exBEERiment | Impact The No-Chill Method Has On Munich Helles

Author: Marshall Schott


Apparently, Australia has water issues, something many of us in different parts of the world can relate to given the paucity of rain over the last couple years. As we all know, homebrewing isn’t the most friendly hobby when it comes to water conservation. Even utilizing more efficient techniques and equipment, the process of cooling the wort is quite wasteful, motivating many a homebrewer to come up with ways to repurpose their chiller discharge to assuage the guilt. My own chilling process requires between 20-30 gallons of water depending on groundwater temps and batch size, I always collect the first 5 gallons of hot runoff to use for post brewing cleanup, while the rest usually ends up running down the drain. It’s a sad reality that nowadays ends up costing me more than the judgment of my neighbors, but actual money since my city recently transitioned to metered water. Leave it to them innovative Aussie’s to come up with a method to deal with this problem that wouldn’t hamper their ability to make beer.

Arguably not a “new” method, the no-chill technique blasted onto the scene earlier this decade as a way for homebrewers to essentially eliminate the water wasted during the typical process of chilling with either an immersion or counterflow chiller. And it’s immensely simple, requiring only a plastic container that can tolerate high temps, usually referred to as a “cube,” which the wort is transferred to immediately after the boil is complete. The container is purged of any air bubbles via squeezing, sealed tightly, then left alone overnight or however long until it reaches pitching temp. Once there, the wort is transferred to a carboy and yeast is pitched. Like I said, simple.

Given the relative novelty of this approach, we’re still learning of the ways it effects beer differently than conventional quick chilling methods. One such impact noted by brewers who have adopted no-chill as a normal part of their process has to do with continued isomerization of alpha acids following transfer to the container due to the wort maintaining a high enough temperature. To combat this, many no-chill brewers have come to accept this method adds about 20 minutes of additional isomerization to the process and hence adjust all of their hop additions forward by that amount. However, for this first foray into no-chill exBEERimentation, I was interested in investigating only a single variable: chill time.

| PURPOSE |

To evaluate the differences between 2 beers of the same exact recipe where one was chilled quickly and the other utilized the “no-chill” method.

| METHODS |

I’ve been stoked to get to this xBmt as I’ve been curious about this method following my buddy Aaron’s Year of No-Chill experiment. When it came to the recipe, I knew I wanted to brew a style that would allow any differences to shine, and the choice was obvious…

brulosophyhelles

I’m happy to announce that Brülosophy has partnered with Love2Brew to release a series of kits, the first of which is my Munich Helles recipe fermented with WLP029 German Ale/Kölsch yeast. I’m very excited to be affiliated with such a rad company focused on providing homebrewers with the highest quality ingredients and gear.

hellesboxes
Image by Laura Schott Photography

03_nochillVSquickchill_unbox1

hellesboxes2
Image by Laura Schott Photography

I received 2 kits for this xBmt, each including its own vial of very fresh yeast. Rather than making 2 separate starters, I decided to blend both vials in a single flask, using my preferred calculator to determine how large it would need to be in order to split between 2 batches and harvest some for future use.

02_nochillVSquickchill_starter

As usual, I collected all the water and milled the grains the day prior to brewing, combining the contents of both kits into a single batch since this variable wouldn’t require separate mashes.

07_nochillVSquickchill_milling

The following morning, I hit the flame under my burner, grabbed a bite and a cup of coffee, then returned about 15 minutes later to mash in. Rather than the typical 150°F/65.6°C mash temp, I targeted 153°F/67°C due to information I read following the latest mash temp xBmt, just to try something new.

Click pic for ThermaPen review

I took a pH reading about 10 minutes in that confirmed I nailed my 5.2 target for this style.

10_nochillVSquickchill_pH

About 45 minutes later, my mash alarm rang indicating it was time to collect the first runnings of sweet wort, after which I added the heated sparge water to the tun.

09_nochillVSquickchill_mashXXXX
Click pic for The Brew Bag fabric filter review

I then collected the rest of the wort and added it to the already heating kettle of wort. It wasn’t long before a vigorous boil was reached.

11_nochillVSquickchill_boil

The boil went off without a hitch and I hit my target OG of 1.047 spot on. This is usually the point where I quickly chill the wort, but not on this day! Rather, immediately after killing the flame, I completely filled a clean and sanitized 5 gallon HDPE cube with near boiling wort, gently stirring to ensure equal distribution of kettle trub. This process took just shy of 2 minutes.

12_nochillVSquickchill_cubefill

With the cube full, I proceeded to chill the rest of the wort like normal.

Click pic for King Cobra IC review
Click pic for King Cobra IC review

In less than 5 minutes, the wort temp had dropped to 82°F/27.8°C, only 6°F/3°C warmer than my groundwater temperature. I racked the wort to an awaiting carboy while gently stirring for trub dispersion then placed it in a cool chamber where it was left to finish chilling. Then I crossed my fingers and offered a sacrificial pint to Ninkasi in hopes my sanitation was adequate, as I left the quick chill batch un-pitched in the chamber until the no-chill batch was ready. It was my goal to limit the introduction of extraneous variables as much as possible. The no-chill wort had dropped to 78°F/25.6°C (ambient temp in my house) within roughly 15 hours, so I placed it in the chamber overnight to get it down to my target fermentation temp. The following morning, the cube was cool to the touch when I transferred the wort to a sanitized carboy.

