No chill "chilling" ????
 

I find that the chilling process after the boil is the most stressful part of my brew day.

In order to simply things, could I just transfer the boiled wort into my fermenting vessel (before adding yeast) then put it into my fermenting fridge at 16 C and wait 2 or 3 hours for it to come down to about 20 C before adding the yeast ?

Are there any flavour or other implications to this ?

There is a huge thread on no chill brewing that you should check out. Arguments for and against are discussed all the way through. I have done a no chill brew in the past and had no ill effects. I say, try it and see what happens.

Do yourself w huge favour and get a chiller. You won't regret it.

I have no chilled several batches, it works good. After flame out I drain into a corny keg. The next day I rack to my carboy & pitch.

You can also try a no chill in the kettle. Let cool to 170 and throw in a small handful of hops. and lid it for for the night.

I wouldn't drain anything hot into a bucket or glass container. My simple 3/8" wort chiller took about 45 minutes to get to 70 over the weekend in a keggle. Turn the hose on low and forget about it.

I use to add 2 gallons of ice and mix back and forth between my turkey fryer and my fermenting bucket. Cooled it to 80 and pitched yeast.

I've done just what you suggested twice; no chill into stainless cornies, drop those into the chest freezer, wait until they get to pitch temp.
It worked but the compressor was working HARD for way longer than it should and got insanely hot.
I imagine doing that more than a few times will destroy your refrigeration unit.

I don't know if it gets cold in South Africa, but if I no chill now, it's only in the winter and I leave the cornies in the garage over night, then put em in the fermentation chamber to get to pitch temp.

I get my 7+ gallons of boiling hot wort to pitching temps really quickly with my plate chiller (from Duda Diesel). No stressing at all. If you're stressing, then you need to change what you chill with, or how you go about it. I have my system setup so that I just watch the temperature drop as it chills, until close to my target temp (recirculating back into the boil keggle). I then switch it over to dump into the fermenting vessel (an adapted sanke keg) and let it flow into there, chilling to pitching temp. Easily done, from start to finish, in under 12 minutes when it's warmer out. Looking forward to seeing how it chills this winter. :D

Oh, and I'll be doing this all in the basement now, draining into a newly installed sink. :D So no ice fields will be created outside. :rockin:

its probably not a good idea to put boiling wort in a plastic or glass fermentor, plastic melts and glass breaks. plus you would screw up your fridge!