Musings of a homebrewer

[tgolanos]

As the title suggests, just me going on about my brew day. Nothing too exciting, but I did decide to experiment a bit with my methods to see if anything in my system was worth changing. Normally I brew in a bag, dunk-sparge, do a 70-minute boil and no-chill my wort overnight before pitching my yeast. I've been doing this for a little over a year now and have had generally good results. Today, I wanted to see if chilling my wort made any difference to my brew-day.

The recipe:
3kg Weyermann oak-smoked wheat
1.2kg Joe White pale malt
0.2kg chocolate malt of unknown brand
25g Hallertau Mittelfrüh hops (4.8AA) at 60 minutes
8g Hallertau Mittelfrüh hops (4.8AA) at 30 minutes
20g Mandarina Bavaria hops (8.3AA) at 10 minutes
10g Mandarina Bavaria hops (8.3AA) at flame-out
1 jar (app. 150mL) WLP007 yeast slurry

I had all the ingredients sitting around and was bored so I figured why not brew it up? Mash, sparge and boil went pretty much as expected. It was a bit cooler today, so I had to re-heat my mash to get it back to 65°C, but this isn't that unusual for me, especially in the Winter months. Pre-boil gravity was 1.036, exactly as Brewer's Friend estimated for me at 80% efficiency. Tick.

After 70 minutes, came the wort-chilling experiment. I placed my 40L pot into the utility tub in the laundry and began to fill it with water. First lesson learned is that my sink is just too small. My BK fit fine, but it didn't leave a lot of room. A bit of tap water got into the wort at the start, but it was right off the flame, so I'm not worried about anything here. I got the BK cool to the touch in about 30 minutes. Pleasantly surprised here, but I'm not thrilled about all the extra water I used. Oh well, I used the warm water to clean up at the end.

I sanitized my fermenter bucket and found my strainer; I used a strainer when I first started brewing (for no real reason), but remember having much healthier-looking kräusen when I used one. So why not try this again, too? The wort wasn't as cool as I though, though - either 25L of wort takes a lot longer to cool than I thought it would or my ground water is still too warm, but I ended up pitching my yeast and dumping 50°C wort on top of it. Worst-case here is I killed the yeast, but I have more 007 slurry in the fridge, if need-be.

At the end of the day, I'm glad I experimented but I think I'm going to stick with no-chill. The extra water used didn't make much of a difference to my brew day and it just seemed like more steps to my brew-day.

Now we just wait and see if the yeast survived 50°.

 

[Browne]

I no-chill also. Started BIAB six batches ago. Made one SMASH that turned out very clear; other batches, not at all. I’m wondering if chilling will help ... getting rid of cold crash gunk. Do your brews come out clear after a while?

 

[tgolanos]

While I get the occasional crystal-clear beer, but I definately get chill haze with my brews. I don't find this to be an issue, though. If I were entering competitions, I'd care a bit more, but I don't. I'm looking for beer I and my friends enjoy drinking.

Palmer says the haze is caused by lack of cold break, so chilling would get rid of this. You could also try gelatin-fining if you want clearer beer.

 

[Drewed]

I just stick my kettle in the kitchen sink and fill the sink with cold water and ice. My wort cools down in about 1/2 hour or so, but I'm only doing 3 1/2 gallons in a 5 gallon kettle.
If I go no chill, do I dump the hot wort in to the fermenter, and if so is there a problem with boiling wort and glass - thermal shock, or the hot work deforming a plastic fermenter? Or do you just let the wort cool in the kettle and then dump it over?

 

[bleme]

The thing I don't get about no-chill is how you keep aroma hops from turning into bittering hops.

 

[kh54s10]

I just stick my kettle in the kitchen sink and fill the sink with cold water and ice. My wort cools down in about 1/2 hour or so, but I'm only doing 3 1/2 gallons in a 5 gallon kettle.
If I go no chill, do I dump the hot wort in to the fermenter, and if so is there a problem with boiling wort and glass - thermal shock, or the hot work deforming a plastic fermenter? Or do you just let the wort cool in the kettle and then dump it over?

Don't pour hot wort into a PET fermenter. Ask me how I know. Not too bad but the bottom is rippled now. Also don't pour hot wort into a glass fermenter. I don't recommend glass at all but that is a different story.

Chill it in the kettle.

 

[tgolanos]

The thing I don't get about no-chill is how you keep aroma hops from turning into bittering hops.

I adjust my times as best as I can. Brewer's Friend has an option that accounts for no-chill bitterness. You do have to guestimate your times, though, and I'm happy to experiment here a bit.

Also, never pour wort direct from the boil into any container - the risk of burning yourself aside, you will break glass and warp PET. I always kettle-chill my wort for a few hours before carefully dumping it into a fermenter bucket to finish cooling. I just got a new brew kettle with a ball-lock valve, so I don't have to pour any more.

Side note - I took a hydrometer sample the other night. Beer tastes like bacon.

 

[Browne]

I adjust my times as best as I can. Brewer's Friend has an option that accounts for no-chill bitterness. You do have to guestimate your times, though, and I'm happy to experiment here a bit.

Also, never pour wort direct from the boil into any container - the risk of burning yourself aside, you will break glass and warp PET. I always kettle-chill my wort for a few hours before carefully dumping it into a fermenter bucket to finish cooling. I just got a new brew kettle with a ball-lock valve, so I don't have to pour any more.

Side note - I took a hydrometer sample the other night. Beer tastes like bacon.

And ... is that a good thing? Bacon=good; Bacon beer = ?

 

[kh54s10]

And ... is that a good thing? Bacon=good; Bacon beer = ?

It's been done. On purpose. And from what I heard people liked it. There was a tv program about strange brewing. They did a barrel, I think, and if I recall correctly they forced the beer through bacon and had to use something like 200 pounds of bacon.

 

[tgolanos]

And ... is that a good thing? Bacon=good; Bacon beer = ?

I haven't decided yet. It's still in primary so I'm trying not to judge it at this point. Even if it ends up being a baconless bacon beer, it'll make a good conversation piece with my co-workers.