15_nochillVSquickchill_cubetocarboy

I know some people prefer siphons, but I figured pouring through a funnel might be a good way to oxygenate. At this time, the wort was 61°F/16°C, it took another 2 hours to drop to the same 58°F/14.5°C target as the quick chill batch, after which the yeast starter was evenly split between each carboy. Expecting both batches to ferment similarly, I was a bit surprised to observe the no-chill batch developed a thicker krausen sooner than the quick chill batch.

17_nochillVSquickchill_ferm2 days
2 days after pitching yeast

Things eventually picked up for the quick chill batch and both were chugging along by day 4, which is about the time I began to ramp the temp to encourage complete and quick attenuation.

18_nochillVSquickchill_ferm4days
4 days after pitching yeast

By 6 days in, fermentation appeared complete for both beers and I took an initial hydrometer reading, it was consistent with the reading I took 2 days later.

20_nochillVSquickchill_FGnoVquick8days
Left: quick chill 1.010 | Right: no-chill 1.011

The .001 SG difference between the batches was sort of interesting, though arguably negligible. The beers were then cold crashed, fined with gelatin, racked to kegs, then allowed to carbonate and condition for 5 days before being served to participants. This kit version was just as attractive as those I’ve made in my garage many times prior.

21_nochillVSquickchill_glasses
Left: quick chill | Right: no-chill

Curiously, the no-chill batch appeared ever-so-slightly darker with a touch more haze than the quick chill batch, a difference I can only assume is attributable to the variable being tested.

| RESULTS |

A total of 22 people participated in this xBmt including BJCP judges, experienced homebrewers, and dedicated craft beer junkies. Each participant was blindly served 2 samples of the no-chill beer and 1 sample of the quick chill beer then instructed to identify the one that was different. In order to achieve statistical significance given the sample size, 11 participants (P<0.05) would have had to correctly identify the quick chill sample as being unique. In the end, 14 tasters (p=0.001) made the accurate selection, indicating the quick chill beer was reliably distinguishable from the no-chill beer by the participants and thus suggesting each method may uniquely impact the ultimate character of beer.

The tasters who were correct on the triangle test, a solid majority, were subsequently asked to complete a brief evaluation comparing only the different beers while still blind to the variable being investigated. Overall preference was split evenly with 6 tasters endorsing the quick chill beer, 6 preferring the no-chill beer, and 2 saying the beers were different but they had no particular preference. Similarly, when asked to select which beer was produced utilizing the quick chill method, 7 chose correctly and 7 chose incorrectly. In conversations following completion with the xBmt, quite a few of the tasters who were accurate on the initial triangle test noted the quick chill beers as being generally cleaner tasting while the descriptors used for the no-chill beer included grainy, grassy, and “just different.” Only 1 person alluded to the idea there might be a difference in bitterness, but this came only after he completed the survey and we were discussing the nature of the xBmt. Other than that, bitterness was not noted by anyone else.

My Impressions: I had friends triangle test me on this one more than I have for any other xBmt, I only failed 1 of the 6 trials, which I’m chalking up the fact it was a late Saturday night. Like many of the participants, I experienced the difference in aroma alone as being quite noticeable, with the no-chill beer possessing more of a wet hay character while the quick chill beer had a very clean and bready Pils malt aroma. This basically followed through in the flavor, though I didn’t perceive the difference as being nearly as stark. Interestingly, I did not perceive the no-chill batch to be more bitter than the quick chill beer. Likely as a function of what I’d come to expect from a recipe I’ve made so many times, I definitely preferred the quick chill beer, but that’s not to say the no-chill beer was bad, it wasn’t at all. In fact, they were both delicious enough that neither keg lasted as long as I would have liked.

| DISCUSSION |

As an annoying questioner of claims untested, it may surprise some that I didn’t actually doubt the merits of this unique method when I first heard of it, at least consciously. It’s totally possible, of course, the fact so many used it to simplify their brewing influenced my thinking. Only after Aaron’s yearlong no-chill experiment did I start to wonder if allowing beer to cool very slowly had some sort of qualitative impact on beer compared to more conventional quick chilling. The single data point from this xBmt seems to suggest it does, at least on a deliciously malt forward and crisp Munich Helles with a minimal amount of hops. However, despite achieving significance, neither method had a detrimental effect– both beers were quite delicious! To me, this says the no-chill method is equally as valid as quick chilling and, as with most process components, it’s up each individual brewer to decide the approach they like best.

Of course, it’s possible these results would have been different had other variables been tweaked, and I presume many are just as curious as me about how much of an impact delaying hop additions by 20 minutes would have had on the no-chill batch. Trust me, there’s no way this won’t be tested, likely on a higher ABV and much hoppier beer.

I’m curious to hear from others who have played around with no-chill or other wort chilling techniques. Does your experience align with this data? Have you developed a modified technique? Please share your experience in the comments section below!


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97 thoughts on “exBEERiment | Impact The No-Chill Method Has On Munich Helles”

  1. Interesting.

    Glad to hear you`re doing this again with a hoppier beer. My cooling system is my bath tub, water and some bottles of ice which is pretty slow even if not no chill. I`ve been worried about what effect that has on my hops so I`ve been trying bigger hop stands to use a tecnique that is based arond chillng the wort slowly. Am curious to see what slower cooling does to hops.

    1. I would try a hoppier beer and a beer with late hops. I have recently seen somewhere on some forum that if you drop the temps to 80ºC (I think it was that) quick then you can leave the rest with no chill method you don’t have to deal with isomerization problems.

