No Chill In Kegs?

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Bubba Q

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Are there any pros / cons to no chilling your wort in kegs if you have some spare? Seems like it would be ideal in avoiding oxidation before you get around to fermenting
 
Are there any pros / cons to no chilling your wort in kegs if you have some spare? Seems like it would be ideal in avoiding oxidation before you get around to fermenting


the posts will draw air in, they are designed to hold positive pressure only, so when your keg cools you will suck in air along with everything in the air
 
You could always attach Co2 to your posts, maybe plastic bag or whatever, so when the volume in the keg shrinks only Co2 gets drawn in.

Or even better, but not sure if this works: What if you put your keg under pressure with Co2, wouldn't the gas just expand when the wort volume shrinks and thus not drawing anything in through the posts?

Hey, if this works then I'll give that a try, no chill and then ferment in the same keg, then transfer via filter to new keg.
 
Could you connect CO2 to the posts at low pressure, or run lines into a pot of sanitised water?

I'm guessing that connecting the two posts to each other via disconnects/joined line would be bad? - kaboom implosion? or not enough negative pressure to matter?
 
Connecting to CO2 sounds like trouble, the wort would absorb that under pressure and you'll have trouble oxygenating it for fermentation, displacing the CO2 would be hard. Of course you could hook it up to an O2 cylinder if you were so inclined and have it oxygenate under pressure as it cools?!
 
Connecting to CO2 sounds like trouble, the wort would absorb that under pressure and you'll have trouble oxygenating it for fermentation, displacing the CO2 would be hard. Of course you could hook it up to an O2 cylinder if you were so inclined and have it oxygenate under pressure as it cools?!

dispelling the hsa myth B)
 
The problem I see with no chilling in kegs is that, whilst they are SS, there are bits in there such as the posts, dip tube etc that cannot be guaranteed sterile, and are a bit hard to clean properly. This isn't a problem with storing the finished beer as the 99.9% sanitised keg is plenty good enough, and especially so if it's in a fridge at 8 degrees. The only extraneous microbes in there anyway are probably going to be a few yeast cells from a previous brew.

However Fresh wort is in a totally different category to finished beer which contains no further fermentable sugars, and is an alcoholic solution anyway.
Fresh wort is just dying to be fermented and even a minute count of yeast in a dip tube, a poppet valve, the inside of the lid, is possibly going to start a fermentation, often with a yeast strain you don't want.

Maybe if you have access to steam cleaning gear like some guys do then NC in a keg could be something to try.
 

assume that whole pony keg no-chill has been working well for you zizzle? Nice solution. Any trouble getting the tri-clover off? ... I thought you might have to pry it off a little given the potential for partial vacuum inside the keg.

The other option that is mentioned by MHB in the thread you link to is to put a sterile filter onto the gas disconnect - which seems like an easy option for people who really really want to no-chill in something other than a normal cube. Assuming they have already rejected the no-chill in the kettle option (as I personally believe they should reject it - but other people do it so .....)
 
i did it for a while, in cornys. Gave the hot keg 100kpa of co2 after sealing it up, rolled it around abit to get heat on all surfaces. Didnt have a problem in the probably 10 odd batches i did.

Wasnt altogether certain that my 100kpa had solved the vacuum, just a figure. Would always pitch within 48 hours, and i always broke the keg down to clean and sanitise before use.

Gave up in the end, it didnt offer the peace of mind that chilling and pitching that day does.
 
assume that whole pony keg no-chill has been working well for you zizzle? Nice solution. Any trouble getting the tri-clover off? ... I thought you might have to pry it off a little given the potential for partial vacuum inside the keg.

This has been working great for us. We've done a lot of batches with it, no problem.

I even have a 10L sankey keg for no chilling the brewbot batches.

The vacuum does hold the tri-clover cover on. Best to try to slide it off than pull it up. Sometimes I'll just reach for a teaspoon or whatever in the kitchen to give it a tweak. But once the seal starts to break then it does the rest on it's own.

It's good to think that you have no spoilage when you feel all that vacuum.

I'm always careful to not have face or anything over the top of the tri clover when undoing, just in case.

We just make sure we rinse the keg straight after use, and sanitize before filling. Pretty low maintenance.
 
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