Author: Aaron Collier
I’ve been homebrewing for about 10 years now. Like many, my progression through equipment (both DIY and purchased) and process took an iterative path. After only a few extract batches, I jumped into all grain excited to develop my own recipes and build a blinged-out brew stand with all those awesome pumps, hoses, and gadgets. With my first few full-boil batches, I quickly realized ice baths just wouldn’t cut the mustard for chilling wort in an acceptable amount of time. At this point, I read about and built a crude 25′ copper immersion chiller, the kind of mangled looking contraption we’ve all regularly seen pictures of. While faster than an ice bath, my inexperience and lack of understanding of proper chilling methods put me in a frustrating situation, I remained displeased with the speed at which my wort would reach acceptable pitching temps. I tried several ideas such as pre-chilling and stirring the wort while the IC was submersed, yet nothing quite seemed to work well enough. Admittedly, when I look back it’s fairly clear my feelings of chilling inadequacy were firmly motivated by my desire for ultra cool looking plate chillers and pumps, the wares that would make me look, feel, and brew like a pro. Of course this awesome equipment would make brewing easier, more efficient, and a lot more fun! Why else would it exist?
During this time, my local area transitioned to water meters, meaning rather than paying a flat rate for water, we’d be charged per usage. This was disconcerting. Now that I was going to be paying by the gallon, I really needed to find ways to avoid reckless usage. After reading a bunch about chiller efficiency in regards to water waste, I purchased a Chugger Pump and plate chiller. I also picked up a single tier stand from Marshall as this was right around the same time he finished setting up the brewing station he uses today. I was on my way to awesome brew days!
Boy, was I wrong.
The many batches I used this setup on were all frustrating in different ways. The pump would cavitate and have to be baby sat the entire time it was on and the plate chiller would spew nasty black junk out no matter how well I back-flushed it following the prior brew day. All of the extra hoses, clamps, and fiddly bits required for this kind of single tier system ultimately turned what I thought would be an amazing system into nothing but aggravation and annoyance. And with all the water I was using to back-flush the plate chiller, a futile endeavor at best, I was totally defeating the purpose of acquiring this equipment in the first place! Finally, I don’t have to mention how annoying an extra hour of clean-up is if you’ve had friends over for a brew day and enjoyed a tad too much homebrew. I’d had enough.
Back to the drawing board…
One of the things I love about my local brewing community is how open and honest everyone is. I was spending a brew day with Marshall and noticed how he manually moved water and wort around on his very simple setup (we’ve all seen the pictures). We were really having a blast. It was like those first few all grain batches where I’d had just a mash tun and pot with little else. It was so easy! The frustration level: zero. On top of that, this simplicity of equipment allows for the “clean as you go” method Marshall often encourages– once the brew day was done, there wasn’t really anything else to do except spray down the IC and scrub a couple kettles. This was exactly what I was looking for!
So, instead of adding more gear to my setup, I actually regressed back to more basic equipment, the kind that worked well for me before, keeping in mind the old adage, “gravity never fails.” I replaced my keggle mash tun with a 10 gallon Igloo cooler, my repurposed keg HLT was sold on Craigslist, and I replaced my keggle with a 14.5 gallon flat-bottom “economy” kettle. I also finally replaced the 3 burner brew stand with a single Blichmann burner with leg extensions. With the growing simplicity came increased enjoyment.
But I’d still yet to address what is often considered one of the most important parts of the brew day: chilling.
Having rid my brewery of pumps, I knew I would only be working with gravity and elbow-grease. My old plate chiller worked okay with gravity, I used it a couple times when my pump was broken and it did the trick, but it took a shit ton of water in order to go from kettle to carboy and be at my preferred pitching temp.
At the time I started discussing my setup with Marshall, he had just received and was in the process of reviewing the amazing King Cobra from JaDeD Brewing. I spent a brew day with him and watched him use this beast of an IC in what seemd a rather unconventional method. I was astounded at the speed with which his wort temp dropped, reaching just a few degrees above groundwater temps in mere minutes! Now, this was a few months before JaDeD Brewing had officially released the King Cobra to the public . I hastily sent them an email to let them know I was interested in potentially picking one up when they began full-scale production. That day finally came and… sticker shock. While it’s true you often get what you pay for, and I’m totally convinced the King Cobra is worth every penny, I wasn’t at a place where I could drop that kind of coin on a chiller. This prompted me to continue seeking alternatives that would allow me to produce great beer in less time for less money.
| ENTER NO-CHILL |
I eventually stumbled onto a thread in a homebrewing forum where the focus was on this wort chilling method referred to as “no-chill,” something I’d never heard of. My interest sparked, I embarked on an intensive mission to learn as much as I could about this technique, researched it deeply, discussed it with other brewers, and eventually listened to an episode of Basic Brewing Radio focusing on the no-chill method. It really seemed too good to be true, almost exactly what I was looking for. Spend a few bucks on a “cube,” dump the boiling wort in at the end of the brew day, let it cool overnight, then pitch yeast the following day? That would cut a lot of time off of these long frustrating brew days. My decision was made, I picked up a couple cubes and got going.
| THE SECRET NO-CHILL exBEERiment |
With cubes in hand, I devised a plan to determine if this technique would be viable for creating great beer. I decided the best way to do this would be to keep my project a secret from those I regularly share my beer with for as long as possible, as I was concerned how their expectation and preconceptions might impact their perception of the beer I was making.
