No Chill Divide And Conquer

[Bribie G]

For my interstate move I had 2 "square" 20L Bacchus cubes for no chilling, full of wort. I rarely keep a cube for more than a week before pitching, nearly always the next day. These had been sitting for over a month and sadly they developed infections and started swelling so I chucked them - no point in courting disaster by putting further brews into them.

On arrival and setting up brewery I visited the LGS (edit: BGS) at Taree and they didn't have anything like a fresh wort cube, just the Willow variants that are great for 30 bottle brews but a bit too large for my keg only brews.
However they did have 10L "cubes" and on taking 2 home and doing a measured fill, when used as a NC cube they actually hold 11L. Perfect.

Advantages occur to me:

Surface to volume ratio means much faster cooling, especially in these climes where it can be 27 at noon but 9 at midnight at the moment.
Far easier to handle and glug into the fermenter
Cube #1 can be guaranteed to have pure clean wort, and due to easy handling Cube #2 can be more easily controlled on pouring to avoid any hot break going into the fermenter.

Brewing tomorrow, will report. About $14 each so not cheap but still in the "Willow" ballpark so not too bad.

 

[beerbrewer76543]

You could also start the yeast off on one cube's worth of wort, then add the other cube to the mix at a later stage; like the following day

Might be handy if yeast is limited or you are after a super clean yeast profile

 

[Bribie G]

Now that's thinking. It rang a bell straight away so I hopped onto Braukaiser's site:
"Drauflassen" - sounds like a scalp disease or something nasty that drunks do in Bamberg when they think nobody is watching. :lol:

As the second cube needs to be well aerated (which would be quite manageable as you are only handling eleven litres) it's somewhat like British double dropping as well, giving the yeast a boost with a second dose of oxygen.

 

[bignath]

Bribie,

i reckon you might be on to something there mate.

with the exception of having to clean two containers per single batch, and the extra inital cost, i reckon there's some good amount of merit in using those cubes.

 

[kelbygreen]

good thinking also good if you got space constants to I guess as you can store them in different places.

OT I thought you where moving near newcaslte lol you wanna order bulk when you do drop into marks :lol:

 

[bignath]

Actually, another use for the divide conquer approach could be to compare different yeast strains over an identical batch of wort.
When i try to do experiments like this, i always wonder whether each single batch wort is identical before trying different dry hops (both with variety and quantity), or different yeast strains.

This would eliminate any "inconsistency" for side by side experiments. Just like doing the same experiment with a double batch into two separate cubes, but without the fear of losing an entire cube if the end result of the experiment isn't to your liking.

 

[kelbygreen]

thats why I do double batches so I could really do a 4 way trial if use these

 

[ratchie]

You could also start the yeast off on one cube's worth of wort, then add the other cube to the mix at a later stage; like the following day

Might be handy if yeast is limited or you are after a super clean yeast profile

Thats what I do, 60lt batches 2 1/2 willow jerry cans pitch the starter or dry yeast into the half jerry then dump them all into the fermenter the next day

 

[bignath]

thats why I do double batches so I could really do a 4 way trial if use these

Even better!

 

[soundawake]

Yeah that seems like a pretty bloody good idea. Will be keen to hear how it turns out. That method would actually work really well at my house, where I chill my cubes in my pool. Takes about 90-120 mins to cool one 20 (23L) cube now. Two smaller ones would save some time.

 

[Bribie G]

Kelby, seeing as we AG'ers are multiplying like flies up this way I expect on my runs down to Marks we'll be doing some car pooling and it will be more like an invasion

 

[mikec]

Why would cube #1 have pure clean wort?
It would still have cold break, no?

 

[Dazza88]

I had trouble sealing those cubes at the tap and the lid, how are they for you Bribie. I have used a blue willow 10l jerry for no chilling for 2 years, no problems, ideal for 19l big w pot biab.

 

[QldKev]

If you don't mind fermenting them separately you could always try cube hoping them differently.

That hop dump brew day I put on youtube, I had 3 cubes that all got cube hoped differently, one Galaxy, an Amarillo and a Centennial. It can make a huge difference. The Amarillo and Centennial where good drops, whilst the Galaxy was renamed to be "iso beer" as it tasted way too bitter.

QldKev

 

[mckenry]

Why would cube #1 have pure clean wort?
It would still have cold break, no?

Yes, they will both have cold break. Bribie said hot break. Hot break is in the kettle and can get sucked up as you draw the last few litres.

 

[felten]

These are basically what I use for my batches, the BMW 10L cube, except mine look like they have a larger opening than those. They take the willow 20L jerry lids.

I've found the ones I have won't seal as well as the willows. I add thread tape/keg lube on the thread by default now after having issues trying to get a seal.

 

[Guysmiley54]

Do you think this method would reduce the bitterness associated with NC just a touch? I add 15 min to my NC batches and find my recipes work well. Do you think reducing cube size and speeding up the cooling process you could consider it to be a 10 min addition?

 

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Do you think this method would reduce the bitterness associated with NC just a touch? I add 15 min to my NC batches and find my recipes work well. Do you think reducing cube size and speeding up the cooling process you could consider it to be a 10 min addition?

I only use the 10L willows, they hold around 12L of hot wort, around my usual batch size.

I add 10min for hops and it seems to work out pretty good.

Also have experimented twice with siphoning off the soon after the boil for hoppy beers. Usual no chill process, eliminate air, seal.
Then there is the 5 - 10mins it takes me to organise getting the thing in a tank of water, in the future it will be a pool.

If i move it around a bit on a rope its down to 25C in no time at all, also seemed to work well in regards to the hop side of things.
Note i pitched these worts no more than 2 days later.

 

[bum]

Do you think this method would reduce the bitterness associated with NC just a touch? I add 15 min to my NC batches and find my recipes work well. Do you think reducing cube size and speeding up the cooling process you could consider it to be a 10 min addition?

IMO, if it is cooling fast enough to limit isomerisation then it possibly isn't staying hot long enough to get the antibacterial(?) heat treatment that is desirable in the method.

 

[Dazza88]

Yep leave it for at least 20 minutes before you dump the cube in a body of water. Then pitch it the next day or two.


The cubes I want to keep for a while I wouldn't try to chill it