First No Chill

[Nodrog]

Did the first no chill over the weekend, only my 2nd AG, and first 20l AG, but man, love it.

I knocked up a wee rack so the cube sits at an angle, which ensured the opening was right at the very top as I filled. Got about 20 litres from the kettle in there, and then topped up the last 500mls or so with boiling water from the kitchen kettle, so had it literally to the brim, screwed on the cap, and full, right around the handle space, the works.

compared to previous ice baths etc Takes about 2 hours off the boil day, and pitched tonight, in all of 5 mins onto cake of previous brew.

Question though. I understood a cube with a tap is dodgy and might not be strong enough for the temp? is this true?

When i poured the wort into the FV tonight I poured 'vigoursoly' to try and get some splashing and aeration. The wort being poured started off crystal clear, i was a happy man. But by the end I had a choice of either wasting the last 5litres or more, or pouring in some pretty dark sludgy stuff. Wasn't sure, so in it all went. Guess this was a mixture of the infamous cold break and hop pellet sludge.

Should i have tried to keep the sludge back? What's best way of doing so? A tap and letting it run through that may have let the sediment stay in the cube?Or just bung the whole lot in?

All good though, if it carries on like this looks like i'm on the dark side....

 

[Lemon]

Hey Nodrog,
good work on the NC and the AG.

I think it would be fair to say that the jury is still out on the inclusion of the cold break.

I leave it in, and I believe Bribie did a trial where he proved, with a sample size of one, that it makes no noticeable difference.

So, like most things brewing, its your choice, and either way you'll still make great beer.

good luck

Lemon

 

[QldKev]

It settles out in the fermentor, don't worry pour it all in

QldKev

 

[Nodrog]

Thanks guys. It just gets better & better. Easy and no wastage. 12 hours in got whomping great krausen and the ferm fridge smells wonderful, roll on 3 weeks for drinking!

 

[argon]

I dump the entire contents of all my cubes into the fermenter... I have in the past held back the last portion of the cube, but i've noticed no difference. Although I kinda feel dirty about it!

 

[ekul]

I throw it all in as well. I pour half into the fermenter and then seal the cube up for a good shaking to make sure there's plenty of air in there, so all that stuff is well and truly mixed in!

 

[fergi]

i did my second ag on saturday,i have no chilled both my ag,s but i am wondering what is the chance of infection over no chill and using a chiller straight away, if you are going to get a no chill infection how long would it take to show up, the reason i am asking is my smurtos golden ale that i made for my first ag had a different taste tonite, still really nice but not as fantastic as it was about 4 days ago, not sure if its just my taste buds today or weather its got something about to start, i still drank 3 schooners of it tonite after work and really enjoyed it but it did seem like the flavour had something different about it, maybe a slight pepper on the back of the tongue and a slight dryness.
fergi

ps, i havent had an infection in over 3 years, just wondering now about the no cube.

 

[Guysmiley54]

I have just started no chilling and I too throw it all in the fermenter. I do wonder though how others account for efficiency and dilution? I imagine it's difficult to predict how much break will settle when you just pour it all into the fermenter. My last brew I had around 1.75 Litres of break (including yeast cake) thats alot for me!! When I rack to batch prime I'll get nearly two litres of beer less than the recipe planned for. If I had know this maybe I would have topped up with a little water to compensate.

I guess I'm wondering... Does having a lower yield:

Increase IBU?
Intensify flavours from speciality malt and flavour and aroma hop additions?
Increase gravity (that is easy to test!)
Increase EBC colour rating?

Just wondering what you guys think about all this.

Cheers :icon_cheers:

 

[Nobby]

i did my second ag on saturday,i have no chilled both my ag,s but i am wondering what is the chance of infection over no chill and using a chiller straight away, if you are going to get a no chill infection how long would it take to show up,

I no chill all the time and havnt had an infection from it yet..IMO poor sanitation or not squeezing all of the air out
of your cube would be the only reason leading to an infection, i say this because your filling your cube with boiling
hot wort which has reached 100deg and that would kill all the nasties and if there was anything inside the cube it would
have been killed of as well.. :beerbang:

 

[Hatchy]

i did my second ag on saturday,i have no chilled both my ag,s but i am wondering what is the chance of infection over no chill and using a chiller straight away, if you are going to get a no chill infection how long would it take to show up, the reason i am asking is my smurtos golden ale that i made for my first ag had a different taste tonite, still really nice but not as fantastic as it was about 4 days ago, not sure if its just my taste buds today or weather its got something about to start, i still drank 3 schooners of it tonite after work and really enjoyed it but it did seem like the flavour had something different about it, maybe a slight pepper on the back of the tongue and a slight dryness.
fergi

ps, i havent had an infection in over 3 years, just wondering now about the no cube.

You could get an infection in yr cube no chilling but you could get an infection in yr chiller if you were chilling.

If you've had the beer's tasting different to how it did 3 days ago then I doubt it has anything to do with the cube. Beer tastes different as it gets a bit older, that would be my guess.

Did the cube swell when the wort was in there? Cubes can explode if you get a cube infection.

Edit: added quote

 

[fergi]

You could get an infection in yr cube no chilling but you could get an infection in yr chiller if you were chilling.

If you've had the beer's tasting different to how it did 3 days ago then I doubt it has anything to do with the cube. Beer tastes different as it gets a bit older, that would be my guess.

Did the cube swell when the wort was in there? Cubes can explode if you get a cube infection.