A plan was developed: spend an entire year producing beers chilled using only the no-chill method, share these beers with friends unaware of this process change, then utilize their feedback to help determine whether this relatively novel technique is up-to-snuff. Furthermore, I vowed to myself that should this method produce beer of lower quality than expected, I’d finally invest in the King Cobra and return to a more conventional method of wort chilling.
I’ll not provide a detailed history of the no-chill method in this article, mainly because it’s so new that there really isn’t much history to tell. From what I could find, it appears to have been popularized by Australian homebrewers concerned about extensive water waste as well as the inability to chill wort to pitching temps given the warmer climate. Plus, it was simple and really convenient. As with anything novel, a sect of “pro-chill” brewers began to harp on the many risks of the no-chill method, the most oft discussed being the potential development of DMS due to hot wort being sealed in a container with no place for the steam to escape. Some were even brazen enough to suggest that botulism could be an issue. What? Were my beers going to taste like creamed corn or cooked cabbage? Was I going to fucking die?! Only time would tell.
| THE PROCESS |
Seeing that no-chill is a method for chilling wort, which happens basically at the end of the brew day, my typical brewing process didn’t much change. For this experimental year, I chose to employ both batch sparge or no sparge mash methods, the ultimate choice being recipe dependent. The boil would proceed as normal then once complete, and following any flameout hop addition rests, the near boiling temp wort was racked into a clean and sanitized HDPE cube.
Once filled, any excess air was squeezed out to ensure complete contact of the hot wort with the container walls and lid.
I would then store the cube in a relatively cool environment, either my garage or laundry room depending on outdoor temps, and allow it to chill to pitching temps overnight. The following day, the wort was poured vigorously into a fermentation vessel for aeration purposes and the yeast was pitched. At this point, the beer was placed in my temp controlled ferm chamber where standard fermentation procedures were employed.
| INITIAL IMPRESSIONS |
And so, I brewed my first batch of no-chill beer, an English Mild (BJCP Style 11A) slated for a local club competition. I thought this was perfect timing and was stoked that my first batch produced using this method would be tasted blind by qualified judges with zero knowledge about the process. Go figure, my Mild ended up taking 2nd in the competition with a score of 40 points. Woo! I began to feel like I was really onto something!
My next few batches were equally as successful. A Chocolate Stout and a Belgian Dubbel both came out without any off flavors that would lead me to think the process was problematic, and the time savings this allowed on brew days was really getting me excited. Like, boner excited. In fact, the brew days were so quick and easy, clocking in at less than 4 hour, that I brewed most of my batches in 2014 during the week after I got home from work (ahem… I work from home). Things were certainly looking up!
| WHY SO BITTER? |
Alas, not all could be as smooth as I had hoped. As summer approached and the club competition beers turned toward Pale Ale and IPA, the shortcomings of no-chill started to become apparent.
The first hoppy beer I made using this method was an iteration of Tasty McDole’s popular Janet’s Brown Ale. I completely neglected any recipe alteration to account for prolonged contact of the hops with the hot wort, an unfortunate mistake that led to a beer that 
was excessively bitter and grassy with awkward mint background notes. It was a mess. My frustration with the failure of these beers came to a head when one of my best friends in brewing told me he was worried about me. Hmph. This is the point where I began revealing my little secret, as I wanted to seek advice from my brewing brethren. After evaluating the aforementioned Brown Ale, there was unanimous agreement the culprit was most likely extended contact time of the hops with the hot wort. I went on to brew an English Bitter and an Imperial IPA, both of which were equally as problematic, exhibiting off-flavors I was dubbing “hop astringency” due to the excessive grassy and minty characters that could only be attributed to this process. I also brewed the infamous Belma beer from the Brewer’s Thumbprint xBmt. As discussed in that article, while all of those beers were odd in different ways, likely as a result of a shitty recipe, the off-flavors in my no-chill batch were very pronounced. Something was amiss, I was beginning to wonder just how meritorious this method really was. Then the year came to an end, it was time to reflect and make some decisions.
| CONCLUSIONS |
First and foremost, I’m comfortable saying that I would not recommend using this technique for very hop forward styles. The Pale Ales and IPAs I brewed simply didn’t come out very well. However, no-chill worked great for malt forward styles and never produced the off-flavors many swore it would, namely DMS presumed to be caused by not chilling fast enough. Every single beer I brewed lacked clarity and had a very unattractive haze, despite the use of Irish Moss and a good cold crash. Now, I completed this exBEERiment before learning of the greatness of fining with gelatin, which I’d guess is an effective way of achieving clearer no-chill beer, I’ll have to try this at some point. Last but most definitely not least, the risk of botulism, particularly since the yeast is pitched within 24 hours of boiling, is absolutely low enough to be of little concern to me. I’m basing this statement solely off the fact that my friends and I are still alive. That’s worth something, right?
