Exploring "no chill" brewing

juvinious said:

Pulled the trigger on 2 winpaks, going to give this a go when I receive them.

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Me too. Received them Tuesday.

OT - I wonder what USP thinks when a small flurry of orders come in from all over the country by individual consumers for a particular product like these plastic containers? Some middle manager is wondering if they need to make/order more of these to keep up with demand?

rcrabb22 said:

Me too. Received them Tuesday.

OT - I wonder what USP thinks when a small flurry of orders come in from all over the country by individual consumers for a particular product like these plastic containers? Some middle manager is wondering if they need to make/order more of these to keep up with demand?

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These things really have become pretty popular in the past couple months. But I tell you, even without the NO CHILL thing going on, these make EXCELLENT fermentors!

They are cheap ($15), they are light, they are indestructable and most come with built in handles as well as the fact that HDPE can handle boiling water, so cleaning with 150-180F Oxy is not a problem.

FWIW... this is the conversion tool that I have come up with (it will continue to be tweaked I am sure) to convert regular recipe hop additions to NO CHILL applications. This is based on some of my own experience and reading on continued isomerization in the hot wort after it is transferred to the no chill cube.

Yes, isomerization takes place even when hops are removed, the oils are in the wort, not the hops at this point.

Thanks for the conversion chart, good to know!

Anyone measure the external size of the winpaks? What size/shape did you guys go with?

6 gallon is 17.5" high and 11.5" DIA. The opening takes a #11.5 bung, or you can do what I did and drill a 5/8" hole in the center of the cap to fit a #2 bung.

oberon567 said:

Thanks for the conversion chart, good to know!

Anyone measure the external size of the winpaks? What size/shape did you guys go with?

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This is the one I am using.
Winpak® Tight Head Pail - US Plastic Corporation

Thanks, Saccharomyces. I am trying to figure out how many might fit in my temp controlled fridge, especially the 6 gallon for fermenting...

deathweed said:

Thats only if you ferment in them. If you use the 5 gallon to just chill and store and ferment in another vessel (6-7 gallon carboy) with head space at a later date, the 5 gallon are actually preferable to eliminate all head space during prolonged storage.

But if you want to be the ultimate space saver, you can chill and store in the 5 gallon, the wort shrinks as it cools, so when you re-open the container the vacuum release will give you some head space, then just add some fermcap and pitch. I am sure you can find another thread on here somewhere on the magic of fermcap, so no need to go OT on this thread, but i will just say I have on several occasions fermented in a 6 gallon carboy with the wort in the neck with fermcap, and have not used a blowoff. Yes, that stuff is that cool

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Cool, I think I'll order a few of the stackable ones then and get some fermcap. Thanks DW!

Well, did my first no chill batch yesterday. All I can say is I hope this comes out good, because if it does I'm hooked. It saved soooo much time. Just turn the burner off and transfer it to the container. Done.

It seemed to have cooled down enough this morning so I'll probably rack to a fermenter tonight and pitch the yeast.

:rockin:

chefchris said:

Well, did my first no chill batch yesterday. All I can say is I hope this comes out good, because if it does I'm hooked. It saved soooo much time. Just turn the burner off and transfer it to the container. Done.

It seemed to have cooled down enough this morning so I'll probably rack to a fermenter tonight and pitch the yeast.

:rockin:

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I tasted my NO CHILL SNPA clone the other day when I took it to secondary... OMG, it was great!
Did you make any hop adjustments?

please excuse me if this has already been asked, but is there anything wrong with doing this with an "ale pail"? I have a couple sitting around that I normally do not use, but want to try no-chill out without buying any more redundant equipment.

TwoHeadsBrewing said:

please excuse me if this has already been asked, but is there anything wrong with doing this with an "ale pail"? I have a couple sitting around that I normally do not use, but want to try no-chill out without buying any more redundant equipment.

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It has been brought up, here is the one concern.

SHRINKAGE! No no, not like you get in the pool, wort shrinkage.

4% or so they say.

My HDPE container sucks WAY in... there is also someone else here who tried an ale pale and it about collapsed in on itself due to the shrinkage.

Ale Pales are HDPE, but much thicker and much more rigid... thus not being as friendly to the shrinking.

If you can assure that it wont suck in anything nasty, you could use a lid that is drilled for an airlock and then the pail will not collapse.

Hmm, that is somewhat of a concern but I do have the lids that are drilled for an airlock. I have a fermentation chamber where all of this will go, which I keep very clean. Do you think some foil over an airlock with no sanitizer in it would do the trick?

I'm thinking I'll do this experiment much like you did, by splitting the same batch into two portions; chilled normally, and no-chill. One I'll pitch immediately, the other the next day using the wort starter method.