    1. Yeast is yeast, man, if the beer hits all the stylistic marks then in my opinion, that’s what you call it. This beer has all the character of a Helles, so I call it Helles!

    2. I make pils, helles, and other german style beers fermenting Scotish Ale yeast at 62, pitching at lager rates. I’ve never done a triangle test with it, but I’ve taken different batches it at my homebrew club meeings and parties and I have never once heard that it was an ale or it was estery or had any other indications of being ale-yeast brewed. (In one homebrew club meeting, we were doing blind tasting with only the style of the beer announced and a pro brewer there commented on the clean fermentatino.) If we’re concerned with authenticity, then we can’t do it this way, but if we’re brewing for taste, well,

  2. I’m a confirmed no chiller. Only differences with my method. I speed up cooling the cube with a fan, I add late hops the next day by making a hop tea, and I oxygenate and ferment right in the cube. Very happy so far.

    1. Can you tell us more about hop tea, how you make it and does it really add that juicy hop flavor sought after in IPAs? Does it add additional bitterness?

  3. On my last two brews – Marshall’s Munich Helles and a Chipotle Golen Ale – I did a modified no-chill method. Chilled to 90 in bathtub, put the lid on the vessel, placed in ferm chamber for over 24 hours, and then pitched. All of this was done in the same vessel. The beers had no noticeable off-flavors that I could tell, although this was my first lager so I have no reference point as to what it’s supposed to taste like.

    https://onepotbrewing.wordpress.com/2015/11/05/hunting-camp-lager/
    https://onepotbrewing.wordpress.com/2015/11/05/chipotle-golden-ale-and-a-time-saving-trick/

    My next two beers will be completely no-chill, just throwing them in the ferm chamber.

    1. Nice! Nobody mentioned the no chill batch as having off flavors, they just noted it as being different than the quick chill batch, and half ot those who got it right actually preferred the no chill beer!

  4. There was a Basic Brewing Radio show on this. I think they talked about or did a test at a NHC conference a few years ago maybe? They all agreed the no-chill beer had a different flavor. I think they preferred the quick-chill in general.

  5. It’s been mentioned previously that an optimal way to obtain equivalent results would be to quick-chill the no-chill to 80°C by making a concentrated beer, and adding 20-25% cold water before cubing. Would love to hear about that!

  6. I did 16 no chill pale ales and ipas this past year, and I’m going to suggest avoiding the exbeeriment on it. I concluded that beers that have a minimal hop profile could work, but the hop character you can get from no chill is ultra grassy and muddled due to 15hr steeping. The bitterness is also really hard to dial in.

    On another note, I have now made 6 no BOIL session ipas, with quick chill, and those have been GOOOOD!

      1. For sure. Mash at regular temp, then do a mash out around 165, which pasteurizes the wort. I then add the whirlpool hop additions for about 20m depending on recipe (which usually stays about 160), and Whirlfloc (totally clears the beer even at this temp), then chill and pitch as usual. No detectable infections yet, no DMS, and saves a massive amount of time.

    1. I’d agree with this. Beers with significant late hop additions get a bit confused. However I do find you can make decent PA and IPA with different hopping techniques such as adding hops at flame-out, adding hops to cube before transferring worst or adding hops to cube after transfer. Each method gives different character.

      But with no chill, as opposed to quick chill,I do find it difficult to achieve exactly what I was aiming for.

  7. I’ve been exclusively no-chill brewing since 2006.

    SE Queensland was going through a drought much like California is right now (years with no rain).

    I was on http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com when someone was testing the idea. There was much skepticism at the time. Fears of botulism.

    It didn’t take long before some people had placed in competition with no-chill beers, and not long after that before breweries & home brew shops started offering “fresh wort kits”. You buy 20 litres of concentrated wort in a cube, take it home and put it in your fermenter with 5 litres of water and the yeast. A great way for breweries to make money out of their spare capacity.

    A great way to get a quick beer going when you don’t have time to brew.

    I don’t much like the idea of hot wort in plastic, so I now use an old 7.5 gallon pony keg to no chill with a 2 inch tri-clover to seal it. Works well.

    My lightly hopped beers turn out great (stouts etc.) but my PAs are a bit hit and miss.

    This experiment has me thinking about getting a chiller.

  8. I wonder if your hopping method includes leaving the hops in the trub or if you use a spider or strainer. If the former, perhaps it is possible to avoid the grassy flavors by minimizing the plant matter that spends extended contact time in the hot wort.

      1. I’m 100% no chill in my 6 gallon US Plastics drum. I put a fan on it for 24 hours and a wet towel. Wort gets down to 68F within 20 hours.

        I’m still playing around with hop addition, but my most successful batch was with an IPA where first addition was -30min, second at -5min and third was 30 min after transferring the wort to the drum. Temp was 175F so still above danger zone.

  9. A quick comment on trying to conserve water while chilling from a California homebrewer…

    I fill a cooler with two 7-lb bags of ice plus 5-7 gallons of water. To chill, I recirculate the ice cold water through my plate chiller or IC using a pond pump. This is a major water saver and while it sometimes comes up a bit short of mid-60s ale pitching temps, it gets close enough so that a short amount of time in the fridge gets it to where it needs to be.