Another thing to keep in mind is that the no-chill method doesn’t allow you to slack off with sanitation. By keeping everything clean and moving the hot wort into a sanitized cube, the likelihood of beer-ruining nasties setting up shop during the chill period is pretty damn low.
Was it a wasted year of brewing? Not at all! This actually completely reinvigorated my excitement for brewing and experimentation. At the beginning of this, Marshall had started his exBEERiment series and, once I revealed to him what I was up to, we talked about me penning this article (it’s been a long time coming). I also started to fine-tune my process and preparation for brew days, dialing in a workflow that made my brewing much easier and more enjoyable. As a result, and even with the added use of an immersion chiller, I regularly complete a brew day in less than 4 hours, making it possible for me to continue brewing during the week. So, I am now the proud owner of a JaDeD Brewing King Cobra IC and though I’ve moved back to more conventional methods of wort chilling, I still plan to use the no-chill method occasionally, particularly if I really need to save some time and the beer I’m brewing isn’t a hop-bomb.
| References |
No Chill Method – HBT Article
Dr. Deathweed
Basic Brewing Radio – August 2, 2012 – Chilling Expirement
| ABOUT THE AUTHOR |
Aaron has been a connoisseur of craft beer and a homebrewer for over a decade. On top of his day job working in IT, he is a Cicerone Certified Beer Server and provisional BJCP judge awaiting his results on the tasting portion of the exam. He is a dedicated all grain brewer who enjoys making a vast array of styles from delicious English Mild to hop-charged DIPA. He is also currently developing a mobile application for homebrewers as well as planning a podcast focused on beer evaluation.
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51 thoughts on “A Year of No Chill | Lessons From A Secret xBmt”
I looked into the no-chill method, a little while back, mostly to make my brew day shorter. I didn’t try it yet, but its still on my list once i finish my other projects.
Since the extended contact time with the hops was the culprit of the grassy off flavors, do you think you would still have this issue if you used a hop spider? Then the hops would stay back with in the kettle and not make it into the cube. Or do you think its the hop oils being in the hot wort too long?
Also, have you looked into adjusting the hop schedule to have the hops in there for less time?
Thanks!
I really think it’s the isomerizarton time of the oils. A spider may help a bit with this (I don’t have one).
While moving the hop schedule around seems to be the answer among no-chill brewers I don’t feel like you can escape the very extended time for any hops added in the isomerizarton temp ranges that lead to excessive bitterness. You may be able to get better flavor and aroma that I was getting, but I’d venture to guess that bitterness would still be pretty harsh.
Been brewing since 2005 using 15 gallon keg as kettle. Initially used wort chiller to cool wort but hate wasting water (and also exposing the wort to the air that happens using immersion chillers) so tried letting beer cool overnight in the covered kettle (using aluminum foil to seal the top).
Been no-chill brewing since 2006 and have never had a bad batch. In fact, pretty much everyone who has tried my beer raves about the flavor. Also I have won best in class in brewing competition. I brew about 200 gallons a year. Mostly porters and palish ales.
Besides saving water, it allows me to fill the kettle to the top since no wort is displaced because no chiller is immersed in it, so brew yield is maximized. Surely there are downsides, but I think the positives outweigh the negatives.
One thing to note is you shouldn’t aerate your wort until it is cooled (oxygen is bad for the wort at high temps) plus you expose it to contaminants, so you probably shouldn’t transfer it to another container until it’s cooled. I have a valve on bottom of kettle that I use to transfer the cooled wort to carboys which I shake to help aerate as they’re being filled.
I kind of doubt brewers in the old days chilled their wort nor had as good of sanitation techniques as today, yet beer was still drinkable then.
If you want to save water and increase your brew yield, try the no-chill method. You probably will be pleasantly surprised.
Garrett, if you see this reply, can I ask what you do with regards to late and/or whirlpool hop additions with your no-chill method?
This is pretty simple and I do no chill all the time, and i pretty much brew hoppy APAs and IPAs exclusively. Hop spider. Mine is course enough to keep about 80% of hop material out of the boil. All late addition hops go into the spider. I have a Grainfather type setup and recirculate the boiling wort through the spider to maximise contact. When I’m done, I whip it out and hops no longer in contact with wort. Then I pump it straight into the cube, put in my fermentation chamber and leave until pitching temp. Dump vigorously into fermenter and pitch.
