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I agree. I had a perfectly good stout ruined by some vanilla bean that had a hidden invader of some kind. Do what you can to keep the spots from mixing or breaking apart. Like using a really large spoon.

Awesome advice from everyone. In the next couple of months I'll make a couple batches and ferment hot, making sure the first couple of days the fermenters stay a bit cooler. I want to try out the no chill method anyway so a chance to experiment will be good for experience. I think I'll do a...

Could be a question of yeast though. I've tried enough to know that there are touchy yeasts and flexible yeasts. Recently I had a beer that started out with a medicinal alcohol taste to it after 3 weeks in the bottle, but was perfect after 5.

Actually, I just made an imperial american stout fermenting between 70 and 90. Maybe a little lower during the first two weeks, but most of the fermentation (2nd and bottle) at those temps. It is the best stout I have ever had. Somewhat sweet, but with bitterness to balance. About 9 percent...

I was actually thinking on using the no chill method this time around. You know, do things they tell you not to do...

I'd imagine it would have to be a style where esters are generally acceptable, and a yeast that will do a good job of cleaning up any unwanted flavors. Dunno, might work for a stout

Just out of curiousity, has anyone ever fermented at 100 degrees? Just to see what would happen? I live in a zone where the temps range between 95 and 105 degrees all summer (all 4 months of it). I never tried brewing during these months... Maybe there are some Aussies out there who have a...

How about a funnel instead of a fitting? Should work just as effectively. And as for the material, stainless or copper.... if you want to add salt to the ice water so it gets colder, then I would suggest stainless steel because the salt will corrode the copper. If you don't plan on using salt...

Actually Doug, of the homebrew providers that are in Spain, this web is the most economic: http://www.calarenys.com/ Their grain is reasonably good and in general they are a little bit cheaper than the other webs. If you want dry malt extract at wholesale prices, however, you have to find the...

H-ost and Zamail, you got a point about the airlock. My steel barrel is a heineken keg. The hole at the top could be covered easily with one of the various plastic fermentation covers I have at home. I could put a weight on top of that, so the keg would remain covered and the flimsy food grade...

That is to say, instead of the steel cover, putting a rubber plug and airlock. Should avoid the whole vacuum situation while maintaing a healthy environment. I am just not sure what difference sealing the container against O2 would accomplish if inside the container there is O2 already. If it...

Hrmm.... and airlocking it would produce the same effect?

I've seen that one. The "Australian method".... In theory it sounds solid. I just worry about the effects the nearly boiling liquid would have on a plastic food grade container. Maybe a stainless steel barrel (I have a 15 gallon one), cleaned to perfection, would do the trick.

Well lets say though that you wanted to up your volume. Instead of 5 or 10 gallons, you wanted closer to 50 or 100 gallons. The CFWC & IC method would work the best just because of the pure volume, wouldn't it?

Yeah I thought about the plate chiller, but I am not in the market for it right now. Though in the long run it might pay for itself....

Ahhh, thank you. So your cooling process takes only as long as it takes the beer to drain from the kettle? If that's the case, sounds marvelous.

E-Mursed, can you de-acronym CFWC and IC for me? I'm not too up-to-date on the lingo.

I think the salt would start corroding the copper. You might switch it for stainless steel, but then you wouldn't get the same kind of heat absorption going on. The reason why I thought attaching the immersion chiller to the kettle spigot would be the best (if you didn't have a kettle spigot...

It isn't about the cost of water that I'm talking about. I think it is a waste to use countless of gallons of water to chill a pot of wort. When I say low cost I mean to ask for solutions that don't involve spending hundreds of dollars.

So I have been brewing for over a year now, and every time I brew I use a copper immersion chiller to bring down the wort temperature after a boil. The thing is, while I save as much water as I can for clean up later, and use the rest of the water for my yard, I have to admit that cooling the...