Users Of The "no Chiller Method"

[bindi]

In my experience it makes no difference whether you pour the break material into the fermenter or not. Its just particles in suspension - they settle out and when you rack to secondary or a keg they will be left, along with the yeast cake, at the bottom of the fermenter. For me, it has always settled out, resulting in a beer that is at least as clear (if not clearer) than the beers I used to make using an immersion chiller.

Ditto went to a lot of trouble at first not to put the "dregs" into the fermenter and it made... You know the rest Over 10 no chill[ must be more] ,and better beer, no going back <_< .
Anyone want to buy a 18m chiller? little use and looking sad. :unsure:

 

[Samwise Gamgee]

My first No-Chill brew is fermenting at the moment. It was in a cube for approx 3 weeks.

No signs of infection as of yet. It's only been fermenting for a couple of days. If there becomes any dramas I'll reprt back.

If not, then it looks like there will be another regular user of the No-Chill method!

 

[Bobby]

i just pitched some us56 on an amber ale i had sitting in the cube for 5 weeks.
the wort look/smelt/tasted fine.
cant see any dramas with this one.

 

[Ross]

I did 4 hot wort kits for Noel (Metters) to take on the road - I'm told the Amber, which was fermented on the beach in WA is tasting beautiful in the bottle. However, 1 of the 4 kits (Schwarz) has blown up like a ballon in its container - Noel reckoned it still tasted ok at this stage, so he's gone ahead & fermented it by adding new yeast & he's actually fermented it in the cube as well, just releasing the gas daily - I reckon he's mad, as I would have chucked it, so will be interesting to hear the final taste verdict.

I did a double brew yeasterday - wasn't planning on using the no chill, but as the NE wind came up & started blowing from the nearby scrub over my brews, I ran them straight into the fermenters at approx 70c & pitched the yeast this morning. Certainly took all the stress of airbourne yeast contamination away

cheers Ross

 

[Ken Man Do]

My first no-chill lager was brewed on June 6th. 70% pilsen malt, 20% maize, 10% malted wheat, Liberty hops. It's almost gone (10 gallons) and is quite a beer, as I can attest to at this very moment! A number of discriminating drinkers spoke highly of it. As a matter of fact, one taster is a contributing writer to the most popular home brewing magazine in America. He detected a hint of diacetyl (though others didn't) which could be easily corrected via the diacetyl rest. He also said, were it not for the diacetyl, the beer could score a 40 in competition.

An additional kicker is that this beer was fermented on the trub to completion, then transferred to two carboys for clarification and conditioning.

For cooling, I simply sealed the boil kettle with an airlock. The airlock had an Iodophor-soaked cotton ball in it, so that the air that was sucked in during cooling would be filtered. I have used this cotton ball method several times before, including its use during sterile grain mushroom mycelial growth production. It works.

No question I'll repeat this method, with er, the D-rest this time.

 

[Samwise Gamgee]

My first No-Chill brew is fermenting at the moment. It was in a cube for approx 3 weeks.

No signs of infection as of yet. It's only been fermenting for a couple of days. If there becomes any dramas I'll reprt back.

If not, then it looks like there will be another regular user of the No-Chill method!

Just a quick follow up of the above.

It's now kegged and there are no faults which I can attribute to the No-Chill Method.

I think I'll be using this method for a lot of my brews from now on.

 

[Stuster]

I recently did a double batch of California Common using the no-chill. Mashed at 67, OG of 1048. The first batch was pitched the next day with a 2L starter of WLP810 yeast. This batch was in the primary for 2 weeks, being stable for 6 days at 1016. This gave an attenuation of 67%, right in the middle for this yeast. I've been drinking this and it's tasting good.

The second batch was pitched onto less than half of the yeast cake from the first batch. This batch was in primary for three weeks due to my holiday. It finished at 1006 giving 87% attenuation!

I'm not sure why there would be such a huge difference in the attenuation of the two batches. Is it just the larger quantity of yeast in the second batch? Something to do with the no-chill method? Having an extra week in primary sounds unlikely as the first batch had been stable at that FG for nearly a week. Any ideas?

 

[goatherder]

I'll pipe in with my experience here too.

I did a double brewday a little while ago and put the second brew into a no-chill jerry. I fermented it 4 weeks later and the beer turned out great. No noticeable differences as far as I could tell.

When I drained the no-chill jerry into the fermenter I got to leave behind the kettle trub and cold break which had made it's way into the wort. This meant that I had a really clean yeast cake after the fermentation which I repitched onto the following brew. A little side benefit which was quite helpful to me at the time.

 

[warrenlw63]

I'll rip straight into my opinion on no chill brewing.

Firstly I'd term it a bit of a disasater from a personal standpoint. The whole concept of saving 1.5-2 hours in time didn't turn out that way for me.