What you could do to avoid overly grassy/bitter hoppy beers with no-chill is to brew a more concentrated wort, and cut it with ~20% cold water or whatever you find necessary to bring the wort in the container to 170-175F – still hot enough for pasteurization of the water addition, but cool enough that there won’t be any excess isomerization/extraction of hop acids. I just tried this as an experiment in my first no-chill: a decently hoppy Saison, and because of the presumed dryness any hop astringency will be extremely obvious… Here’s hoping it works out for me 🙂
Maybe something to add to the next xBmt! 😉
I’ve been reading the whole comment thread, and the successful IPA no-chillers all have an argument that boils down (huhu) to that. As far as I can see, Richard’s suggestion subsumes and simplifies the others, granted that there is no lesser efficiency or isomerization caused by a greater concentration at these levels. I definitely encourage you, Aaron, to do such an xBmt, comparing a no-chill-175F IPA to a Cobra-chilled IPA with the very same hop schedule. Richard’s computations are correct; you’d need 20% of 4°C water to cope with 100° wort. Good luck!
Thanks for sharing, really enjoyed reading it.
I too have been no chilling for a year and found some things work well, some things not so well. For that reason I’ve employed a few extra steps into my process;
30-20 min leaf hops are added in a hop bag, and taken out before transferring to cube (but allowed to steep for 10 mins after boiler turned off.)
Allowing the wort to settle for 30 minutes after brewing gives me a really clear wort for some reason. Another can of worms I know, but lots of break material sinks to the bottom.
For 0 min hops, add them directly to the cube once it’s cooled to 80c. People are terrified of opening it, truth is mine’s just an FV with small hole in covered with kitchen roll and i’ve never had an infection.
Of course, I try to avoid anything but a bittering and lower than 80c aroma addition/dry hop now for ease of process. Pellets mush and sink easily, so they just get left behind once the ferment has finished.
Cheers!
Letting it sit to allow more break to fall out would probably be a huge benifit. As I was really focused on the time savings, I wasn’t super careful about it, but tried my best. Through the trub exBmt has me wondering about that now.
Aaron, I enjoyed reading this. I’m on a brewing hiatus after a couple of failed batches, reevaluating my chilling process that may have led to contamination. I’ll likely not go down the no-chill path as a result of your research. Thanks.
How failed? If you like malty beers, give this a shot! Anything to keep brewing!
I’m an extract brewer (25+ batches). I was about to gear up to do biab but I thought I’d knock out a couple of extract batches for the holidays. I brewed them one week apart.I bottled half and kegged half of both batches. One batch had some sort of mold floating on top post-fermentation and the other, an NB Smashing Pumpkin Ale that I’ve brewed 3 times before with great success, came out horribly after 3 weeks primary, 1 week in the keg / 2 – 3 weeks in bottles to carb up – cardboard-y with what I can only describe as extract bite. I hoped that the funky-looking one just had some sort of yeast slick that would settle out, but it ended up as floaties in both the bottles and the keg. I ended up with stomach bug symptoms all night after consuming some of the moldy-looking one – perhaps just a coincidence, but I didn’t think it would be appropriate to share that with others.
My chilling methodology consisted of using a copper immersion chiller at the same time as placing my keggle into an ice bath. I suspect the keggle’s valve let some of the ice water in or perhaps it’s carrying some bacteria inside the valve or around the threads. Or a bird might have flown over while my back was turned.
$70+ literally down the drain (kits, propane, bags of ice), plus all the time spent. Never have I had a batch that wasn’t enjoyable.
Yeah, I know – sad story. Woe is me and all that. I also got lax with my water, which I’ve filtered through a Britta filter pitcher for about half my batches, but this time I just went tap-to-keggle to reduce time.
Now I’m reading up so when the temps start getting above freezing I can rejoin this all-consuming hobby. Next time, biab using filtered, distilled or RO water, and no ice bath for mister keggle – a shame, really, because I’d get the wort to 75F in about 10 or 15 minutes doing it this way. My other thought was to get a second immersion chiller and stick that in an ice bath, as a pre-chiller to feed into the immersion chiller in the wort. I’ll also pull the valve out of the keggle and either disassemble or replace it.
I could go on all day… Thanks for asking.
Very interesting… something we homebrewers in California may have to deal with some day, just as the Australians have
Seriously! Not only the switch to water meters, but rate changes, rationing etc, I wanted to get a head of the game on water savings here.
I have been no – chilling for a little over a year and love the flexibility and time savings it affords me. Some days I can put out 2 completely different brews on my BIAB system. It is also a great method for group brews as it allows me to sit back and sip while the others all madly rush around with a tangle of hoses trying get down to chilling temp…As for bitterness I have been employing first wort hopping and then all flavor hops go into the cube, and I dry hop later. So far so good. The next couple of brews will be first wort and dry hop only, we’ll see how that goes.
