you have enough left to fill your corny. I use cubes and have never had a problem but always ferment more than 19L to ensure I fill the keg without disturbing the yeast cake. What is left goes into a bottle 1L or 2L.

Cheers
Ian

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Dammit - it must be that time of the month... I am foaming at the mouth then remorsefull, then all ticked off again. Think I'll go have a cry, a bex and a bit of a lie down. I shall attempt to redeem myself by being reasonable for a second, then I really will withdraw from this thread... but only so I don't have another hissy fit in an hour's time and make more of a dick of myself

a] - I don't think that trying to no-chill in a keg is a "bad" idea or wont work, never said that. I just think that they are not going to be as suitable a container for doing it in' as are the type of cubes that most people currently use (not counting the kettle and fermentor guys)

b] - I know Pok isn't a newbie, I didn't at any point mean to infer that he isn't capable of thinking through the process. He is a new AG brewer though.

c] - I still think that when Pok does his first AG, he would be steering for the safest (in terms of results) easiest and most well trodden ground, to go with putting his wort into a bog standard NC cube (or fermentor). Or of course to actually chill. Corny kegs might well be the best NC container on the planet; and in a year's time we might have all chucked our cubes in the bin... but someone who is about to do their first AG, should leave the risks of finding out to people who have only a batch at stake... not their "first" batch.

d] - Unless.... they have a good reason to take the risk, which it seems that Pok well might

Having said as clearly as I have been so far able to manage.. what it is that I actually meant all along - I'll call it quits before I lapse into histrionics again.

Thirsty

 

[reviled]

I personally wouldnt use a keg to NC, purely due to the fact that I then wouldnt have any drinkable beer in it And thats just not good! :lol:

 

[haysie]

Was it,
Faaaark me said the Fairy Queen, there CAN only be one way!! Pigs ass!
Good topic, about to head around to a fellow AHB`er 4 a xmas beer,he has no chilled in the keg. Ill ask him to read the thread and post his results and opinion.

 

[pb unleaded]

Was it,
Faaaark me said the Fairy Queen, there CAN only be one way!! Pigs ass!
Good topic, about to head around to a fellow AHB`er 4 a xmas beer,he has no chilled in the keg. Ill ask him to read the thread and post his results and opinion.

I no chilled in kegs many times with good results. After filling it with hot wort I would then put the keg in a fish pond to speed up the no chilling. This was probably unnecessary as I always waited til next day to transfer to fermenter.
Now I 'yes chill" but if I was to no chill again I would still do it in a keg.
In my opinion a keg is more suitable container than a cube.

merry xmas

arthr

 

[Mr_Brewer]

any one seen this not the same but