Ok I Have To Ask, What Is No Chill?

[Bribie G]

Cooling ASAP is basically what I do, but rather than put the jerry in my beer fridge I let it cool for a few hours first. The reason I do this is that I don't want to 'stress' the fridge. However I'm no fridge mechanic so maybe someone with fridge mech. experience might like to comment.

1. Is putting a jerry of near boiling liquid in the fridge likely to overwork the fridge in some way?
2. Or doesn't the fridge give a stuff ?

If 2 then that's what I'll be doing. From comments on the other threads that are also covering this issue, particularly by Thirsty Boy, the damage is done when very hot wort continues to isomerise hop alpha acids that are in the cube. So the quicker you get the temp down in the cube, the more accurate the hop 'result' will be, as aimed at in your recipe.

 

[bigfridge]

Ok so I didnt read the whole of this thread but I pose this question...

If I taking the boiled wort out of my kettle and place in a blue willow jerry can and then place in fridge straight away (set to 4 degs), would this be a viable way to cool ht wort ???

Or should I put in a cube/jerry and squeeze all the air out etc or use a a chiller.

Anyway I'm sure someone has tried it.

Cheers, Pok

Hi Pok,

No sorry - you are not 'no chilling'. You have described the perfect way to make an infected beer.

You need all interior surfaces of your cube to get to a minimum of 70 degrees and then stay there for at least 15 minutes.

In other words you are making 'wort jam'.

Google up 'hot canning' for more info.

Dave

 

[pokolbinguy]

Hi Pok,

No sorry - you are not 'no chilling'. You have described the perfect way to make an infected beer.

You need all interior surfaces of your cube to get to a minimum of 70 degrees and then stay there for at least 15 minutes.

In other words you are making 'wort jam'.

Google up 'hot canning' for more info.

Dave

Hmm fair enough. I guess I will just put the wort in the jerry, squeze the air out and let sit for awhile (1/2 hr or so) and then put jerry in fridge to get down to ferment temp....is this a viable idea?

Wish my grain would hurry up and arrive...damn slowway couriers...hopefully will get to do AG on monday

Pok

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Hmm fair enough. I guess I will just put the wort in the jerry, squeze the air out and let sit for awhile (1/2 hr or so) and then put jerry in fridge to get down to ferment temp....is this a viable idea?

Wish my grain would hurry up and arrive...damn slowway couriers...hopefully will get to do AG on monday

Pok

Question is - what will it achieve?? Answer is - bugger all. It will still cool very very slowly by "chiller" standards and everything that might be a problem with a no-chill beer will still be a problem with yours. Plus you work the shit out of your fridge and maybe introduce a higher infection risk. Either chill or no-chill, halfway is just the worst of both worlds.

IMHO a no chilled beer will have less aroma than the identical beer "rapid" chilled - so the answer is simple, don't make the identical beer. Compensate for the loss in aroma with technique. There are several different ways to get aroma into no-chilled beers, from simply using more aroma hops, to cube hopping to Ultra Late Hopping. All of them work to differing degrees and in slightly different ways.

You get ease, flexibility, time saving, water saving and reduced risk of infection with no-chill - so you have to pay the universe back by putting a little more effort into getting hop aroma. What a shame.

 

[Ross]

Ok so I didnt read the whole of this thread but I pose this question...

If I taking the boiled wort out of my kettle and place in a blue willow jerry can and then place in fridge straight away (set to 4 degs), would this be a viable way to cool ht wort ???

Or should I put in a cube/jerry and squeeze all the air out etc or use a a chiller.

Anyway I'm sure someone has tried it.

Cheers, Pok

Pok,

i disagree a bit with the answers you've had on this one. If you put the wort (20+L) straight in the fridge it will still take plenty of time to chill & will sanitise effectively - that said, you should be putting in a proprly sanitised cube anyway.
I regularly (or used to when i had time to brew) transfer hot wort to the fermenter & leave in the fridge overnight. the fridge works a little harder, but the fridge thermostat still clicks off regularly as the internal temp of the fridge drops. Your fridge compressor will still get far less work overall than one being used as a straight fridge.

cheers Ross

 

[bigfridge]

Hmm fair enough. I guess I will just put the wort in the jerry, squeze the air out and let sit for awhile (1/2 hr or so) and then put jerry in fridge to get down to ferment temp....is this a viable idea?

Pok

Pok,

During the 1/2 hr soak you need to roll your cube around so that all the internal surfaces get heated and hence sterilised. But 1/2 an hour isn't long enough. To be safe you need to probably position the cube 4 ways with each soak being 15 minutes - so you are up for an hour. Once the cube is sterile it doesn't matter what you do with it.

But if you are in a hurray to ferment you probably should be just chilling the wort down conventially and pitch straight away.

What the no-chillers like is the ability to brew one day and then pitch the yeast at some other time - whether this be a day, a week or a year later.

HTH,
Dave

 

[bigfridge]

Pok,

i disagree a bit with the answers you've had on this one. If you put the wort (20+L) straight in the fridge it will still take plenty of time to chill & will sanitise effectively - that said, you should be putting in a proprly sanitised cube anyway.
I regularly (or used to when i had time to brew) transfer hot wort to the fermenter & leave in the fridge overnight. the fridge works a little harder, but the fridge thermostat still clicks off regularly as the internal temp of the fridge drops. Your fridge compressor will still get far less work overall than one being used as a straight fridge.

cheers Ross

Hi Ross,

While this method has obviously worked for you if you are putting the wort into a fridge you are not 'hot canning' hence it doesn't really apply to the no-chill method.

By letting the wort cool slowly in the fermenter, rather than in a sealed cube you are increasing the risk of an infected batch as airborne contaminants are drawn into the fermenter as it cools, plus you don't get the benefit of airation that occurs when the cube is emptied into the fermenter.

One of the nice things about this hobby is that there are many ways to get to the end result - but the end result will vary as everything that you do to wort affects the beer.

David