Ah, this is fascinating! I think I need to upgrade my cooling method in some way, but I’ve always been reluctant to try a plate chiller because they just look like a sanitation nightmare to me. A no-chill method would be a wonderful thing… but I can see how it would be incompatible with substantial hops. Time to properly investigate immersion chillers, then.
So why not use a combo? Use IC to get wort down to 165 to 170 then go with the no chill cube?
My understanding was that getting the boiling wort into the cube ASAP allowed the temps to help ensure sanitized surfaces (even though I was very thorough about cleaning and sanitizing before wort got in there). I’ve heard of a frew instances were infections were a problem when brewers got the wort into the cube at a lower temp (like after a hop stand).
I’ve been no-chilling for two years and have discovered that it works perfectly for any beer that doesn’t have hops later than 20 minutes. 20 minute additions simply get tossed into the cube when I’m racking into it at the end of the boil.
Beer styles with lots of late hops (pale ales for me) just need traditional chilling, in my experience.
Another cool trick with no-chilling that I used often, is making yeast starters with the wort, from the actual beer. At the end of the boil, I run off 1 liter to an Erlenmeyer flask, then drain the rest into the cube. I take that Erlenmeyer flask and dilute it with another 500 mL of filtered water to bring the gravity down to a level appropriate for a starter. I put this on the stove, heat it up to boiling, to fully sterilize the added water, then cool it in the sink and start a yeast starter that night.
Wort stored in cubes will be perfectly sterile for ages. You don’t have to worry about pitching yeast within 24 hours. There is no nasty bacteria in wort that was put in a cube at 200+ degrees. You can wait for days or months, if you want. Plenty of our Australian homebrewing brothers have done it with no ill effect.
After 1 to 2 days, the wort starter is full fermented, so I rack the cube into a fermenter and pitch the ENTIRE yeast starter. The wort in there is from the beer that I’m making, so it won’t add any flavor to my beer, except the same beer.
If you want to, you can rack out of the cube, leaving behind all of the cold break and hop trub. You can get incredibly clear wort this way. Alternatively, you can just dump the whole mess of cold break and hop debris. I’ve done it both ways and the resulting beer has come out the same. Sometimes I dump the the whole cube, sometimes I rack carefully off the trub. It all depends on whether I plan to reuse the yeast from this beer. If I plan to reuse and wash yeast from this beer, then I will carefully rack only clear beer into the fermenter and leave the cold break and hops behind because I don’t want to deal with them, later, when I’m trying to get clean yeast. If I don’t plan to reuse the yeast, I just dump the whole thing and I’ll end up with 1 or 2 inches of trub at the end, but I don’t care if the beer is good.
Hope this helps!
Chris
Good stuff! I had considered racking out of the cube, but wanted to keep the vigorous pour for aeration during this time. But again, I may continue to use this method for some beer styles 😉
“Wort stored in cubes will be perfectly sterile for ages.”
Today, my fermenters are not fully utilized. When one frees up, it remains empty until the next brew day. With the no-chill technique, I can boil when my fermenters are busy. My key day would include starting a new fermentation from the stored wort. This will allow more flexibility in my schedule for a boil day.
This advantage should be highlighted.
Thanks
Great article! Any chance of seeing recipes of the Chocolate Stout and the Belgian Dubbel in question?Im thinking of some sort of reference point so i know more about the”over-hoppy- line” when i have to start adjusting hop times.
Right now im thinking of a yeti clone, 75 IBU, would that require the hop changes?
Cheers for a great blog!
Joakim
I’ve made the Yeti clone over here, several times:
http://beersmithrecipes.com/viewrecipe/12542/yeti-clone-ver-20
That recipe is fantastic. The last few times I’ve made it, I’ve just taken the last couple hop additions and combined them as a 20 minute hop addition. With no-chill, 20 minute hop additions are just thrown in the cube right when you pour the boiling wort in. This has worked perfectly for me and this recipe is surprisingly good, even very young. (I’ve also had bottles that were a year old and they were still fantastic.)
Cheers! brewed it, and its pretty young still but this is really good 😀 Going into the recipebook!
I wil throw them up into brewtoad this weekend (away from my pc this week) and replay again with links 😉
Did you get to uploading those recipes yet 🙂 ?
DOH! Thanks for the reminder! I’ll put them up this morning.
Here they are. Brewtoad says “Dark” choc. on the stout, I used unsweetened bakers choc.
https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/belgian-dubbel-124
https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/chocolate-stout-157
Thanks!
I’ve been doing a lazy version of no chill for a year or so, just putting the lid on the kettle at the end of the boil, covering it with a starsan-sprayed towel overnight and transferring the cooled wort to the fermenter the next day. I clean the lid carefully and give it some contact time with very hot steam before the end of the boil so it’s not going to introduce bugs. Late hops get chucked in and stirred briefly when the wort has cooled to around 90C.
