No Chill Results Thread - Post your good or bad notes here.

The Pol said:

Well, if it settles in kegs, wouldnt it in a bottle?

Dunno, anyone?

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That's what I thought but I didn't know if the act of pouring would be more likely to rouse it.

bernerbrau said:

So... has anybody had poor results doing a no-chill brew?

And there's nothing to this, right? Just pour your near-boiling wort into a bucket or better bottle, airlock it, and leave it overnight to cool before pitching?

Because if it turns out that the chill step is unnecessary, that's a good 15-25 minutes I can take out of my brew day.

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No bad results here either, I've noticed some haze on two beers so far but I'm associating it with either the dry hops in one or the wheat/rye in the other.

Also note to be absolutely safe I'd use a sealable HDPE container that can withstand collapsing when the wort cools. Without the seal and using an airlock, it will more than definitely suck in all the liquid and then possibly suck in more air contaminating your wort with airbourne nasties.

juvinious said:

No bad results here either, I've noticed some haze on two beers so far but I'm associating it with either the dry hops in one or the wheat/rye in the other.

Also note to be absolutely safe I'd use a sealable HDPE container that can withstand collapsing when the wort cools. Without the seal and using an airlock, it will more than definitely suck in all the liquid and then possibly suck in more air contaminating your wort with airbourne nasties.

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How about a blowoff into a gallon of weak starsan solution?

bernerbrau said:

How about a blowoff into a gallon of weak starsan solution?

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You may suck in a quart or more of StarSan... there is A LOT of shrinkage both in wort and headspace. Best to have a sealed container.

bernerbrau said:

So... has anybody had poor results doing a no-chill brew?

And there's nothing to this, right? Just pour your near-boiling wort into a bucket or better bottle, airlock it, and leave it overnight to cool before pitching?

Because if it turns out that the chill step is unnecessary, that's a good 15-25 minutes I can take out of my brew day.

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No!!!
Don't melt your better bottle.
I'm not sure if a bucket will work or not, but I'm almost positive better bottles are only rated to 140º F or so.

ytsejam said:

No!!!
Don't melt your better bottle.
I'm not sure if a bucket will work or not, but I'm almost positive better bottles are only rated to 140º F or so.

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RIGHT, you need HDPE... NOT PET plastic... Your better bottle will melt into a little glob.

ytsejam said:

No!!!
Don't melt your better bottle.
I'm not sure if a bucket will work or not, but I'm almost positive better bottles are only rated to 140º F or so.

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I'm kinda worried about using a glass carboy, though. Figure that's a lot more likely to be destroyed by the shock of 195-degree liquid.

Ah, OK. My buckets are HDPE. I'll just need to buy a non-drilled lid and maybe put some silicone around the inside.

bernerbrau said:

So... has anybody had poor results doing a no-chill brew?

And there's nothing to this, right? Just pour your near-boiling wort into a bucket or better bottle, airlock it, and leave it overnight to cool before pitching?

Because if it turns out that the chill step is unnecessary, that's a good 15-25 minutes I can take out of my brew day.

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Do yourself a favor a leave near boiling wort out of the carboys (glass or BB)

I don't even airlock mine (I use an bucket)-- I just stick a thermometer in the airlock hole and let it go. When I'm feeling adventurous, I use some sanitized foil over the hole.

If you have one of those fancy pants $11 cube thingamajigs just cap it and let the sides buckle in.

bernerbrau said:

How about a blowoff into a gallon of weak starsan solution?

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That's what I do with my Ale Pail. I don't know exactly how long my tube is but I think it's in the neighborhood of 6'-8' and it fits in the hole you would usually use for an airlock. Never had blow off water get all the way up.

bernerbrau said:

Ah, OK. My buckets are HDPE. I'll just need to buy a non-drilled lid and maybe put some silicone around the inside.

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In my experience with a bucket - all of once - the solid lid sealed fine, YMMV. The bucket almost completely imploded though, There is a lot of shrinkage.

I'm actually thinking of going to 10 gallon batches and using 2 cubes. Cube-hop each one with a different hop, use different yeasts and I have 2 different - but related - beers from a single brew session. May could even steep some other grains for one of them. So maybe a nice APA and a brown from the same base wort.

I think someone on here is doing that already. ?

Hey hal2814 and MMW-

Do you notice if your bucket buckles or seems like it wants to collapes on itself?

The folks using the fancy dancy cube things all say their cubes contract alot.

Pnj I can tell my own experience.

I use buckets and just shov a starsan soaked cotton ball in the airlock hole. This allows them to cool and not collapse. I did pitch the next day though.

My bucket doesn't buckle but the paint fades off fast. I have to resharpie my gallon marks every 5 batches or so. Also, the little stick on thermometer stopped working (not that it ever really worked to begin with).

12 gallons of malted apple wine (based on brandon's graff with an all grain base, no hops, and accidentally defrosted concentrate). Completely ignored sanitation procedures (drunk and tired) - including starting siphon (ss racking cane) from kettle (no ball valve yet) with mouth directly on hose. Seems like I sanitized the outside somehow - but I may have simply counted on the heat.