I think the other ale pail concern is the pasteurization, or whatever you want to call it, of all surfaces. I think it is pretty key to push out all of the air and put the container on its side to get hot wort into all of the crevices and kill all bacteria. This would not be possible on an ale pail.

Jonnio said:

I think the other ale pail concern is the pasteurization, or whatever you want to call it, of all surfaces. I think it is pretty key to push out all of the air and put the container on its side to get hot wort into all of the crevices and kill all bacteria. This would not be possible on an ale pail.

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While I am not promoting this idea, one of my friends, who happens to own a vineyard, uses sanitized glass beads.

They fill the fermenter, then add the beads to get the level up and force out air. Note, this is not for their production system

The Pol said:

I tasted my NO CHILL SNPA clone the other day when I took it to secondary... OMG, it was great!
Did you make any hop adjustments?

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Yes I did. I only did a FWH. I will dry hop with 1.5 ounces of Columbus after fermentation.

Jonnio said:

I think the other ale pail concern is the pasteurization, or whatever you want to call it, of all surfaces. I think it is pretty key to push out all of the air and put the container on its side to get hot wort into all of the crevices and kill all bacteria. This would not be possible on an ale pail.

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I planned to sanitize everything with StarSan in addition to the hot sanitize of the wort. It seems that if it's sanitized, it doesn't matter what method is used. And for StarSan, as a no-rinse sanitizer it actually dries on the surface and creates a very inhospitable environment for any bugs or bacteria.

Update:

Project is back on! My schedule has (quasi) cleared up for a little while so I just ordered 2 - 5 gallon HDPE containers:

Stackable Containers - US Plastic Corporation

I plan on having a brew day within the next 2-3 weeks and will let you all know how it goes then.

Just ordered my winpak!

FWIW I ordered a winpak, 10 foot of silicon tubing, and a fitting and my shipping went from $7.65 down to $3 something.

Now that a few of you are really keen on the no chill concept, just let me put in a caution that does not concern botulism.

Remembering that you are storing hot (near boiling) wort, you must be careful with hop additions. Now, I'm no scientist, so speaking as the amateur brewer non scientiest like 99.97% of us, I have difficulty with what happens when you add hops to wort. I understand adding hops at certain times affect bitterness/ aroma, but the science behind it .. couldn't give a f.... flying fox.

But ...... Adding late additions to boiling (or near boiling) wort will extract the hop oils causing bitterness to be extracted from the hops.

So, for the record, in Australia we are really looking into what the effect no chilling has on hop bitterness and aroma extraction. Simply, there has to be a difference between what happens to late wort additions when you rapid chill v no chill (otherwise we would have wasted the whole thread !).

The (very) general thought is you lose late addition aroma with no chill in place you get more bitterness.

Just thought I'd let you blokes think about it.

The Pol said:

It has been brought up, here is the one concern.

SHRINKAGE! No no, not like you get in the pool, wort shrinkage.

4% or so they say.

My HDPE container sucks WAY in... there is also someone else here who tried an ale pale and it about collapsed in on itself due to the shrinkage.

Ale Pales are HDPE, but much thicker and much more rigid... thus not being as friendly to the shrinking.

If you can assure that it wont suck in anything nasty, you could use a lid that is drilled for an airlock and then the pail will not collapse.

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I've been giving this a little thought...could one of those HEPA inline filters be used in the airlock hole? That would let sanitary air in with no shirkage

Transfered my wort from the container to a carboy last night and put it into my new fermentation fridge. Everything looks good.

Can't wait to try it.

MMW said:

I've been giving this a little thought...could one of those HEPA inline filters be used in the airlock hole? That would let sanitary air in with no shirkage

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I'd just stick on a 3pc airlock without filling it and cover it with sanitized foil. Wild yeast and bacteria hitch a ride on dust and vinegar flies, so as long as you keep dust and bugs out you will be fine..

Saccharomyces said:

I'd just stick on a 3pc airlock without filling it and cover it with sanitized foil. Wild yeast and bacteria hitch a ride on dust and vinegar flies, so as long as you keep dust and bugs out you will be fine..

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That seems like a good idea. I have a beer in primary right now that I no chilled in a pretty similar manner: I transferred the wort to primary (ale pail), put on the lid, and placed my sanitized thermometer through the hole. Every couple of hours I'd go in, check the tempo, squirt down the thermometer and it's general vicinity with Star-San and pop the thermometer off to release the pressure. By bed time, it had shrunk most of the way and was ready to pitch early the next afternoon.

I hadn't posted the procedure yet since the beer hasn't even been bottled, but so far so good

I do think I'm picking up a plastic jug, but the local restaurant supply place that carries them for ~$10 was out before my last brew.

Couple of questions on the no-chill topic:

1) One of the original posts suggests minimizing splashing when going from the hot pot into the plastic container. What's the reasoning for that? The post goes on to say that after it cools, you aerate when you pitch as normal, so it seems like oxygenation isn't an issue at this early stage.