    1. What size batches are we talking about? We’re not only trying to figure out a more efficient cooling method water-wise, but also time-wise. Of course, a pre-chiller was our first idea, but your idea of an ice bath and re-circulating seems pretty decent if it would work with a 10 gallon batch. It just seems like recirculating the hot water into the cooler would warm up that water pretty quick.

      1. I’ve only done this with a 5-6 gallon batch. Although I bet if you were to use 4 bags of ice, you’d do okay.

  10. I pretty much do this on every batch. I don’t have a chiller, so I put my wort directly into my fermenter, put on the lid, and slap on the airlock. Generally, I brew in the evening, so I leave it overnight, and pitch in the morning when I get up.

      1. Not if you use a s-curve airlock — and a little bit of vodka or clean starsan wouldn’t affect your beer anyway.

      2. I’ve never noticed it happen, but I generally use vodka in my airlock, so even if it did, I don’t think it would harm anything.

  11. It is just me who miss the exact recipe of this beer? I gather it has no late hop addition. It suprises me, that it differs this much. I also use no chill quite often. I just love to make a beer under 4 hours. I can manage it after work. And I can deal with the yeast on the next day.

    1. It was my Munich Helles recipe. I think no chill is great for water conservation, but using proper techniques, I consistently chill 11 gallons of wort in less than 12 minutes, so it doesn’t really add much time to the brew day. I often knock 11 gallons out in 3.5 hours start to finish.

      1. I think the time cleaning and sanitising the chiller equipment should be taken into account. That said the primary reason I go with No-Chill is because I don’t want to buy more “stuff” for brewing.

  12. Thanks so much for running this Bmxt !
    Very interesting results!

    Bit darker and cloudy… V Interesting. I diddnt realise the millard reaction could occur at lower temperatures , although over a longer period of time.
    But, now I google it.: Ripening cheeses, serano ham, it can occur at very low temperatures.

    Dam that isomerisation will keep going with dissolved hop acids over that very long time span for the cube.
    The cube needed an IBU recipe adjustment, so your probably 4-6 IBUs off without adjustment (according to controversial guess work calculations)
    So to be truly equal, two separately boiled batches would have been required.
    Unfortunately, this may sway your consensus and flag any difference tested for.

    1. I intentionally didn’t adjust the hop addition time for this initial no chill xBmt, as I wanted the only variable to be the chilling method, so I don’t see it as unfortunate… especially since we have more no chill xBmts on the list that do indeed account for this 🙂

  13. I’ve done ice baths for 2 years now and had really good results. Using a large metal bucket to set the hot kettle in, I dump all my ice trays that I filled the night before (maybe adding a bag of store bought ice during the summer) around the kettle. Pouring in a quart of really cold water makes the ice more moveable. I’ll whirlpool the wort with a long spoon or paddle in one direction, while circulating the icy water in the opposite direction (separate spoon, don’t worry) to keep the side of the kettle from heating up the water around it too quickly. Replace ice water as needed. Probably takes 15 mins to chill 5 gallons to 80. Then I’ll top off with cold water to compensate for any volume lost due to evaporation during the boil. I live in Minnesota, so in the winter when it’s -15 outside, I’ll put the kettle out on the porch. As long as I keep packing snow around the kettle, cause it will melt it on contact, it can be completely chilled to pitch temp in 30 mins.

    Do any of you immersion chiller guys collect all your hot run off to use for laundry, watering the garden, or washing the car? Better than going down the drain.

    1. I have a rain barre(a converted HDPE 55gal. Drum with hose fittings and a mosquito screen across the top that my public water utility subsidizes as a water conservation measure) l that collects rain water from a gutter downspout for watering the garden. In the summer once the rain water is depleted I fill it from my chiller after saving some hot runoff for cleaning.

      I have a salvaged spa pump that I eventually intend to set up so I have the capability of recirculating cooling water but haven’t taken that step yet.

  14. Hey Brulosophy crew, thanks for all the experiments, I have learned a lot and made several positive changes to my brewing thanks to your site. Keep up the good work.

    I live in a rather dry part of Australia on tank water, so water conservation is kind of ingrained. It requires a bit of an initial investment and available space, but a good way of chilling without wasting any water is to install a rainwater tank (bigger the better) and pump. Just hook a line from the tank/pump to your chiller and a return back into the top of the tank, you can then chill for as long as you like with no wastage at all. The rainwater can then also be used for many other purposes, gardening, cleaning etc, and each time it rains your supply gets replenished. So in the end you are actually aiding in water conservation, which is always a good thing.

    Thanks again for all the work on this site.

      1. Marshall, I live in the central valley in California and am planning to hook up a pump and wort chiller and circulate the water from my pool -> through the chiller -> back to the pool. Zero waste and cooler water than the tap! Kinda the same idea as the Aussie above, but adjusted to our wasteful history here in Cali hehe

  15. Hi Marshall and co, very much enjoying what you are doing here with brulosophy, awesome work!

    On no chill, I have run 13 batches this year using this method, here in Sydney Australia, using a 1V BIAB, a 10 gallon turkey fryer (sold in Australia as a crab cooker), converted into an electric RIMS, with controller.

    I have measured the temp of the wort after transferring to cube, using a sterilised probe, and it is already well below supposed hops AA isomerisation temps, I have read 80°C or 176°F is the magic number here, not sure if this is so or not.

    This is with a 10 to 15 min ‘whirlstand’ or ‘hopstand’, with the lid on the kettle, (kettle is insulated with a kmart nitrile rubber yoga mat) temp after the stand goes from approx. 100°c or 212°F down to 92°c or 197.6°F.

