"No chill" hybrid

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JNye

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I did my first "no chill" brew last weekend. I love the benefits it offers. Since I pitch within 24-48 hours I figure I can do a hybrid method and get the best of both worlds. My plan is to drop the hot kettle in about 15 gallons of cold water. This rubbermaid will be the sanitizer/cleanup vessel as well. Added benefits over no chill I see:
1) warmer water to cleanup with.
2) no worries about hop additions adjustment
3) still get a cold break
4) still get a real wort starter
Cons-
1)doesn't save as much water
2)cost 3 times as much in sanatizer

neither of these concern me. My concern is if I am missing something on the CON side.
 
I don't understand. You are using a cold water bath to chill, which is one of the standard chilling methods, so what makes this a hybrid of no-chill?

Also, for what it's worth, I think I use less than 15 gallons of water when I use my IC. I spray the first couple of gallons on the outside of the kettle to help the steel cool off faster, and then I capture the output in two large pots (one is 8 gallons, one is 5 gallons, neither of them gets full). That pretty much does it for chilling.... and I have a bunch of hot water for cleaning up.

One thing have considered doing is taking that hot output water from the chiller and storing it in buckets or carboys after it cools and using it for the source of water the next time I make a batch. No waste except for the couple of gallons that get mixed with sanitizer the next time.

4) still get a real wort starter

What does this mean?
 
Well, one of the things with no-chill is that you put the boiling wort into the fermenter- so that the fermenter isn't just sanitized with sanitizer, but actually nearly sterilized with the boiling wort. (There are some microbes that survive boiling). That's one of the keys in no-chill- to be not just ordinarily sanitary, but more extremely so because the wort sits at a temperature danger zone longer.

To chill partly, but not thoroughly, in my opinion defeats the purpose of no chill, as well as with a traditional chilling. I think you'd be setting yourself up for more risk of infection, but with no benefit. If you're going to make a real wort starter, why would a partial chill help that? You'd be better off to freeze wort, and then make a starter with the thawed wort. I also don't think you'd get much of a cold break. In my wort, I don't usually see cold break until my wort gets under 80 degrees.

I'm not sure I follow the list of benefits to not picking one or the other. I think a hybrid chill would cause more problems than give benefits.
 
In my wort, I don't usually see cold break until my wort gets under 80 degrees.
this i did not know, lack of experience on my part. I understand the concepts with no chill, but some people simply collect some wort to make a starter and pitch 24 hours later. No special vessel, the wort is left in the kettle with the lid on to cool naturally. Then transferred to fermenter, aerated and pitch. So far as i can tell infection hasn't been a huge issue doing this. But I have only been reading the no chill threads. I guess i am wondering if I am opening myself up to more of chance of infection by partially cooling, as opposed to letting the wort naturally cool the whole way(in my kettle with the lid on).

Walker i understand that is a standard chill method(water bath). But getting those last 10-20 degrees to get to pitching temps is where the work comes in right? This method I want to do skips that work.(i won't have to add ice, colder water, own an IC chiller, or clean up the chiller, or collect the hot water, or pull the hose out).

To be honest water conservation is not my main motivation to this method. No chill saves time. Thats why i like it. The one thing i do not like about no chill is the adjustments to hop additions(which seems to be a guessing game). The cold break doesn't concern me either, whether i get one or not, i just thought with this method i might, which would be a benefit, but if not, I don't care.
 
Walker i understand that is a standard chill method(water bath). But getting those last 10-20 degrees to get to pitching temps is where the work comes in right? This method I want to do skips that work.(i won't have to add ice, colder water, own an IC chiller, or clean up the chiller, or collect the hot water, or pull the hose out).
Yes, the last 20 degrees is the hard part. I'll sometimes stop around 90 when it starts to get too hard to chill with ground water, run the wort into a sanitized fermenter, and seal it up while I wait for it to cool the rest of the way off naturally.



To be honest water conservation is not my main motivation to this method. No chill saves time. Thats why i like it. The one thing i do not like about no chill is the adjustments to hop additions(which seems to be a guessing game). The cold break doesn't concern me either, whether i get one or not, i just thought with this method i might, which would be a benefit, but if not, I don't care.

I can see your point, but I guess "saving time" is subjective. I'd like to save time between brew day and drinking that beer, so spending the extra 30 minutes to chill the wort in order to avoid 2 days of waiting for it to naturally chill saves the particular type of time I am interested in. :D

One last thing I just realized...

If I undestand your plan, you are going to let the kettle sit in a large tub of sanitizer (and not just a large tub of water). Is that right?

If so, what kind of sanitizer do you use? If it's starsan, letting metal sit in starsan for extended periods of time is not recommended because the stuff is acidic. If you use Iodophor or something NOT acid based, then it should be fine.
 
I can see your point, but I guess "saving time" is subjective. I'd like to save time between brew day and drinking that beer, so spending the extra 30 minutes to chill the wort in order to avoid 2 days of waiting for it to naturally chill saves the particular type of time I am interested in. :D

One last thing I just realized...

If I undestand your plan, you are going to let the kettle sit in a large tub of sanitizer (and not just a large tub of water). Is that right?