The results have been quite palatable, though as you say it’s not brilliant for IPA. I’ve had good saisons and a very nice Belgian pale ale, as well as a decent NZ Pale. I just got a deal on a wort chiller and am looking forward to seeing what difference it makes to the beer.
On one batch last year, I used this method. It was shortly after I revealed all of this to Marshall and we talked about the possibilities. So I tried just covering the pot with a sanitized lid and towel until the moring. This method worked fine, and I wouldn’t shy away from doing it again if necessary.
What about under hopping the main batch and over hopping a small 0.5-1 gallon batch that you can cool easily, then add back to the batch at pitching the next morning?
Instead of a yeast starter, call it a hop finisher or a hop ender.
Exit no-chill for a second:
I think I just might try a new Blended Wort xBmt.
Make one IPA batch. Then make the same recipe, but split the boil into 2 pots. One with all the hops for the entire batch, and one with no hops. Then combine them for fermentation when pitching. Maybe even add it when someone would add a sugar addition in a barleywine, high krausen.
Experienced brewers might already know that the blended wort will not be as good because of something like hop utilization will suffer….Doubling the hops in a given gravity and volume won’t give double concentration of bitterness, flavor, and aroma. But that is the point of xBmts, to challenge common knowledge, even it it instead proves it, right?
Of what I “understand” at the moment as a newer brewer, gravity to some extent, inversely effects the amount AA that can be dissolved into the wort. Maybe I can overshoot gravity in the batch, then add some top up water to the hopped pot before the boil to give proper free space for enough AA to isomerize? Maybe use lower gravity batch sparge 2nd runnings for the hopped boil?
If in fact it makes an unlikely similar beer, maybe there is something that the no-chill folks could build on or take further.
Great Read, BTW.
Great Article Aaron. I’m an Australian no-chiller and have been using this method for a couple of years.
One way I’ve found to get around the late hop issue is to do a mini-boil. Basically you put the cube into your fermentation chamber at a few degrees (C of course) lower than pitching temp for a few hours (overnight preferably). As you are transferring to the fermenter, draw off a couple of litres of wort and put into a small pot. Do a 15 minute boil adding the last 15 minutes of your hop schedule to this mini-wort, and when done pour into the fermenter. You can strain at this point if you wish. Swirl around to even the temperature out, and pitch. Easy!
You can also ferment in the cube if you are feeling lazy, but if you have a small headspace – as you normally do in a cube – you’ll probably make a mess of your ferm chamber. I guess you could use a blow-off tube, but I always use cling-film and a rubber band – and that’s a whole other can of worms.
I have a couple questions..you mention that the method doesn’t work as well for hop forward beers because of increased contact time with the hops. Where does that happen? The hops don’t go into the cubes, do they? Also, what material are the cubes made of? Although I poo poo concern about plastic coolers as mash tuns, I might be a bit more concerned about much hotter wort going into plastic. Dan Listermann wrote about doing no chill many years ago, but he put the wort into a keg, which obviously wouldn’t have the same potential issues.
Hey Denny – I think there are a couple of issues at play with hop forward beers. One is that without very good removal of hop matter, it’s going to get into the vessel. Some people do in fact throw hops in the cube as well. However, there is also the issue of continued isomeratization of the oils that are present in the beer even without the hop matter with the very extended temp contact time above 175 or so. In the summer, it probably was taking several hours to drop that low for me.
As for the cube, these were HDPE water cubes sold for long term water storage. The rating indicated they are safe up to 250 degrees, but I honestly have no idea what that means for extneded contact time at high temps.
Hey Denny! I’m sure Aaron will chime in at some point, but I’ll share my own conjecture as to what is potentially occurring. While the trub xBmt did demonstrate that kettle trub making it to the fermentor doesn’t seem to negatively impact beer, the wort being transferred was cool, meaning isomerization was no longer occurring. With no-chill, this isn’t the case, the wort is transferred to the cube at near-boiling temps and remains above isomerization temps for up to a few hours, depending on environmental temp. My completely non-scientific assumption is that even if visible hop matter is completely filtered out, non-visible lupulin that was pulled off of the hop still remains in the wort, which leads to increased isomerization and ultimately bitterness. I could (and likely am) waaaay off here, it’s just what I was thinking.
I’m almost certain the cubes are made of #2 HDPE, which apparently remains food-safe after long periods of contact with liquids up to 230°F.
