Hop Adjustment Help For No Chilling? Bitter First Ag

[Damian44]

How do you chill down to 10C?

 

[drtomc]

of course you could get around all of this by actually chilling......it is said to work wonders...

K

Can I get technical for a moment?

False => True. That is, if you start with a false premise, all conclusions are true.

Besides, there's an innate cool factor in working out how to make a "new" technique work well. One of the great things about home brewing is the scope for experimentation and exploration!

Chill! (Um, so to speak)

T.

 

[drtomc]

I honestly doubt that too many people choose to no-chill because a chiller is too expensive to make. Although they are quite expensive to buy pre-made. Its mainly about ease of use, time saving and flexibiity. With no perceptible effect on the quality of the finished beer.

Actually, for me, NC was the discovery that tipped me from kit brewing to AG precisely because I had cubes already, so NC represented one less bit of gear to sort out in order to make the switch. Partly expense, partly learning curve.

I note wrt water, that several people have mentioned using rain-water tank water to flow through their chiller which they recycle into the tank, which is a nice finesse. Of course, not everyone has a rain-water tank.

T.

 

[Bribie G]

How do you chill down to 10C?

There's no need to chill IMMEDIATELY down to 10 degrees because even when fermenting at those temperatures, it's still necessary to pitch at a higher temp then chill down from there. Using no chill I have no problems getting down to pitching temp in two stages then to fermenting temp.

let cube cool overnight (usually still about 29 degrees in the morning)
place in dead fridge with frozen PETs which brings it to pitching temperature by around lunchtime
continue swapping frozen PETs and it's at fermentation temperature by the next morning.. I usually go about 13 degrees for a lager and 3 frozen PETs swapped only once a day keeps me there at the moment (SEQ autumn weather). The live fridge and the dead fridge are both in the garage so it's literally a 3 minute job once a day.


On the subject of flexibility, we're moving house in about 3 weeks but the brewing is proceeding as normal, I'll just take cubes of wort with me and the new brewery can kick off from day one with nary a hiccup :super:

 

[EK]

I think they do need to be discussed. Just exactly what does the rapid chilling of a beer do that is not also done when you no-chill a beer? Not just what rapid chilling achieves - what it does better than no-chilling.

My understanding, and I could well be wrong, is that chilling meant to produce a cold break and no chilling doesn't. As I have only just done my first AG beer, a BIAB DrSmurto Golden Ale, which was no chilled, I would like to know what the cold break does to the end product.

Also Plamer says:

Rapid cooling also forms the Cold Break. This is composed of another group of proteins that need to be thermally shocked into precipitating out of the wort. Slow cooling will not affect them. Cold break, or rather the lack of it, is the cause of Chill Haze. When a beer is chilled for drinking, these proteins partially precipitate forming a haze. As the beer warms up, the proteins re-dissolve. Only by rapid chilling from near-boiling to room temperature will the Cold Break proteins permanently precipitate and not cause Chill Haze. Chill haze is usually regarded as a cosmetic problem. You cannot taste it. However, chill haze indicates that there is an appreciable level of cold-break-type protein in the beer, which has been linked to long-term stability problems. Hazy beer tends to become stale sooner than non-hazy beer.

:icon_cheers:
EK

 

[Thirsty Boy]

My understanding, and I could well be wrong, is that chilling meant to produce a cold break and no chilling doesn't. As I have only just done my first AG beer, a BIAB DrSmurto Golden Ale, which was no chilled, I would like to know what the cold break does to the end product.

Also Plamer says:


:icon_cheers:
EK

In this case - Its my opinion that both yourself and Palmer are wrong. Cold break forms as temperature drops because the compounds are simply not soluble at lower temperatures. The speed with which you get to the lower temperatures is not particularly important. Cold break still demonstrably happens in slow cooled wort.

Darren - I would point out that the history that shows slow cooling to be an infection risk is mainly one that involves coolships and letting the wort cool down by having the breeze blow across a large open surface area. A little different a proposition to a sealed and sanitised container. Apart from that point I rather surprisingly agree with the majority of what you say.

