No chill

[ehk089]

So I recently upgraded from a keggle pot, and cooler mash tun to a single tier 3 keggle herms electric system that I built myself. I generally brew 10 gallon batches, but have decided to try and make a 5 gallon batch of a imperial stout before I make my big 10 gallon batch on the same brew day. When building the system, I had made sure to place the heat element low enough to still be submerged in a 5 gallon boil....the problem I had not forseen was that the element is just barely submerged at that volume and my immersion chiller will essentially sit on top of it and cool the top 2 inches of wort, leaving 80% of the liquid below untouched. I have heard brulosophy talk about the "no chill" method, filling up a container with wort to put in a fridge to chill overnight and pitch some time the next day, but it looks like they're using a special container instead of a bucket or carboy. The question I have is, would wort directly from the kettle be too hot and compromise the foodsafe coating of a plastic brew bucket? I was considering placing the chiller directly into the bucket and racking from the kettle into the bucket, but I dont want it to impart plastic into my beer. If not, does anyone know if a regular glass carboy would be able to withstand the heat? I could always rack hot into that and put it into the fridge overnight, but I dont want to explode a carboy. Any suggestions are appreciated.

 

[Veets]

I wouldn't rack hot wort straight into a glass carboy.
What kind of plastic brew bucket are you using? Do you know for sure that it has some foodsafe coating? To my understanding (and reading other posts in these forums) the typical fermenter bucket is HDPE and is just fine with hot liquids.

You could also consider gently stirring the hot wort. Those two inches that touch the immersion chiller will get chilled down and mixed with the remainder of the wort, and it will eventually chill. If you have the ability to recirculate with a pump, that would be even easier.

Another idea would be to sanitize your immersion chiller on the inside, then put that in a bucket of cold water or ice water, and circulate the hot wort through it.

Sounds like you'll be buying a counterflow chiller soon?

 

[ehk089]

I thought about making an ice bath in my hlt and running it through the coil but am leery to do that for the same reason I don’t own a counterflow chiller, because I’m afraid of what’s inside....my buckets are brewers best so I dunno if they’re ok or not.

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

I'm no expert on plastic but I've heard people sanitize their buckets with boiling water. The temp is going to drop from 212 real quick. I wouldnt worry about the plastic one bit but thats me.

As far as no chill I've done many times but a bit different. I chilled to around 100 deg which goes pretty quick and stuck the bucket in the ferm chamber set to pitch temp and pitched the next day when it cooled. Never had an infection. This is with your basic 6 gallon brew bucket not one of those cubes

From 100 to say 65 is where its starts taking longer as the temp gets closer to the tap water temp I chill with. And the reason for my "half chill"

 

[RM-MN]

If your bucket is HDPE plastic, dump the boiling wort into it and put the lid on. Use an airlock but use Starsan in it and only enough to cover the inner cap bottom or the cooling wort will suck the Starsan into the bucket. "S" type airlocks work better for this.

 

[OG-wan Kenobi]

When I am rushing to reuse a kettle I bust out my Mega Pot and dump my batch in there and I use my wort chiller in that and then from there it goes in the carboy so if you have a kettle that will hold the 5 gallons just use that its very quick to clean unless you have to chill in that kettle for some reason

 

[ehk089]

yeah so it says the brewers best is HDPE, so I think if I rack from the kettle boiling on top of the immersion chiller IN the bucket, it should be cool enough from what you guys are saying....I also use a wine aerator to agitate and aerate the wort and to promote faster cooling on the immersion coil, so Ill do that at the same time....typically its down to 100 in about 4 minutes.

 

[OG-wan Kenobi]

You'll be good

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

How are you racking? An auto siphon at boiling or real hot would be a concern

 

[RM-MN]

yeah so it says the brewers best is HDPE, so I think if I rack from the kettle boiling on top of the immersion chiller IN the bucket, it should be cool enough from what you guys are saying....I also use a wine aerator to agitate and aerate the wort and to promote faster cooling on the immersion coil, so Ill do that at the same time....typically its down to 100 in about 4 minutes.

I don't rack, I just dump. Be sure your siphon can take boiling wort before you start to rack.

 

[tgolanos]

I let my beers cool in the brew kettle for a few hours with the lid on before transferring to my plastic fermenters. Usually leaving it to cool further over night works fine. Have never had a problem with the no-chill yet.

And, as others have said, never pour boiling wort into a glass fermenter (or any fermenter for that metter). It's not worth the risk of burns or other injury.

 

[ehk089]

How are you racking? An auto siphon at boiling or real hot would be a concern

I say racking but I’m just hooking a silicone quick disconnect hose to my bulkhead to gravity fill from kettle to bucket, so not like I’m trying to melt a plastic racking cane on this.

 

[z-bob]

I did a no-chill yesterday for the first time. It sure did shorten the brew day.

I wiped the kettle down with a cold wet cloth to cool it slightly, then drained it into a white plastic bucket lined with a paint strainer bag using a silicone hose. Put a lid on the bucket (only partially snapped it down because I didn't want the bucket to suck in as it cooled) and set it outside in the cold. Six-ish hours later, before I went to bed, I checked on it; it was about 80 degrees. Still too warm to pitch the yeast but I wasn't sure about leaving it outside all night, so I brought it in and put it in my basement utility room. This morning, it was 66 degrees. Perfect! I pulled out the strainer bag and all the hop debris and trub, and sprinkled a packet of yeast on top of the wort.

It probably would have been better to pull the strainer bag out hot instead of letting it steep all night.