I have tried the no-chill method, whit a twist, for hoppier beers, with god results. The twist is that I only add the bittering hops to the initial boil. I reckon that there is not much of a difference if the bittering hop is in the temperature interval where isomerization of beta-acids occurs for 60 minutes or 90 minutes. So losing control of that part of the brewing process doesn’t matter that much to me. After 60 minutes of boil whit only the initial bittering hopp I pour the worth to a “cube” and put it outside for the night. I’m fortunate to live in Sweden where the night temperature goes down to below 5 degrees Celsius (40 deg. F) for 8 out of 12 months a year. In the summer I have used my laagering freezer to get it down close to 0 deg. C (32 deg. F). The next day I siphon it to the fermenting vessel, leaving the trub behind. Except for a couple of liters (quarts) that I siphon to a pot. The amount that I siphon to the pot is:
Vb = Vi(Tp-Ti)/(100-Ti) or
Vb = Vi(Tp-Ti)/(212-Ti) if you use Fahrenheit instead of Celsius.
Where:
Vb is the volume of wort that I want in my boiling pot.
Vi is the volume of wort that I have initial (minus the trube).
Tp is the pitching temperature I want to hit.
Ti is the temperature of the cool wort in the cube.
E.g. I have 25 liters (6.6 galon) of cool wort in my cube. I siphon of 23 liters (6.1 galon) , leaving the trub behind. The temperature of the wort is 4 deg. C (39 deg. F). I’m aiming to pitch the yeast at 18 deg. C (64 deg. F).
Vb = 23(18-4)/(100-4) = 3.35 Liters.
Or in gallons and Fahrenheit:
Vb = 6.6(64-39)/(212-39) = 0.95 gallon.
When I get the 3.35 liter (0.95 gallon) of wort to a boil I add the 15 minutes hops first, and then wait 15 minutes to add the flame out hops. Then I pour the boiling wort trough a strainer to the cool wort in the fermenting vessel and pitch the yeast.
Pleas correct my error: Vb = 6.6(64-39)/(212-39) = 0.95 gallon.
Should be: 6.1(64-39)/(212-39) = 0.88 gallon.
I do know that you are converting to the metric system inch by inch, but I do hope that it will happen in my life time!
I feel this article has only scratched the surface of no-chill to be honest, and I don’t think you can draw any definite conclusions from it (although most replies already have, it seems).
I think a full exBEERiment on no-chill (featuring a hop-forward beer) is the only way to prove that the issues shown here were caused by the chilling method alone.
As much as it sucks to have your water costs suddenly increase, water is probably our most important and threatened resource and some places are really running short. Metering is a good way, as you’ve seen, to get us to think about our usage and conserve it better.
I’m in MN, where we’ve generally got plenty of water. In the Summer at least I have rain barrels on the downspouts of my house. I’ve started using the rain barrel water through my IC to do most of my chilling. I can get my beer down under 100 degrees pretty fast with barrel water then hook up tap water to hit pitching temp and run the outflow from the chiller into the barrel to store for next time. It won’t work for everyone of course but it’s been a huge water savings for me in the Summer.
I’d be really interested to see an xBmt where you did a side by side on the same recipe with no-chill vs chilled. I’d also be interested to see what kind of difference you get if you did an xBmt with an IPA where you did both as no-chill but used a hop spider on one to keep the hop solids out of the chiller.
Rain barrels are a great idea! Sadly, we get so little rain here. One of the problems with water. In fact, our local ordinances changed last year limiting the days we can water lawns to once a week.
We may be working through those ideas for future xBmts 😉
I’ve been no-chilling for about 2.5 years and have never experienced a batch turn out more bitter than I expected it to when devising the recipe. I’ve made plenty of pale ales and red ales with late (sub 20min) hop additions and all have turned out perfectly fine.
I understand the theory behind adjusting hop times for no-chill, it does make sense, but I also think there are a lot of variables that affect it. There is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to it. Brewers who chill their wort likely start chilling at different times after flameout; the compensation theory seems to assume that every chiller starts chilling immediately after flameout. The time of year affects how slowly or quickly the wort cools down in the cube. Hardly any recipes actually state whether they are no-chilled or chilled, and if chilled, how long after flameout the chilling commenced.
I think the only practical way of working it out for your own system, is to brew the same recipe a few times and alter the hop times until you get to a schedule that produces the intended beer. It would be far more accurate in the end, than relying on a standard formula that doesn’t suit all situations equally. 🙂
Cheers
Another little secret for you…but you can’t tell other no-chiller’s ‘coz they’ll freak out like the chillers do about no-chilling! Don’t even bother with the “squeezing every last molecule of air from the cube” thing. If you’re filling the cube with hot wort, the steam it gives off sanitises every bit of the cube regardless of the wort touching it.
This gives you the freedom to use cubes bigger than your post-boil volume and not stress out like I used to before I decided to give partial cube fills a try. Oh, and once the wort’s chilled, the air space you have in your cube means you can shake the living hell out of it to aerate before transferring to a fermenter and pitching your yeast. Hell you could even pitch direct into the cube this way! Ssshhhhh….
Thank you so much for this post. I’ve been no-chilling for about a year and a half, with no infections over 10 or 15 batches. In fact, one that I thought was infected was just not sealed well, and so it didn’t compress like a typical cube… but then, I pitched yeast and made beer anyways… no off flavors or anything.
