No-chill and late hopped starter

[Seeker]

I've been happy with my nochill brews, mistakes aside, apart from the well documented lack of late hop flavour.

I was thinking of doing the following to get around the problem, but it seems so easy that someone must have tried it before, and maybe some down side I've no seen exists.

My idea is to no chill as usual, but save back 2 litres or so, and instead add them to an HDPE fruit juice container, with the flameout hop charge.

Then dump the container into an ice bath.

Since this is only 2L and is in very thin HDPE it will chill very quickly.

The 2L can then be stored with the 20L main cube, and used as the yeast starter, saving time when pitching.

 

[Barry]

Good idea but that amount of hops (I assume 20 gms or more) in 2 L could adversely affect the yeast by coating it in oils . You could try and see. I would use a separate yeast starter but otherwise the idea sounds good. Worth a try.

 

[danestead]

Also, because of the vigourous nature of a starter, I would assume you would lose a lot of your hop aromas. You would need to dry hop to get those type of aromas back. As for hop flavours, im not sure how they would be affected however I dont think it is an issue retaining hop flavours in no chill anyway.

 

[Trevandjo]

I think it's a good idea to do the flameout hops as you've described. I'd still do a separate starter though for reasons stated above.

I assume you'll be transferring both to another fv and not cube fermenting.

 

[manticle]

Look up the argon method. A search should bring it up - similar idea but not as a starter.

 

[manticle]

http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/55801-late-hopping-and-no-chilling-guide/

http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/49819-late-hopping-and-nochilling-it-can-be-done/

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Methode Argonaise is great.

I cube hop and a while ago there was a discussion in the cube hopping thread about cubing, watching the temp and chucking hops in when it's down to 90 degrees (i.e. some isomerisation, but still at pasteurisation temps), but not sure if anyone actually went ahead with it. I think there might need to be a more scientific approach to it (specifics based around speed of temp loss, time of isomerisation, that sort of thing).

I've been really happy though with 100% cube hopping AIPA, and a little dry hopping after a couple of days.