2) For the various US plastic containers, if you want to ferment directly in the container, how do you attach an airlock?

Thanks,
BigCask

1.) I am assuming the reason for this is to avoid hot-side aeration... which some folks claim to be a myth at the home-brew scale anyway, though others swear it exists...

2.) As suggested above, you can drill a hole in the cap that fits a #2 bung, and you can get a #2 bung with a hole in it for either an airlock or a blow-off tube.

I ordered the 6 gal winpak (item # 75032) from US Plastic. Though the website says "in stock" I was informed by the sales department that they are out of stock, and expect more from the supplier in 3 to 4 weeks. (I didn't inquire about the 5 gal.)

Also, for any other folks wondering about the airlock + drilling the cap. US Plastic sells extra caps for the Winpak for less than $1 each. That way you can have one cap unmodified for air-tight seal, and the other cap customized for the airlock stopper.

-BigCask

Well I wish they would change my order status to "backordered" instead of "processing" since 5/29/2009, Asses. I was really hoping to get a brew done in one of them this weekend.

[edit]
Emailed them shortly after this, their response:

Good Morning,
Yes, we are waiting for the stock to come in on item 75032. Looking at about 2 weeks. Thank you, Barbara

Bummer....didn't have time to really brew anyway.

Whoop!

Got my 2 5-gallon tight head pails in:
Stackable Containers - US Plastic Corporation

I am on call this weekend, so I am planning on brewing in 2 weeks! I need to figure out what I want to brew, right now I am thinking an ESB to chill and ferment normally, and Lil' Sparky's Nut Brown to no-chill and store.

Who bought all the 6 gallon barrells from us plastics? I ordered 2 on the 29th today I called and they are back ordered until june 19. I switched over to 2 15 gallon, ftw

Likewise, been pending since the 29th as well.

REALLY? Dang, I am really sorry to hear that guys, I have alwys heard great things about USplastics. Maybe it has something to do with my article on no chill brewing and calling USplastics by name as the place to get the vessels in the article?

The Pol said:

REALLY? Dang, I am really sorry to hear that guys, I have alwys heard great things about USplastics. Maybe it has something to do with my article on no chill brewing and calling USplastics by name as the place to get the vessels in the article?

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well i dont think poorly of them. I called them yesterday at 5pm and they switched my order up for me. I asked if they would wave the shipping charge and they did.

(note that phone orders the shipping charge is 3x higher $15 compared to ~$5 per barrel)

my 15 gallon barrels are scheduled to be delivered today, pretty fast turnaround but they ship out of OH so not a long travel distance.

15 gallons will work for me since i already have 5 @ 6.5-7.5 fermenters.

Nothing negative, just a problem with their supply stock. I can only imagine your article being a factor.

I have a question. I'm trying to plan my next no chill brew on beersmith. I understand the chart that The Pol posted, BUT, do I need to enter the hop additions into beersmith at their regular appointed time. For example, according to the chart, your 60 minute addition should be added at 40 minutes instead. But when I enter it into the program do i need to put it as a 60 minute addition?

chefchris said:

I have a question. I'm trying to plan my next no chill brew on beersmith. I understand the chart that The Pol posted, BUT, do I need to enter the hop additions into beersmith at their regular appointed time. For example, according to the chart, your 60 minute addition should be added at 40 minutes instead. But when I enter it into the program do i need to put it as a 60 minute addition?

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YES, this way it will show you the CORRECT IBUs... a 40 minute addition, I consider a 60 and a 20 minute addtion is considered a 40 etc.... SO, you must use the the number that will give you the correct utilization.

SO of the recipe calls for a 60 minute addition, use that number in software, BUT put the hops in at 40 minutes. Get it?

The Pol said:

YES, this way it will show you the CORRECT IBUs... a 40 minute addition, I consider a 60 and a 20 minute addtion is considered a 40 etc.... SO, you must use the the number that will give you the correct utilization.

SO of the recipe calls for a 60 minute addition, use that number in software, BUT put the hops in at 40 minutes. Get it?

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Got it. Thanks!

Made sense, I just needed some reassurance.

Wait .... almost got it.

What about FWH addition since the utilization is different? Anything under 20 minutes in No Chill Brewing you move to FWH. What do I need to do in that case in the software?

chefchris said:

Wait .... almost got it.

What about FWH addition since the utilization is different? Anything under 20 minutes in No Chill Brewing you move to FWH. What do I need to do in that case in the software?

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Anything under 20 minutes that is NOT an aroma addition is FWH for me yes..

My software has a FWH option. I consider the bitterness of FWH the same as a 20 minute addition. It actually provides more IBUs than a 20 minute addition, but the perception is different, less.