I really appreciate hearing your thoughts on the aroma hops, along with the community comments on the topic. I love IPAs, and probably about half of my batches are IPAs, and I’ve been getting exactly the bitterness you’re talking about. I’ve had batches so bitter that they’ve been undrinkable, and a few that were okay, but could have been better. I was getting so frustrated that I was considering abandoning my brewing… but now, I’ve got some new methods to try.
It’s tough to describe the bitterness produced by too much late additions… I’d liken it to tannins or astringency (but it’s not mash PH, because it’s only in an IPA, not in other light colored beers with low hops that I’ve brewed)… it’s horrible, and is apparent in beers with late additions. The belgian triple and low-hopped saisons I’ve made have been excellent using no-chill.
I would second several comments in my experience:
1) Most of the time, I don’t squeeze out the air from my container cause it makes it tough to seal. YMMV, of course, but it’s been fine for me.
2) I love using some of the wort as a starter… I usually just poor a quart or two of the second runnings into another pot, then boil that on the stove, and give it an icebath, and throw it in my starter jug. It’s nice to do that while I’m waiting for the wort to boil.
A few tips I’ve figured out… I cut the boil, let it sit for 15 minutes, then whirlpool for 2 minutes, and let it sit for 3 more to try to siphon less trub into the cube. And, some people may wonder how to transfer the wort from their brew kettle if they don’t have a ball valve… I’ve used a stainless steel racking cane, attached by a hose clamp to a silicon tube, fill it with sanitizer, then start the siphon to the cube.
Cheers to all, and thanks again for the write-up!
To be truly lazy one covers the pot at flame out with gladwrap, then pitches first thing in the morning. Then I rack out once fermentation calms down into a glass carboy with limited head room. That way I find I can leave it until I can be bothered bottling, which with everything safely in glass can be give or take a month or two.
Hi guys. I brew plenty of APAvin Australia using no chill. A method that works very well is to achieve roughly half of your intended bitterness with a 40 minute addition then add the rest at flameout or whirlpool. I then put the cube into my swimming pool. If you don’t have a pool, a 44 gallon drum of water (which can reused over and over) can be used to put your cube into to slowly chill it down. Adjusting your hopping goes a long way to avoid hop astringency. Won a couple of medals in APA using these methods. Cheers, John.
This! I no chill using a Sanke and after filling the Sanke I put it in a large trash can filled with water to get it below isomerization temps. Not too hard to get below 170.
Some really interesting opinions on here re: no chill. I’m another Australian homebrewer and i’ve been using no-chill method for well over 2 years (approx 25-30 brews) with good results. I am a lover of hop forward styles and initially ran into issues getting the desired hop flavour/aroma profile without excess bitterness. I’ve tweaked my process over the years My hopping methods are similar to those described by others (focus on a FWH or early boil addition and no other additions until the whirlpool) to limit excess bitterness.
I live in a very hot climate and immersion chilling is problematic due to excess water consumption and struggling to get below 25 degrees Celsius (my tap water is very warm in summer). I tried my hand at immersion chilling but quickly grew tired of the process and its lack of suitability to my environment. Hence my adoption of no-chill.
One method that i have found to work exceptionally well is to remove the opportunity for excess hop isomerisation after the whirlpool is complete prior to cubing. Basically, once your wort drops to below about 83 Celsius, the amount of bitterness isomerised is negligible. I love long hopstands for getting a bold hop character. This method also allows the wort to cool slowly during the hop stand and will typically result in you temp being below 85C after 30min. At this point i cube as normal and drop my cube into the swimming pool for overnight chilling to pitching temps. I find this to be great way to utilize no-chill without skimping on quality or process.
Some may be wary of sanitation using this approach. My response to that is don’t worry. You are still filling the cube with wort well above pasteurization temps so the risk of infection is low. I sanitize my cubes also just to be safe. I have brewed many many beers this way and brewed medal award winning competition beers for several hop forward styles.
Another tweak on this method which works well is to dust off your old immersion chiller and do a rapid post boil chill to approx 80C before cubing your wort. All the same principals apply as above but it will allow for a rapid reduction from boiling temps to 80C (approx 2-3 mins for 5-10 gal batch).
I prefer the above mentioned approaches to some other that were described by others. They work for me and allow me to brew as i normally would without having to drastically modify my process.
Happy brewing!
Jake
I have been no chill for a long time brewing great IPAs. I add all late hops at whirlpool. I start transferring to a sanke keg right after the whirlpool stops which leaves the late hops behind in a cone and in the kettle. No hops left to isomerize this way. No extra bitterness.
My no chill pale and IPA always come out grassy and almost undrinkable.. however, lagers and pilsners using lots of low alpha acid noble hops taste fantastic! Trying to work out what could possibly be the difference, still have no idea