    I use medical grade half inch silicone hose, about 1 metre, to rack to the HDPE cube. When racking, I take my time so as to not suck through too much trub. So the transfer might take 5 mins. I find that a huge amount of heat is being lost during the transfer, through the silicone hose, it is burning hot to the touch, and also in the cube as it radiates heat. I have measured the temp of the wort once in the cube, 5 minutes after finishing the stand, and it’s almost always below 72°C or 161.6°F, well below AA isomerisation temp.

    Notes:
    1. I use a jerry can shaped cube, maybe it loses heat faster.
    2. I’ve never had an issue with an infected batch, even after leaving the wort in a cube for a few days.
    3. I use a stainless hop spider so no hop matter makes it into my wort.

    I’ve never experienced grassy off flavours, and never experienced elevated bitterness levels. This applies to several styles I have made this year, from Witbiers, to pilsners with large amounts of flameout saaz, Several pale ale clones, and an IPA (Julius IPA clone, Tree House Brewing Co Massachusetts, amazing stuff..)

    I speculate that if you measure the temp of the transferred wort next time you try this, regardless of transfer speed, if you are using a half inch silicone hose or similar, the wort will be below 80°C or 176°F. I also conclude that this method is as a result, unlikely to result in beers that are more bitter, but may have a different result with late flavour and aroma additions. May not matter or be detectable with dry hopped beers.

    The cooling seems to happen exponentially, losing many degrees very quickly to begin with, but the cube is often still warm to the touch 12 hours later, taking a full 24 hrs to cool completely to ambient temps.

    I tried dropping the whole cube into the swimming pool in the backyard, where I got it to drop to 45°C or 113°F in 10 mins, but it didn’t seem to make any difference so I gave up doing that. The neighbours were looking at me strangely anyway..

    Anyway, I’m a massive fan of no chill, and have no plans to buy a chiller, even though I have a water tank with pump just outside the brewhouse.

      1. You should try the 80ºC thing to “solve” the isomerization problems in some next xBmt.

      1. I’m no chilling to simplify my process. I have three young kids, very busy looking after these, and have no time to brew other than the evening after I have helped get the kids to bed.

        I mash in after dinner, get up and do the boil after the kids in bed, and rack to cube and go to sleep. I just don’t have the time in one session for chilling, sanitising a FV, transferring again to it, getting my yeast ready to pitch etc. The pool doesn’t use much water anyway, just what I lose from backwashing the filter. We generally get a fair bit of rain in Sydney.

        Regarding cost, water is charged at $2.25/1000 litres here in Sydney, probably $1.80 US for 264 gallons. I guess you would use about 50 to 100 gallons of water to chill a 5 gallon batch? So about a dollar saved each brew. I like to make my brews as cheap as possible, but still make them high quality. For some lower hopped brews when re-using yeast, and buying grain by the sack, $1 might be not far off 10% of the cost of the brew, just to chill it down fast when I have found it’s simpler and easier not to.

      2. To add to this, I would have trouble chilling right down to pitching temps for lagers and also for ales in the summer using our groundwater. I would have to put it in the brewfridge unprotected and painfully wait for it to hit pitching temp. Not something I could do in the middle of the night.

        Having a sterile cube that is in no hurry to have yeast pitched in to it, means I can wake up the next morning, grab the still warm cube and put it into a brew fridge and program it for the exact pitching temp I want, with no fear whatsoever of contamination. Get home from work that day, pour the contents of the cube quite quickly into the FV, from a height with lots of splashing and aeration, and you get a free dose of O2 as well that way.

        Using this method, if you are used to having a whole ‘brewday’ you may be able to consider putting one on in the evening like this midweek.

    1. Hi Mark, where abouts in Sydney are you located? I’m down in Campbelltown and am doing stove-top BIAB no chill. I’m loving it.

      1. Hi David, I’m up near the lane cove national park in West Pymble. I agree, life is that much better when brewing and enjoying your own beer!

    2. “I have measured the temp of the wort once in the cube, 5 minutes after finishing the stand, and it’s almost always below 72°C or 161.6°F, well below AA isomerisation temp. ”

      Writing back here to correct myself. My observations that I have recorded here regarding temperatures after racking to cube, I suspect were out by quite a margin.

      The method I used to measure the temp of the wort in the cube, was to lie the jerry can shaped HDPE cube on some 10mm closed cell nitrile rubber insualtion on the floor of my garage, with the temp probe between the cube and the rubber. I took these readings during the middle of winter, the ambient temp in the garage about 12°C to 13°C (about 54°F)

      Not sure if it’s the change in ambient temps to summer, now about 22°C (about 72°F) but I have recently measured two batches, just after racking into cube, by putting the probe into the wort at the top of the cube when filled, and I am seeing in cube temps of 82°C to 84°C (179.6°F-183.2°F).

      Notes:
      1. This is with a jerry can shape 23 litre HDPE container.
      2. Wort temp after approx 10 min whirlstand is about 92°C to 93°C (198°F)
      3. Transfer of approx 23 litres (almost 6Gal) takes 10 minutes at the rate I run it.
      4. 12mmID medical grade silicone hose pretty short at 1 metre 3 feet in total length. Most of it is submerged in the cube during transfer.

      Considering these higher post transfer temps, when making a late hopped beer, pales, IPAs etc, I think I will go back to the idea of lobbing it into the swimming pool to crash it under that AA isomerisation temperature of approx 80°c 176°F.

