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PommieBastard

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I've been homebrewing for years, using mainly kits but being retired and having plenty of time I started all grain brewing. I use a 35 litre electric tea urn with a recirculating pump and temparature control rig made up of bits bought from Aliexpress. I never used to worry about chilling. We have cheap(ish) plastic fermenters in the UK with bottom taps and wide screw tops to make cleaning easy and I just used to leave the sweet wort in the boiler to cool overnight then drain it into the fermenter. Never had a problem. I'm not a huge technical brewer, but I do like to get a system that produces good beer with the minimum of effort. I read that you guys pioneered the no chill method and I thought I would give it a go. I bought a 25 litre food grade plastic container (actually sold as 20 litres) and drained the freshly boiled wort into it and sealed it up. When it was cool a couple of days later I transferred it to the fermenter. So far, it seems like a good idea. No worries about infection and I can see that I will be able to brew when I want and store the stuff in the plastic cube until I'm ready to ferment. It's nice not to have to have to start fermenting the next day, but when it is convenient. Here's the question. I like my beer to taste of hops. I grow my own Magnum and Perle hops. But I also like a nice hoppy smell. What is the aroma best hop variety to use with the no chill method, and when do you add them? Presumably they don't stay in the cube until you are ready to ferment? Any tips on this method would be appreciated.
 
There's a few different ways to go about it and it is probably a matter of trying a few yourself and working out what gives you the results you are after.

If you were happy with the results you were getting from the wort cooling in the kettle then you shouldn't need to change much at all as the process would be very similar.

If you want you can try a hop stand. After flame out cover the urn and let sit until it reaches a target temperature say 85C and then add some hops and let it sit for 20-30 minutes before transferring to the cube.

You could also try cube hopping which is just adding hops to the cube before transferring the wort.

It really is trial and error as most recipes give no information about wort management after flame out so a process could vary from turning on a chiller immediately after flame out to leaving to sit for half an hour, whirlpooling for 20 minutes and then transferring and hops could be added at any point in this process.

If you have a clean and sanitized cube and the wort is around 80C when you transfer you shouldn't have any problems.
 
For aroma hops, I usually either add to whirlpool or in the case of aipa style, to the cube upon filling.
Yes they stay in there.
 
For aroma hop additions, an effective method is:

Only use bittering hops in the kettle
Reserve a litre or two of wort in a sterilised container such as a couple of these:

schott bottle.jpg

The next day, take out a stockpot and do your 10 minute addition and your aroma / whirlpool additions, cool rapidly in sink and add the contents of the cube and the stockpot to the FV and pitch (as you are using hop flowers a good bit of kit is a cheap metal mesh strainer from a "pound shop". )

That way, the aroma additions completely bypass the cube. One snag is that because you reserved some wort you won't be able to completely fill the cube. However if you pitch the next day, which should be possible in the UK most of the year if you pop the cube out with the cat, there should be minimal chance of infection provided you have given the headspace in the cube a good scald.

I rarely leave my cubes for more than a day. If I have to, I pop it in a cold spare fermenting fridge.

Weymouth, Ringwood country hey. Lucky bugger.
 
I add the late hops to the cube, which seems roughly equivalent to a 10-15min addition. If I'm doing an IPA or something I'll add hops at flameout as well, and chuck the filled cube in the rainwater butt. Doing this I reckon makes the cube hops more like 5-10min additions.

I haven't tried Bribie's method but I've managed to cube 18 or 19L batches by squeezing the sides with my knees (using a couple of pot holders so I don't cook my leg) till the wort reaches the top.
 
I add a small bittering charge at 60mins & after the boil I switch the urn off & let sit for approx 30-40mins. By this time my wort is usually at 85C. I have a large amount of hops in the cube (pretty much everything the recipe calls for from 20mins to whirlpool) & transfer the wort. Seems to work well & get plenty of aroma in the beer.
 
For hoppy ales, I find adding hops at flameout (calculated as 15 min boil additions in Beersmith) and then to the cube after transferring the wort once it has dropped to 80C or so (20 min steep) works well
 
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