 

[clean brewer]

Also Plamer says:
QUOTE Rapid cooling also forms the Cold Break. This is composed of another group of proteins that need to be thermally shocked into precipitating out of the wort. Slow cooling will not affect them. Cold break, or rather the lack of it, is the cause of Chill Haze. When a beer is chilled for drinking, these proteins partially precipitate forming a haze. As the beer warms up, the proteins re-dissolve. Only by rapid chilling from near-boiling to room temperature will the Cold Break proteins permanently precipitate and not cause Chill Haze. Chill haze is usually regarded as a cosmetic problem. You cannot taste it. However, chill haze indicates that there is an appreciable level of cold-break-type protein in the beer, which has been linked to long-term stability problems. Hazy beer tends to become stale sooner than non-hazy beer.

Interesting... Lucky my Beers aren't around for the long term.. :unsure: And im not too fussed about the Cosmetic look either...

 

[hazard]

In this case - Its my opinion that both yourself and Palmer are wrong. Cold break forms as temperature drops because the compounds are simply not soluble at lower temperatures. The speed with which you get to the lower temperatures is not particularly important. Cold break still demonstrably happens in slow cooled wort.

personally, i've never had an issue with cold break. I dont use a chiller, simply put the kettle in a sink with cold water and some ice - may take a few hours to get down to pitching temperature. I then tip the contents - including the cold break - through a strainer into the fermenter. Never had any chill haze - even a hoegaarden wit, with 45% raw wheat, remains resolutely clear! So I've never considered it a problem.

Any counter-flow chiller will also dump cold break into the fermenter. I've never heard that this is a cause of any problems. What is not clear from Palmer's quote is, what does he think you should do with cold break? Should you rack from the kettle to leave cold break behind? OR, if in the fermenter, will it sink to the bottom? (Maybe Irish moss will help here, but I never used this with my wit beer).

Hazard

 

[brendo]

In this case - Its my opinion that both yourself and Palmer are wrong. Cold break forms as temperature drops because the compounds are simply not soluble at lower temperatures. The speed with which you get to the lower temperatures is not particularly important. Cold break still demonstrably happens in slow cooled wort.

+1 on this... I totally agree with Thirsty Boy on this one. I always get cold break in the bottom of my cubes, regardless of how long they have taken to cool (summer vs autumn).

From what I have heard on a few podcasts, a little bit of hot and cold break into the fermentor is not a bad thing and the yeast quite like it.

Brendo

 

[atkinsonr]

Just a note on the OP's question about bittering,

I'm in my first few months of AG. All of my AG beers (all 4 of them) have been no-chill. My first two were a little over-bittered, and after making some adjustments the last couple have been fine.

Basically I think TB sums it up fully in this post.

To summarise,

1. No-chill definitely increases the alpha acids exposure to heat, therefore there is an extended window for isomerisation.

2. The difference (in terms of timing of hop additions) between traditional chilling and no chill, is approximately 20 mins (I'm sure this can vary a lot with the ambient temp).

3. 60 min hop additions are fully isomerised anyway, so they are unaffected.

4. Any 30 minute or later additions are affected in two ways:
a. Less contribution to flavour
b. More contribution to bittering

5. A simple (and approximate work around) is to:
a. Add your 60 minute hops as usual, these are the only hops in the boil.
b. Add your usual 30 min additions into the cube (just before you add the wort - it's way less stuffing around than if you try and hop the wort already in the cube)
c. Any later (less than 30 mins) hop additions should be saved for the fermenter. I've been trying TB's Ultra-late hopping idea.

One tip with ultra-late hopping. Be careful not to dilute the wort too much, better to add DME than just "hop tea".

Oh and on the cold break, I find half a whirlflock tab and a good whirlpooling in the kettle is more than enough.

/ Richy

 

[Bizier]

I just got my 1/4" chiller back from my dad's place. I will be splitting the tube into multiple in/outlets to get more vol through.

Anyway... I will be hopefully brewing 70L batches, NC 2 and traditionally chill one, hopefully I can find some useful technique for getting the hops sorted between the two methods.

 

[drtomc]

Just had an email conversation with an organic chemist friend.

Her observation is that when you cool a solution slowly nice pure crystals form leaving behind the impurities (I should have remembered - but it is more than 15 years since I did chemistry at uni). So by chilling quickly it may well be that the cold break captures some of the proteins that cause chill haze.

Anyway, her brother is also a chemist and a brewer, so she was going to consult with him and get back to me....

T.