Noob No-chill Question

[bum]

Just finished my first brew on an entirely new system and first time following the no-chill method. I've had a problem with my predicted boil off rate. Since it was my first use of the system I've had trouble getting the italian spiral burner to keep a lower boil. The upshot is that I've got less into the cube than I calculated. I've got a good quarter headspace. I know this is far from ideal but if I squeeze the bejesus out of it will the heat take care of the rest of the headspace or am I asking for infection?

 

[raven19]

You should be fine fella - squeeze as much air out and place on its side.

Nothing wrong with getting a starter fired up so you can pitch it tomorrow though.

(Tony had a 3/4 cube last over a year will no issues iirc).

 

[~MikE]

i always have some headspace, never worry about laying it down and haven't had an infection yet.

 

[bum]

Cheers, Raven. I'll definitely put her down tomorrow.

Thanks, Mike. I am laying the cube on its side but good to know I might not have cocked it up as I had thought.

 

[WarmBeer]

Only problem I can see is that now you only have 15lt of wort in your cube, which will make less than 15lt of beer.

Oh well, just an excuse to brew again sooner, so not really a problem after all.

(BTW, what hourly evaporation rate did you base your water calculations on?)

 

[bum]

I just left it as the default in Beersmith and was hoping to work it out backwards for the next brew. But I'm not sure of my volumes so I'll still be staggering around in the dark on the next one.

The wort is sitting at 1060 and I was aiming for 1047 so I'm thinking I'll dilute in the fermenter to my desired OG so I won't end up as little beer as it seems. Aw, shit. Just realised the higher grav will have effected my hopping and diluting will worsen it.

Stuff it. Where's my can opener?

 

[raven19]

Yeah, some cooled boiled water to adjust is the way to go.

Avoid the can opener!

 

[Fents]

just dry hop it...it will be fine.

set your evap rate to 15% in beersmith, works for my italian spiral and should for yours. (depent on all your other calcs being right, dead space etc etc)

 

[The Mad Hopper]

Also, remember to take into account that those cubes hold more than the stated volume. Same thing happened to me when I started using a cube and I had to adjust beersmith recipe sizes to take account of that.

 

[bum]

Yeah, I was counting on getting 23L into the 20L cube but obviously I fell short of that.

set your evap rate to 15% in beersmith, works for my italian spiral and should for yours. (depent on all your other calcs being right, dead space etc etc)

Just changed it to 15% for the next one. The default was 9%. While this is quite a bit lower than 15% I'm not sure it is enough to account for the difference I've gotten today. I'm pretty sure I've got my dead spaces all worked out correctly. I'm sure the problem is operator error. I'll work out how to control the boil better after a couple of brews. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't cocking this one up by having too little volume in the cube.

 

[crozdog]

did you measure your preboil volume? If you did & you also measured your post boil volume you can calculate YOUR evap rate rather than using someone elses. Sure it might be close but it won't be YOURs. trial & error along with good record keeping are the only way with a new rig / bit of kit.

the sipral burners are tops (ask my mrs - she loves the missing concrete on the back patio h34r: ), just adjust your reg to dial it down to a nice rolling boil

 

[bum]

I understand the perils of using someone else's evaporation rate but as this was my first full volume 3V batch I'm in pretty much fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants territory (despite the amount of reading I've been doing). Prior to this I've been following the full volume nV stovetop PITA method prior to this (i.e. using pretty much every pot in the kitchen). I'd set up measures for my HLT and tun, worked out my dead spaces and assumed (yes, I know) that I could base my pre-boil calcs on that and didn't make a measure for my kettle. Figured I could just get post boil volume from my fermenter (not trusting the marks on the outside, naturally). So, yeah, I don't know my evap rate yet but I trust that Fents' will get me closer until I work mine out properly.

As for the reg (whatever the LP reg Beerbelly sells is), once I worked out I was boiling too hard, turning it down to the lowest setting (and turning down the burner itself) still resulted in a hard boil. My plan is to start off a little slower next time and hopefully avoid the problem in the first place.

 

[~MikE]

i often end up with less than the desired volume, i just top up when i go to pitch. no dramas there either

 

[bum]

Like anyone else who started with kits I understand that topping up with water won't present any huge drams - was just worried that a less than full cube would provide less that full pasteurisation.

 

[bum]

Just to bookend the thread, I topped up with boiled, cooled water today to my intended OG and came in at 1L more than the predicted volume. This most likely means my efficiency was slightly better than the 75% default in Beersmith, right?

 

[batemanbrewer]

Just to bookend the thread, I topped up with boiled, cooled water today to my intended OG and came in at 1L more than the predicted volume. This most likely means my efficiency was slightly better than the 75% default in Beersmith, right?

yes it does.

 

[bum]

Thought so but I guess I'm just wary of trusting the prior measurements and calculations I'm basing that assumption on since this is the first run I've done on any element of this system.

Cheers.