If so, what kind of sanitizer do you use? If it's starsan, letting metal sit in starsan for extended periods of time is not recommended because the stuff is acidic. If you use Iodophor or something NOT acid based, then it should be fine.

alright cool, some good info here. I was planning on leaving the kettle in the sanitizer so maybe i should pull it out after i finish cleanup. I do use starsan. If i like the method and it works I'll get some iodophor.

I naturally cooled my last batch (5.5 gallons) and was at pitching temps within 24 hours. By crash cooling it most of the way i can likely pitch earlier, even though I prolly won't.
Saving time isn't even the most important benefit when i really think about it. Because it saves time it allows me to brew after work...I can start after dinner and pitch the following night. This is very important to me cuz it allows me to brew as often as I want. Saturday and Sundays don't come cheap you know.

Walker it sounds like you have already done this method, except you transferred to the fermenter right away. How long did you wait to pitch?
 
Walker it sounds like you have already done this method, except you transferred to the fermenter right away. How long did you wait to pitch?

Well, I didn't think it was any specific method, but yes... a couple of times very recently I have chilled with an IC or CFC most of the way, transferred to the fermenter, and then waited for it to cool off to pitching temp naturally.

I did this on a lager because I simply could not chill to pitching temp with an IC, and I did it this past Saturday because it was a hectic, crowded brew session, and I wanted to just be done and out of the way of all the other brewers.

In both cases, I waited about 9 hours to pitch.
 
alright cool, some good info here. I was planning on leaving the kettle in the sanitizer so maybe i should pull it out after i finish cleanup. I do use starsan. If i like the method and it works I'll get some iodophor.

Still not quite sure why you are using sanitizer for this...
 
Keep in mind that the no-chill brewers are putting boiling wort into safe plastic fermenters, and they are almost sterile because of the boiling temperature. They cover them tightly, and then pitch the yeast when fully cooled. There is no way for any microbe to take hold, since the container is tightly closed during this cool down.

Letting it sit out overnight or even longer, in the traditional "danger" temperatures of between 80-140 degrees, in a kettle seems to be asking for an infection.
 
Still not quite sure why you are using sanitizer for this...

just so i don't have to clean up with cold tap water. throw a little sanitizer in there and my hands won't freeze. :)

yooper you may be right, if it becomes a problem I'll have to do it the "right" way, i'm gonna give it a go and see if it works for me. But i don't think the risk is all that high. The wort will be in my kettle and that will be plenty hot and sanitary when i cover it. The lid will be cleaned with sanitizer. It won't be opened again until its ready to be transfered to the carboy and pitched.
 
No-chill can be a time saver, and it's easier.

I use two types of containers for different applications.

The first type is a 6.5 win-pak. With this one I rack near-boiling wort into the win-pak, and close it. When I'm ready to pitch, the win-pak is the primary fermentaion vessel.
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The second type is a 5 gallon win-pak. This application is the same as the first, except the wort can last longer in the win-pak and you'll want to rack to another vessel for primary fermentation.
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If you really want to do some sort of hybrid no-chill with the benefits of both, you need to chill IN THE FERMENTER.

Siphon boiling wort into a winpak, seal it up, and drop it in some icewater. (better yet, use something metal that conducts heat better...like a conical)
 
If you really want to do some sort of hybrid no-chill with the benefits of both, you need to chill IN THE FERMENTER.

Siphon boiling wort into a winpak, seal it up, and drop it in some icewater. (better yet, use something metal that conducts heat better...like a conical)

see and that is also part of the reason behind doing the method I propose, I don't want to buy anymore eqt.(if I bought a winpak i would simply do the real no chill, which someday i might). I'm also not too keen on the "siphoning of boiling wort" so I would need to drill and valve my kettle, which i don't want to do. I ferment in a 6.5 glass carboy and i like it so far, I don't want to ferment in a winpak...maybe after the newness wears off.;)
Though I do like the last idea...just buy a conical, better build a cold room too:rockin:
This method just seems to fit what i have, and I get to pitch the next day, and real wort starter...
 
okay so i gave this a shot tonite and it was a little extra work. I got lazy and only used the 5 gallons of sani I had made up:(, it cooled the wort to around 150, i dunno if that curbs hop utilization or not? Okay maybe not lazy, I poured the 5 gallons of sanitizer i made up in a rubbermaid container and it immediately started leaking(prolly 1/2 gallon a minute) so rather then fill it up with more water to leak out(too cool more effectively) I left the wort to cool a bit and salvaged most of the sanitizer and cleaned up. I'll prolly try this again with a non leaking rubbermaid container.
 
... I would need to drill and valve my kettle, which i don't want to do.

It's not very hard to drill/add a valve to a kettle, and it makes the whole process easier. Once you do it, you'll wonder why you waited so long.

Here's how most of my brews go; after flame out I wait about 10 minutes (clean up time) then, using the valve and tubing, I rack the near-boiling wort into a 6.5 gallon win-pak, close it and the brew day is done. If you want to do a real wort starter, retain some of the hot wort in another vessel, such as a mason jar.

When I'm ready to pitch, I open the win-pak, add the yeast, close it back, roll it around a bit to oxygenate, replace the cap with tinfoil.... that's it.
 
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