No chill cool in kettle question

I'm going to be brewing up some extract batches. I boil in a 20 liter aluminum pressure canner. At the end of my boil I generally have roughly 3.5 to 4 gallons of wort in the kettle. I usually chill in the sink with some ice and it takes at least an hour to get this volume to a pitching temp. My schedule means I can only brew late at night when an extra hour is precious to me.

My question is as follows: Can I simply shut off the boil at the normal time, seal the pressiure canner lid (including covering the pressure release hole with the 'little weight thingee') and store the kettle in the basement for 24 hours to cool, then vigorously pour the wort into an Ale Pail, add the bottled top off water, and pitch as usual?

Star san will be sprayed on all potentially important surfaces.

I'm not very concerned about 'no chilling' in the pressure canner. Rather I am more concerned about adding the top off volume after the 24 hour period. Any thoughts?

Have another pot you could "no chill" your top off water in overnight?

I usually use bottled spring water for the top off. So I was just going to santize the top, unscrew and pour on top of the cooled wort in the fermentor... just like I usually do when topping off.

If that's been working for you, then I see no reason to change it. Cooled wort is cooled wort 20 minutes or 20 hours after the flame goes out, no?

I see no issue with doing that. No different than topping it off after chilling, I did that back in the days before full boil.

You could also put it all in the ale pail (hot) and put a blow off tube into star san... One of the guys down here has posted that he does that with no problems. It will pull star san up the tub, but not enough to get it into the ferementer. YMMV.

I would just leave it in the pot and deal with it the next day. I would be willing to drink the beer....

I don't even use a blow off tube for no chilling in my ale pail...just a thermometer in the hole

MMW said:

I don't even use a blow off tube for no chilling in my ale pail...just a thermometer in the hole

Click to expand...

We all worry too much....


THE INFECTIONS ARE COMING! THE INFECTIONS ARE COMING!!!!!!

I see only 2 problems:

1. If you are using pilsner malt cooling down slowly can increase DMS, even after a 90 minute boil.

2. Don't seal the thing shut. I know the wort's just come off of a boil, but cooling down in a sealed environment will create a partial vacuum which will be perfect for anaerobic bacteria to grow (botulism comes to mind). Although uncommon it's not worth the risk. I would just cover the release valve on the canner with a piece aluminum foil.

Hope this helps.

It is an extract kit with steeping grains and not likely to have pilsner as a base malt. I'll keep that in mind.

Started the starter yesterday on my new DIY stirplate. Its fantastic and I'll be trying this no chill thing out either Friday or Saturday. I'm excited to chop nearly 1.5 hours off the time on brew day for fermenter prep and cooling. I think I will also try to get one of those Reynolds turkey bags and have to do even less prep work than usual.