      I will try and compare my fav IPA recipe, the ‘Hoppy Thing’ from Nate Lanier, Tree House Brewing Massachusetts, made with the no chill and with this swimming pool chill method and report back on my bitterness evaluation.

      If the chill vs no chill is going to show up differences in bitterness, flavour and aroma profiles, this type of beer will. It has 45IBU bittering hops or hopshot, one ounce each of amarillo and centennial at 20 mins, one ounce each of amarillo, centennial and simcoe at flameout, and another ounce of each of those dry.

      1. I am 100% no chill for my last five batches. I am thinking now of opening the cube after about 20 min dumping in my 20 minute hop addition. The flame out addition is done with a hop tea just before I pitch yeast.

  16. Firstle, from an Australian perspective can I just say. NO METERED WATER!! That blew my mind 🙂 I can also put another vote for Geoff’s rainwater method. We used this in a Micro with the addition of a chilled tank. Your exbeeriment stacks up with my experience of no-chill and the impetus for my building a chilled cold liquor tank in my keezer with a submersible pump. This allows me to reduce scheme water use to ~15 minutes, which I try to save for the garden/cleanup.

    I know that a lot of guys here use “cube hops” in their hoppy beers. I never tried this as I believed the long steep time would lead to off flavours. But then who knows without a test…

    1. the word ‘simply’ followed by something not simple to most people. At least in my view, having to get ice every time I brew is not simple or convenient. The word ‘simple’ here starts at not chilling at all, and then various degrees of complexity after that, depending on time, cost, convenience. But I still like your method and thanks for sharing.

  17. Nice work on this one. I recently progressed from no-chill to an IC and certainly haven’t noticed any significant changes in finished product – potentially clarity has improved slightly. I think one additional advantage of the cube approach is long-ish storage of wort for brewing at later point in time. Currently in NZ several craft breweries are offering cubes of wort for purchase – just dump into fermenter and pitch yeast. I also enjoyed doing a a few ‘cube-only’ brews where all hops are added to the cube and all isomerisation occurs post-boil. I wonder if the sealed vessel in any way allowed more aromatics to be maintained. Cheers

  18. Most BIAB brewers in Australia also put their hop additions in a smaller bag much like the grain bag for BIAB. At the end of the boil simply lift out the bag.

    I’ve been doing a bit of BIAB using this method and it seems to stop further utilisation. It also reduces trub and waste at the bottom of the kettle.

  19. Interesting results! Just a thought here that perhaps the slight color difference could be explained by slight micro-oxidation that could occur in the no-chill cube.

  20. Chilling is an issue for me too. I have tried the no chill and my beer was hazy compared to what I am used to. Other than that I did not notice any difference.

    But I have devized a system where I use the rain water container right outside my window to chill. I simply dump an immersion pump into to the rainwater container send it through my immersion chiller and back in to the rainwater container. Works better in the cold:-)

    Soren

  21. When it’s really cold here in Chicagoland I’ve tried setting it outside in the cold -5F winter wind but am always disappointed it takes so many hours to cool down. Packing snow around it seems to slow it down further as it creates a layer of insulation. Plus muscling 5 gallons boiling wort from kitchen to outside is – hazardous and messy.

    Filling up the rain barrel with outflow lead to a really stinky rain barrel due to the warmer water.

  22. Really find your exBEERiments fascinating!

    I’ve been regularly chilling my 5 gallon batches with only 15 gallons of water and have even been reusing the water for chilling subsequent batches.
    I store the 15 gallons of water in PET bottles and place them in the freezer the night before I’m brewing. The water is usually down to 38-40f the following morning. I run the water through the chiller and recollect it in the PET bottles. I run the last 5 gallons through the chiller a second time and this gets my wort down to pitching temperature in 8-10 minutes. This way, I’m wasting almost no water.

    I used to do the no-chill method earlier, but prefer this method as my beers are crystal clear, and this works well for me.

    Cheers!

  23. Hopefully on topic – has anyone successfully rigged up a drill and paddle to stir the cooling wort in the kettle? I want something hands free so I can start clean up while the wort is chilling and having to stand over it stirring is a pain. I wander off and without stirring it takes longer to cool down and uses a lot of water.

  24. instead of fast forwarding every hop addition by 20 minutes in a no-chill beer, couldn’t you reduce the amount of hops used? I know a lot of home brewers aim for the cheapest brew possible while maintaining quality so….. Thoughts?

      1. I’m assuming that this would take lab results to determine IBUs, sweetness, and the resulting ratio but if I could save 1/2 oz of hops per brew that would be fairly significant. Or have I had too many homebrews tonight?

  25. Do you think the hop flavor would be preserved if you quickly dropped the temp to ~100F? I just did my first batch using a IC and the amount of water used is a lot compared to being patient w/ an ice bath (or not chilling). I need to whip up some cleaner solution anyway though, so I might as well use that water to chill my beer if it helps keep the hop profile predictable.

  26. As mentioned in detail in my previous posts, I’ve been brewing using the BIAB no-chill methods, working very well for me, but last night I made sure to use at least a rudimentary chilling method.

    The reason I was motivated to do this, is I was making up a batch of a Stone & Wood “Pacific Ale” clone. This particular aussie beer, suited to summertime drinking hailing from a place named Byron Bay, a beautiful surfing town and the most easterly point of Australia, does not even fit into the BJCP style guidelines.