Racked into sanitized ss keg, stoppered and airlocked (could have been bad - lots of backpressure when stopper removed).

Pitched ~24 hrs later - took that long to get cool enough to pitch. Pitched 2 packs rehydrated windsor and fermented at 60 for 3 weeks.

Racked the other day and it tastes like 6 month old afpelwein - though it's cloudy as all get up - undoubtedly in part due to windsor's non floc characteristics.

Definitely sold on the concept for the times where chilling is impossible or impractical.

For an update, my simcoe-based pale ale mentioned earlier in this thread is a little hazy but has no off flavors like cabbage or creamed corn. And just so you know, I don't particularly put much care into my pale ales so they often have haze in them. Not opaque, but certainly not crystal clear.

We were talking earlier about pilsner malt being the most prone to DMS in the proper no chill thread. I finally got my pilsner-malt-based beer brewed and fermenting. I was waffling on going long boil (90 min) just in case but since it's a relatively cheap recipe, I decided to put the DMS theory to the test and do a 45 minute boil since I'm basing it off an extract recipe I do that's a 45 minute boil. Here's my recipe for those playing along at home:
8lbs Pilsner Malt
1 oz Saaz 45 mins
1/2 oz Saaz 15 mins
1/2 oz Saaz dryhop
Wyeast 2112 (Steam)

I'm using steam yeast because I don't have the facilities for really lagering and I know it works for the extract recipe I based this beer off of.

Here is my no chill hefe 15lbs wheat and 8lbs pils pretty damn tasty.
Picture is a bit grainy taken with my iphone.

I'm planning to no-chill my house ale (pilot RIMS batch at that) because the hop schedule will work perfectly with no-chill. I plan to stick a StarSan soaked paper towel in the airlock hole of my HDPE ale pail. Will report the results.

So I normally primary in a Sanke, there should be any chance that it will colapse. Right? I have one of those little plastic caps the breweries put over the coupling for transit, maybe I could just put that on instead of sealing it up right away.

I had another thread with the results from my one and only batch of No Chill...but since this seems to be the cnosolidation thread I will crosspost it here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/side-side-no-chill-results-137209/

Hi there Yanky no chillers,

I have basically only done no chill beers, as I don't have a hose to pump any water through a chiller to cool the wort down.

As you all pretty much have found out there isn't much difference at all between no chill and chilled beers...I notice that some of you have brought all your hop schedule forward a bit to compensate for the 'extra bitterness'. This 'extra bitterness' is a huge debate over here in australia (I don't find that it adds any extra bitterness unless you add hops into the no chill cube). I have even done side by sides of a double batch, half no chilled and half chilled...even then there wasn't much difference to the aroma as well.

So, what I am wanting to ask you is from your experience with no chill, has it affected the aroma of the beer?

Cheers
Phil

It is funny that you mention the bitterness issue. Initially I adjusted the schedule based on the aticle in BYO magazine that dealt with the "aussie style" of NC brewing.

Since then I have compared brews side by side and been able to taste a distinct difference in the hop bitterness. I hear all sorts of things, but I am hesistant to perpetuate what I hear as opposed to what I have experienced.

Several here in this thread have used the hop adjustment method and noted good results. I think others have also noted that when not moving the hops, they have noticed increased bitterness, which makes sense to me.

I say, if it works for you, do it, if it doesnt, then dont. People still tell me that NC doesnt work and it creates crappy beer. I dont argue... because it works excellent for me, they just have poor brewing skills, nothing can fix that

As for aroma, I have not attempted a flame out addition (FOR AROMA) since I began no chilling.

The Pol said:

RIGHT, you need HDPE... NOT PET plastic... Your better bottle will melt into a little glob.

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So then it will be vacuum sealed right? :fro:

I'll be watching peoples results on NC beers. I'm interested in implementing it but planning on changing other brewing techniques first. I don't want to change too much altogether so I can pinpoint problems if they arise.

smoa said:

So I normally primary in a Sanke, there should be any chance that it will colapse. Right? I have one of those little plastic caps the breweries put over the coupling for transit, maybe I could just put that on instead of sealing it up right away.

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Are you asking if your Sanke Keg will collapse from the vacuum formed? They are rated for 60psi and made of stainless steel....... NO

Scut_Monkey said:

Are you asking if your Sanke Keg will collapse from the vacuum formed? They are rated for 60psi and made of stainless steel....... NO

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True enough, but many containers rated for PRESSURE will not hold up to VACUUM. This is the case with many things, but in the case of a SS keg, I am sure it will be fine.

The Pol said:

True enough, but many containers rated for PRESSURE will not hold up to VACUUM. This is the case with many things, but in the case of a SS keg, I am sure it will be fine.

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Yes true. 10 characters.

Any chance the pressure release valve will allow external air into the container when presented with a vacuum? I'm pretty sure the pressure relief valves in a corney keg would.

Pre-fermentation, there shouldn't be any oxidation issues, but just another potential source of contaminates.