Edit: added quote
[/quote

no cube didnt really swell except for going a bit tight with the boiling wort expanding a bit,i guess i could have put 500 ml in at a squeeze to fill it to the top, although it was full to the cap but with a little bit of air bubble.rolled it around to cover all the surfaces.
fergi

 

[rotten]

I have no chilled for last 10 or so brews. My cube holds more than I brew and I haven't topped it up. I have had 2 failures which I fully accept as being my fault, not knocking no chill. I sanitise well, obviously not well enough. My shed gets to 40c plus this time of year which may have an effect on the brew in the cube. Not proven though. My cube has a tap and hasn't failed, just can't leave it for more than a few days from my humble experience.
Cube has been tossed, will keep no chilling, although looking into other chilling methods just for my own peace of mind.
SANITISE thoroughly, boiling wort doesn't seem to cover any mistakes. I used my cube to trasdfer wort to the kettle after the sparge, rinsed out really well or sterilised, then cubed after boil. This is my most likely mistake.
Cheers

 

[Siborg]

I've done nothing but no chill. I normally leave the last litre in the cube, but it's all swirled around anyway, so 4-5 litres is gonna get some crud in there anyway.

Just crash chill at 3-4 degrees for a week, and watch it all settle out.

And remember to compensate for the extra IBU's: 15min addition cubed = ~30 mins of IBU's (take ~15mins off what a recipe says and add it at that time)

My first AG was the good doctor's golden ale, and it was bitter as hell. Harsh bitter, too. Second time I hit it right on the head.

 

[Bada Bing Brewery]

I've done 5 BIAB's now and NC them all. My first was the "Smurto" and i did it exactly to the AG recipe here and it turned out beautifully, hop additions were to spec.
The more I read the more there seems to be a divide between those that say change your hop schedule for NC and those that say keep it simple and do the recipe as stated. Dunno if it makes a difference but as soon as my wort is cubed (15-20 mins post boil) I throw the cube into the backyard pool and leave it there overnight or for a few hours which drops it down to 25C pretty quickly.

Until I get a really bitter one, I will just keep going as per the hop schedules in the recipes.
Cheers

 

[Nick JD]

My no-chilling is just leaving the wort in the pot to cool, but I always tip it into the fermenter the next day.

One thing you can be assured of with this method is that your no-chill vessle is sterile - it's been boiling for 60+ minutes.

I've never had an infection.

Funny thing is I've left the dregs (hot break and a bit of wort and a tiny bit of cold break usually, about a liter) in the pot with the lid on (lid has a little hole in it) for 2 days before, sitting on the laundry floor. My pot lives there normally, so I suddenly realise days later that it still has the hot break in there! YUCK!

But not yuck. Not fermenting. Not infected. Should be though.

 

[Bribie G]

I've been using a method proposed by argon, in my last 2 brews so early days yet..

Nochill as usual but do not do any 10 minute or flame out additons.
Chill the cube down to really cold in the fridge (I do it in two stages - overnight on the floor then into the fridge the next morning to avoid the fridge going "WTF - no way dude"

Pour three litres of wort into a stockpot and reseal cube immediately. Then do the 10 min boil or flameout addition.
Pour the cold wort into the fermenter followed by the boiling wort from the stockpot.

bingo all the advantages of nochill and similar effect to rapid chill re the late / flamout additions.

This brings you to instant pitching temperature, so pitch.
There would be a calculator somewhere that I'll look for. So far it's worked out fine as it was for lagers and ended up with about 13 immediately but for an 18 ale pitch I'd be looking for a bit more accuracy for the temp to chill the cube to.

The hop aroma into primary was glorious. (Saaz)

 

[Bada Bing Brewery]

I've been using a method proposed by argon, in my last 2 brews so early days yet..

Nochill as usual but do not do any 10 minute or flame out additons.
Chill the cube down to really cold in the fridge (I do it in two stages - overnight on the floor then into the fridge the next morning to avoid the fridge going "WTF - no way dude"

Pour three litres of wort into a stockpot and reseal cube immediately. Then do the 10 min boil or flameout addition.
Pour the cold wort into the fermenter followed by the boiling wort from the stockpot.

bingo all the advantages of nochill and similar effect to rapid chill re the late / flamout additions.

This brings you to instant pitching temperature, so pitch.
There would be a calculator somewhere that I'll look for. So far it's worked out fine as it was for lagers and ended up with about 13 immediately but for an 18 ale pitch I'd be looking for a bit more accuracy for the temp to chill the cube to.

The hop aroma into primary was glorious. (Saaz)

I'm going to try that with my next brew. Thanks BribieG

 

[samhaldane]

Pour three litres of wort into a stockpot and reseal cube immediately. Then do the 10 min boil or flameout addition.
Pour the cold wort into the fermenter followed by the boiling wort from the stockpot.

I've been doing this too and it works pretty well.

Do you strain the hot wort through something Bribie?

I've been straining through a normal metal kitchen strainer but still end up with quite a lot of hop material in the fermenter.

 

[Bribie G]

I would strain hop flowers through a sanitised mesh strainer. I've never found hop pellet mush in the fermenter to be a real problem as it either sinks out into the yeast cake or ends up stuck to the sides and doesn't end up in the cold conditioning cube (I always cold condition).

Here's a calculator I found, good gear: online calculator

 

[samhaldane]

Here's a calculator I found, good gear: online calculator

Nice! I was looking for something like that and actually started to write something myself.