mini cube

[Rizzla]

Hi,

I'm an extract and crystal malt brewer.
My procedure is to steep 1/2 k crystal in bag at around 60o - 70 C for a half hour or so, remove and sparge,
top up pot to about 8 L/ add 1/2 K dry malt extract (for hop iso ) and boil hops for recipe time (generally 60-90 min, 20 min and at flame out).
While this is happening I add the rest of the recipe dry malt, dex, corn syrup straight into the fermenter.
After the hops are cooked and cooled down a bit there is about 5 L left that i pour into the fermenter.
I then top up to 25 L water, add yeast and put into temp controlled fridge.

What I would like is others valued opinion on or experience with my idea to pour the 5 or so L (in bold above) into 5 L plastic containers (as per cubing in other posts) and store this for later use
When required I could just add this to other ingredients and away I go.

Thanks for any ideas Tom

 

[Rocker1986]

Well I suppose you could but I don't really see the point of it unless you run short of time and can't mix it all up in the fermenter after it's finished boiling. Cooling it in the fermenter is as easy as dumping in 10L or so of chilled water (if there is room in a fridge to chill that much water anyway).

 

[Rizzla]

Thanks Kelsey. My idea is - while my fermenter fridge is full and bubbling away with two brews I could cook up another two at my convenience and no chill cube in 5 L containers. When it comes time to keg I could just wash out the fermenters, sterilize add the dry ingredients and pour in my 5L cube, water, yeast and away I go again. The cube would be sitting around for about a week 10 days. I could even do 4 brews on brew day and save two for later in mini cubes (only one clean up so one less time to get hassled for leaving the place a mess). I would of course get good food grade containers, squeeze out air etc as in no chill tips in other discussions.

Would be a huge time saver for me. If I used two pots and If I doubled up the hops in each I could get two brews in one 5L cube, I understand from reading other no chill posts I can have them sitting around unrefigerated for ages.

The only thing I would need to work on is ensuring I ended up with a little less than 5L after the boil.

 

[MickGC]

one thing to keep in mind,
as the Wort will stay hotter for longer after the boil, your flameout hops may end up giving more bitterness than they currently do.

When i was No chilling i just moved all my hop additions 15-20 mins closer to the end of boil. Might be able to add the flameout hops to the 5l cube?

Also a plastic container will usually hold a bit more when filled with near boiling liquid, i remember my 20L cubes held about 22.5L

 

[Rizzla]

Good advice Mick just the stuff I was after and I will take on board

 

[n87]

I dont see any reason why you couldnt, convenience is one of the big reasons I cube, I can add the yeast whenever I feel like it.

Apart from having to change the hop additions (i usually work on ~12 mins offset, however, if you throw your 5L into the fridge, you may not even need to adjust. 5L will cool down pretty quickly), you may look into doing double or triple batches depending on what your pot allows (a 20L pot from Big W should do a triple without too much trouble). This adds to the convenience by only having to do it every few beers.

 

[Rocker1986]

Thanks Kelsey. My idea is - while my fermenter fridge is full and bubbling away with two brews I could cook up another two at my convenience and no chill cube in 5 L containers. When it comes time to keg I could just wash out the fermenters, sterilize add the dry ingredients and pour in my 5L cube, water, yeast and away I go again. The cube would be sitting around for about a week 10 days.

Makes more sense when it's explained like that mate. My brain's obviously checked out on holidays as well.. :lol: As long as you get containers that can be sealed up like cubes it should be fine.

 

[Rizzla]

Thanks Blokes, Guess it's sort of making my own tins of goo (a bit bigger, a bit runnier, and a bit lumpier) except I get to say whats in it.