I posted about this in the other thread, but I made a no-chill saison that turned out pretty nasty. Lots of cooked veggie flavors and aromas. It used pilsner as the base grain along with some munich and vienna, so that might have something to do with it.

I will be remaking the same recipe with some tweaks this weekend, and chilling it this time. I decided I'd rather spend a little extra time post-boil cooling it down than risk another nasty batch.

Ive come to the conclusion that no chill doesnt work

The Pol said:

Ive come to the conclusion that no chill doesnt work

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haha that made me laugh pretty hard.

But hey Pol, I saw you mentioned you were gonna FWH and NC. Have you done this yet? I am brewin a Hefe right now that I'm FWHing in place of the 15 min addition. I've been wondering if boiling the FWH for 60 mins would be too long. NC is viewed as similar to boiling longer, ya? Like on the Hop Utilization Chart a 40 min addition is a 20 min addition.
So is FWH treated similar? Or just toss the FWH in as regularly planned?

I know you do 90 min boils so I figured I'd get your take on it because you will be boiling the FWH longer than me and can say if longer boils affect the FWH.

Toss them in as planned. My first No Chill was all FWH. It was over 70 IBUs and tasted more like 45 IBUs.

ok sounds good. Thanks for the quick answer.

The Pol said:

Ive come to the conclusion that no chill doesnt work

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I suppose the snarky comment was directed at me. I gave no-chill a fair shot but had a bad experience. I am redoing the same recipe using my regular process. If I end up getting the same nasty off flavors, well then maybe I'll just chalk it up to a bad recipe or something, since I've brewed two (chilled) batches since the no-chill that have come out great. I figure having a decent point of comparison would be worthwhile, but feel free to have fun at my expense.

I have ProMash set up to calculate the IBUs of a FWH as a 30 minute addition. Yes, there are more IBUs than that, but it doesnt taste like it... NC aside, I have found this to be a good way to calcualte MY FWH additions.

Since FWH is already boiled for the entire duration, the increased time at high temp will give you a net gain of nadda.

Sweet. Thanks for explaining.

Now I just need to figure out how to set up FWH in Beersmith. I use the FWH setting when I FWH, I just dunno what time to put in for the boil time. I've been putting 60 min cuz I boil 60 min. Does it work the same with NCing?

Can anyone chime in on this?

weirdboy said:

I suppose the snarky comment was directed at me. I gave no-chill a fair shot but had a bad experience. I am redoing the same recipe using my regular process. If I end up getting the same nasty off flavors, well then maybe I'll just chalk it up to a bad recipe or something, since I've brewed two (chilled) batches since the no-chill that have come out great. I figure having a decent point of comparison would be worthwhile, but feel free to have fun at my expense.

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I don't intend to be "snarky" in any way, but since it has been pretty well documented that the no chill works, why don't we look into your procedure? There have been many permutations in the original no chill method on this board alone, and perhaps we can use your negative experience as a learning tool to help future no-chillers. Why don't we start with:

1. the recipe, and yeast info (strain, cell count, re-used yeast, starter, etc.)
2. your no chill container
3. how long from boiling to transfer to pitching
4. temperature at pitching
5. aeration method
6. fermentation time and temperature

garretto said:

Sweet. Thanks for explaining.

Now I just need to figure out how to set up FWH in Beersmith. I use the FWH setting when I FWH, I just dunno what time to put in for the boil time. I've been putting 60 min cuz I boil 60 min. Does it work the same with NCing?

Can anyone chime in on this?

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Well, I dunno about BS... but in ProMash you can go into settings and adjust the utilization for FWH. I adjusted mine so that when I choose FWH, it gives me what equals 30 minutes of utilization. This is the same whether you use NCing or chilling techniques.

If you build a recipe with FWH based on 60 minutes of utilization, your recipe will show many more IBUs than you will taste.

In ProMash when you choose FWH, it is just that FWH, there is no "boil time" as it already knows that you will be boiling it for the duration. ProMash asks you how long you are going to boil before you even get to this step... so it knows how long it will be in there.

Oh ok, I found where to change the utilization percentage for FWH. Right now its 10%.

So at 10% with a 60 min boil (entered into boil time) of FWH its equivalent to ~190 min boil. Haha a little over board.

I guess I'll have to adjust the utilization percentage...or figure out what to put in for the boil time. haha

thanks the Pol. Oh an I was gonna ask what percentage you have yours set at?

garretto said:

Oh ok, I found where to change the utilization percentage for FWH. Right now its 10%.

So at 10% with a 60 min boil (entered into boil time) of FWH its equivalent to ~190 min boil. Haha a little over board.

I guess I'll have to adjust the utilization percentage...or figure out what to put in for the boil time. haha

thanks the Pol. Oh an I was gonna ask what percentage you have yours set at?

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My FWH utilization is set at -20%

This allows ProMash to calcualte my FWH as a 30 minute addition in terms of IBU

Perfect. That worked. Thanks again (for about the fifth time haha)