I think my mistake may have been doing a Pils with nearly 200g of hops (110g pellets & 6 plugs). This would work if I'd chilled the wort and allowed it to settle in the usual manner. OTOH trying to get this to go from near boiling to a couple of cubes without the whole mess was a disasater. Pickup tube blocked within the first litre. I had to blow backwards to clear the tube (so much for O2 uptake). Then bring the whole thing back up to the boil (thank goodness for the NASA). Reboiled for 10 mins. (goodbye hopping levels and aroma). Re ran to the cubes and got a trickle of a flow of about 1 litre per 2 minutes. Took 90 mins to fill the cubes OMG!

One bonus is the hop gunk (mainly plug) basically filtered all the crap from the pellets and I got totally clean wort to the cubes. That said there's a fair bit of cold break in the cubes this morning.

Oh and to add insult to injury I up-ended myself on my stool when putting the lid back on the HLT, fell and smashed my knee against the Dexion frame. I've now got a left knee that looks like a balloon. Did a bit of swearing there I can tell you.

I won't say I'll abandon this method totally per se... If I were to do it again I'd bag all my hops.

Warren -

Firmly embracing his chiller begging forgivness. :lol:

 

[devo]

jeez wazz hope the knee is better LOL.

I'm seriously looking for alternate ways (this being one) to cooling my wort with the impending water restrictions???

 

[Bobby]

my amber ale turned out great. no-chill is great.
i have only used my immersion chiller once, and cant really see it getting much more use.

 

[devo]

my amber ale turned out great. no-chill is great.
i have only used my immersion chiller once, and cant really see it getting much more use.

What temp have you been running your hot wort into your fementer vessel? If that is how your doing it? :huh:

 

[Bobby]

it goes into the cube pretty much straight after flame out. hops and all go in - never had a problem with clarity, but depending on the brew sometime some hop debris makes its may through to the keg.
the wort would be near boiling when it goes it.

 

[devo]

it goes into the cube pretty much straight after flame out. hops and all go in - never had a problem with clarity, but depending on the brew sometime some hop debris makes its may through to the keg.
the wort would be near boiling when it goes it.

wow ok...so you don't find any issues with the heat vs the plastic/rubber tap seals etc???

do you pump a burst of CO2 into the vessel just prior to cubing?

 

[Gerard_M]

[/quote]

wow ok...so you don't find any issues with the heat vs the plastic/rubber tap seals etc???

do you pump a burst of CO2 into the vessel just prior to cubing?
[/quote]

Simply push the sides of the cube in, minimising the amount of air in the cube.

I finally pitched Duff's Australian Pale into a fermentor on the weekend. I reckon it has sat in the garage for an easy 6 months. Smelt nice & fresh when I opened it, & the OG sample was awesome.
Cheers
Gerard

 

[warrenlw63]

For me the whole thing went OK. I just wouldn't do it again with 6 hop plugs in the kettle. If I were to use plugs again I'd bag them or toss them bagged into the cube. The whole thing went pear-shaped when a bit of plug well um... "plugged" the pickup tube in the kettle. Blowing back into the wort to clear it would have done me no O2 pick up favours that's for sure. <_<

Thanks for the concern Devo... Knee's throbbin' like a bugger. Funny part was I wasn't even drinking. Just stood awkwardly on the stool. :lol:

Warren -

 

[Stuster]

Funny part was I wasn't even drinking.

Clearly the cause of all your brew day problems. :lol:

 

[doglet]

Warren - Do you think the blockages was a result of the no-chill or just because of the plugs? Thinking about it now you probably tried to drain the kettle into the cube without whirlpooling first so that the wort was a hot as possible entering the cube. What do other people do? I've taken to using hop bags and/or hop sock as I had blockages when trying to run wort through my CFWC.

Anyway hope your knee is ok - I fell sideways off a ladder last week and miracuously didn't spill a drop of paint from the bucket in my hand! All the practice of not spillling a drop of beer when drunk came into good stead!

 

[warrenlw63]

Doglet.

I whirlpooled the hot wort and let it sit for 15 mins. Still pulled the plugs through. I've gone as high as 5 plugs previously in an immersion chilled beer and barely had a leaf come through. I reckon everything's more inclined to stay in suspension when the wort's hot. :unsure:

Stuster. I think you may well be right. I made up for it afterwards though. :lol:

Warren -

 

[Phrak]

I've got a quick question about no-chill that I've been thinking about for a while now. (Apologies if it's already been answered)

Does the extra time it takes to cool the wort affect the hop bitterness levels?

Logic would suggest the extra time would make the wort more bitter, and also affect flavour and aroma levels. But is this true in practice?

Tim.