    Recipe example here http://brewerschoice.com.au/ag-sw-pacific-ale-clone/

    I don’t claim to know how they brew this beer, but the best info I can find has it having a grain bill that pretty much resembles a witbier, 60% barley (i suspect pils but maybe ale is used) and 40% wheat, some of that malted some not.

    It uses Galaxy hops, a relatively recent variety, that has intense passionfruit and peach flavours, but also is very high in alpha acids at around 14%.

    The recipes I’ve seen for this ‘pacific ale’ calls for around 40g or almost 1.5 ounces to be added at flameout for a 5 gal batch. This is not an enormous amount to add at flameout, I have added more like 3 even 4oz with some of the IPAs I’ve made, but have read that this hop can be very unforgiving if used with disregard to when you add it and the bitterness it may impart if you make a mistake.

    So after flameout, added the 40g, let stand for 10 mins, racked to the no-chill HDPE jerry and promptly dropped it (carefully) in the backyard swimming pool. I have no idea how fast this method bring down the temp below the AA isomerisation temp, and really to gain any real insight, I would need to do as the wonderful brulosphy members do and make two batches and have a bunch of people taste them.

    By the way, I have recently noticed that the chil haze that you can often be left with using no chill, is greatly reduced by running a protein rest at 50c for 30 mins. Was taking notes about my beers and noticed that the ones where I had performed the rest, (beers that I made with larger amounts of unmalted grains) did not show any chill haze. I have read that this rest can indeed assist with this.

  27. I’m surprised no one has mentioned DMS. I’ve been using no chill “in the kettle”, and I’ve been getting what I believe to be DMS when I make my Hefeweizen recipe which is 60% Weyermann wheat, and 40% Weyermann Pilsner. I usually do all-grain BIAB. The taste/aroma is sulfur-like, and vaguely like cooked vegetables — I’m not completely sure it’s DMS but that is my best guess. I get it consistently (4 different all grain batches), but not when I do an extract batch (2 batches).

    I have been using a no-chill method in which I leave the wort in the kettle. When about a minute is left in the boil, I seal the kettle with a gasketted lid, and then put the kettle outside over night to cool. As the wort cools, the suction creates such a tight seal that I have had to add a pressure release valve to the lid just so I can remove it when I’m ready to pitch!

    Any thoughts about whether no-chill-in-the-kettle could be responsible for the off flavor? On my next batch, I’m planning to go back to using my wort chiller as an experiment.

    1. I used my wort chiller in my last batch of Hefeweizen (May 28) and I did NOT have the sulfur-like swamp-water taste/aroma. In fact it is very good. But I changed my grain and yeast as well. My next batch I’ll use the exact same ingredients as this one, except I will use no-chill-in-the-kettle.

  28. I use in the kettle no-chill.
    I sanitise a plastic shopping bag, which fits tight over the rim of my kettle and press out most of the air from the kettle’s head space. To avoid the non-food grade plastic touching the hot wort, I let a microwave dish float on top of the wort. This prevents oxygenation and keeps the bugs out. On reaching pitch temp I drain the kettle into the fermenter with vigorous splashing, pitch yeast and close the fermenter. No off flavours yet.

  29. I no chill, pitch yeast into the brew pot when cooled, then rack after a few days. Brew pot is already sterile so it’s easier. Just chuck cling wrap over to seal. I am only a one gallon batcher

  30. Leave a few poly or steel containers filled with water in the freezer, throw them in at flameout. Better than an immersion chiller and cheaper. Win

  31. I have been completely no chill for about 18 months. I now delay hop additions by about 30 minutes.

    The last hop addition is usually done in the cube (USplastics drum) about 45 minutes after I have filled it, temp is about 175F.

    Ps I always flip it upside down at first to sterilize the cap.

  32. You don’t filter hops – as it was not significant when tested, using your default quick chill. But as we know that the hops hanging out with the hot water is going to react overtime, it’s a fundamental principle of brewing, a hop bag would seem logical in no chill. For some people no chill is super convenient so it would be great to see an experiment which eliminates the difference by thinking about other parts of the process.

  33. I wonder if I just rack the hot beer to a keg,close it and keep it for few days,till I got the yeast from fermenting batch,than pitch it in,what would be the result? In theory,it’s like giant canning procedure.

  34. Here’s my extract with specialty grain trick: I boil half or more than half the water the night before and dump it into my clean but not sterilized or sanitized fermenter, seal the fermentor, and put a overturned pyrex cup over the blow hole that had been boiled with my water. The steam seems to kill any bugs that could produce an off-flavor.

    Then the day of, I boil up my extract with some water for ten minutes in one pot, boil my hops for an hour with various additions in a different pot, and heat up my specialty grains for half an hour and batch sparge for 10 min in another pot, then boil it for 10 min, all in tandem.

    Smaller pots of water heat up and cool faster, plus you get better utilization of your hops by doing them in a different vessel from your wort. The malt extract only pot will have had the most time to cool down, and the hops pot is pretty small. Sometimes I put some water with blue ice in the kitchen sink to cool down the extract pot a little for 10 min or so, sometimes I don’t.

    Either way, then I throw all my brew day pots into the fermenter, and depending on the ratios, it is either a decent temp to pitch my yeast, or I have to wait an hour or so to pitch. I just sprinkle some dry yeast on top.

    Easy peasy. Been doing it for years and never had a bad batch.

