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no chill leave it in the kettle

Post #1 made 15 years ago
by jfranklin6
I have only done one beer this way, a hefeweizen, and it tastes good, different from the only one I have done before, extract with dry yeast, this one was biab and white labs hefe yeast. My next beer is going to be a kolsch, has anyone done a pils or so in a biab no chill style? And what do you think about leaaving it in the kettle, just till the next day though.

Post #2 made 15 years ago
by Beer O'Clock
I think the logic behind using a no-chill cube, is keeping the wort in a hermitically sealed environment. This is achieved by using the near boiling wort to sanitise the cube, leaving minimal head space and then sealing to prevent infection.

To allow natural cooling in the kettle is leaving yourself open for a mass of trouble. The head space and the fact that it isn't properly sealed means that the risk from infection is quite high.
[center]Royalty ? I like the show but can't stand the actors.[/center]

Post #3 made 15 years ago
by jfranklin6
What I did was boil for 90 min to reduce dms precursors, and then put the lid on to sanitize for a couple minutes. After flame out I sprayed the kettle and lid area with star san and let cool. Figure that the chance for infection is about the same as with a yeast starter with a foil lid.

Post #4 made 15 years ago
by Beer O'Clock
I think the point here is "yeast starter". Once the yeast is working, it's producing CO2 which is a very effective barrier to infection. In your boiler you have no such barrier. Unless it is sealed the chance of infections increase. Wort is extremely susceptable to aborn "wild" yeasts at or near room temperature.
[center]Royalty ? I like the show but can't stand the actors.[/center]

Post #5 made 15 years ago
by Beer O'Clock
Without looking it up, I seem to recall that wort becomes quite volatile below 60degC (somebody please correct me if I'm wrong).
I use a RC chiller. The logic is "to cool (to pitching temperature) as quickly as possible to reduce the risk of infection". As soon as the yeast is working that risk is no longer there.
However, when using a cube, the interior space is virtually ALL wort. No ( or little) head space and no air to carry stuff that can infect the wort. Providing the seal isn't broken, this wort can be kept for quite some time.
[center]Royalty ? I like the show but can't stand the actors.[/center]

Post #6 made 15 years ago
by paulbigelow
After struggling with frozen garden hoses this past winter, I switched from using my immersion chiller to doing no chill in the pot overnight in the garage. It worked out just fine for 3 batches including a lager with no hint of infection. As the Yeast book points out regarding loose covers for starter containers "bacteria and wild yeast cannot crawl". However I do wonder if the extremely slow influx of air as the wort cools in the pot is likely to suck anything nasty in under the lid.

In spite of my recent success, I don't want to end up like some homebrewers who are proud of their lack of sanitation, and claim that they have no resulting infection problems... until they do. I too would like to hear from anyone who has successfully used pot no-chill over a long period of time.

Post #7 made 15 years ago
by hashie
I haven't done it over a long period of time, but my first 1/2 dozen AG brews were all chilled in the boiler, over night.

I simply covered the kettle with a piece of flannel cloth. While I didn't get any infections in these few brews. I did notice a reasonable drop in volume. My assumption is that when we no chill in cubes, once the cube is sealed all losses to evaporation are halted. But when chilling in the kettle, with only a cloth covering, losses to evaporation continue. This makes all calculations for gravity and volume very difficult.
"It's beer Jim, but not as we know it."

Post #8 made 15 years ago
by PistolPatch
jfranklin6 wrote:I have only done one beer this way, a hefeweizen, and it tastes good, different from the only one I have done before, extract with dry yeast, this one was biab and white labs hefe yeast. My next beer is going to be a kolsch, has anyone done a pils or so in a biab no chill style? And what do you think about leaaving it in the kettle, just till the next day though.
Hi there jf,

I have done this quite a few times when I get short on time (or maybe too many beers :)) on a brew day. I have my kettle lid on plus a towel or foil over that so as nothing can blow up and into the kettle. So, no problems on infection while it is chilling in the kettle but see two paras below.

Flavour-wise, I'd have to dig through some old posts where I did some same brews side by side but I remember there was a difference - less hoppy if my memory serves me correctly on an APA. THis might be because a heavy kettle with stand loses heat a lot more slowly than wort being dropped into a cube due to the radiance.

In fact, the biggest problem I found when leaving in the kettle is that in the high ambient temps (30 C plus) that I often brew in here, the wort would still be at over 40 C the following day so I had to transfer, chill and then pitch nearly another whole day later which isn't a fun thing to do.

In very cold ambient temperatures, which many BIAB brewers on this forum deal with, I think chilling in the kettle overnight might well be a perfectly sensible way to go or at least start out with. In higher ambient temps, there is far more risk than chilling or no-chilling using a cube due to delayed pitching after transfer from the kettle.

Cheers,
PP
Last edited by PistolPatch on 01 May 2011, 18:13, edited 5 times in total.
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