  35. Just listened to the podcast covering this topic and I have to say how enjoyable it was.

    As a novice homebrewer (started March 2017) this is a topic close to my heart. I have a RoboBrew and no chill exclusively!

    I’ve yet to brew a beer that my family and friends dislike, and in fact my first ever brew (and first all-grain) ESB won a gold medal in the Western Australia state competition and silver in the Australian National homebrew competition in 2017.

    I’m not saying that I’ll NEVER chill my wort, however I have a great method that I use with the no-chill and I’m kinda liking the results so far. I’m kinda thinking that the summer temperatures here may be the push I need to start chilling…..

    Keep up the great work, love the podcast and can’t wait for the weekly shows next year!

  36. Douglas Johnson

    Would you have a suggestion for where to get a hdpe cube from a brick and mortar store? I searched home depot tonight and came up empty. Looking around online I really can’t seem to track down a store that carries something like these. I would order from Amazon but I was hoping to get one for this weekend. Thanks for any assistance .

    1. Marshall Schott

      Ahh man, I was going to suggest Amazon. I really don’t know if any brick and mortar stores that carry these. Perhaps a camping/outdoors store? The cube is basically just a 5 gallon RV water storage container.

    2. Restaurant supply stores have them. If you don’t have one nearby, you might check Smart and Final, seems like something they might carry.

  37. Question about using wort chillers vs some more eco-friendly methods
    I am appalled that it is normal to waste ~25 gallons of potable water to make 5 gallons of nice beer. In this case it takes 4x more water to make 5 gallons of beer.

    I am adamant about wasting as little of anything as possible and I dont understand the ambivalence to letting 20 gallons of water go down the drain just because it is convenient and easy to chill your wort.

    I live in an area where there is plenty of water, but i could never in good conscience waste so much (both from a bank book perspective and from a member of the world perspective)

    So, my question is, what is the difference between using less total volume water (instead of 7.5 gallon use 6.1 gallons, which is my normal volume) top off the final boil volume with (estimating 1 gallon water loss to boil, to 5.1 gallon final) ~.5 gallon ice cold water (from fridge) (note sometime i make batches of 6 gallons total, so I add more cold water)
    and using what I use ~8 Liter of ice in bottles which i reuse…so in effect I have cooled the total volume down from 100 C to ~80+ C with 2-3 Liters of cold water.(sometimes more)… and then I cool it further within ~ 20 mins by adding sanitized ice bottles which I reuse. So my final temp after ~ 40 mins is ~40 C(105f?) (sorry for mix of US units and EU units). I am not wasting anywhere near 20 gallons of water because i REUSE the ice bottles (and recently found a 10L cube which is perfect for this).
    Is it so vital to get from 105F down to 70F within 30 mins (my final temp after the ice/cold water additions) ? I posit it is not, because I have never had a spoiled beer with this method and for me is much more eco-friendly.
    Is it so much more of a pain in the butt to do this? maybe, i have to remember to put the bottles in the deep freeze 2 days before..but as far as I can tell it does not affect the quality of the beer, I still get nice clean hoppy IPAs, and clean pilsners etc.

    Is this something which you all can test?
    I would appreciate it

  38. Hi! So i recently tried this no chill method and entered the beer to an internal competity homebrew club. The beer did ok, (35 score) but did said they noticed some astringency. Cant help but wonder if this was because of the wort and trub temp being high for too long.

    1. Marshall Schott

      There are a few things that come to mind. While it may very well be that the judges accurately perceived astringency, and that the astringency was caused by your methodology, it’s also possible the beer wasn’t astringent… that the judges were wrong and perhaps misinterpreted bitterness or something else as astringency.

      1. Awesome, thanks for the reply, yeah so one of the comments was that it might’ve been oversparging, but I did a full boil BIAB, so no sparge, and mash pH was on point 5.3. Might’ve been over bitterness from the initial hops for leaving the wort temp high for too long.

  39. If you want to waste no water and speed your chill, I bet you could rig up a radiator and fan to a pump and recirculate glycol/coolant through it, much like a vehicle’s cooling system. I would think that would bring down to pitching temp within an hour, depending on ambient temp. At the very least, it would very quickly bring you below your 180 degrees F. Match that up with hops being used in a spider/mesh strainer, you would be good to go.

  40. Been brewing since 2005 using 15 gallon keg as kettle. Initially used wort chiller to cool wort but hate wasting water (and also exposing the wort to the air that happens using immersion chillers) so tried letting beer cool overnight in the covered kettle (using aluminum foil to seal the top).

    Been no-chill brewing since 2006 and have never had a bad batch. In fact, pretty much everyone who has tried my beer raves about the flavor. Also I have won best in class in brewing competition. I brew about 200 gallons a year.

    Besides saving water, it allows me to fill the kettle to the top since no wort is displaced because no chiller is immersed in it, so brew yield is maximized. Surely there are downsides, but I think the positives outweigh the negatives.

    One thing to note is you shouldn’t aerate your wort until it is cooled (oxygen is bad for the wort at high temps), so you probably shouldn’t transfer it to another container until it’s cooled. I have a valve on bottom of kettle that I use to transfer the cooled wort to carboys which I shake to help aerate as they’re being filled.

    I kind of doubt brewers in the old days chilled their wort nor had as good of sanitation techniques as today, yet beer was still drinkable then.

    If you want to save water and increase your brew yield, try the no-chill method. You probably will be pleasantly surprised.

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