Implications of not cooling the wort?

What is the down side of just being patient and letting the wort cool down over 24 hours? This would be much less faffing than purchasing, sterilising a proper coling system.

Just made my first couple batches of lager. I need to be more precise with the amount of hops I throw in. At least nobody else will drink it!

Cheers all

Steve

John Palmer explains it in better detail than I would here:
http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter7-4.html

Basically, you chill it as fast as you can to kick out some proteins that would remain if the wort was cooled slowly. I made my first few batches without a wort chiller and they turned out fine. I did however put the kettle in an ice bath or at least kept it in the sink with cold water around it. I even tried sticking it out in the snow once! That didn't work well. You can chill it fast enough in the sink or in the tub though, so I would go that route.

Clear beer is the answer. If you don't get a good cold break (which comes from rapid cooling), your beer will be hazier.

Actually, if you're doing no-chill brewing inside a sealed vessel like a plastic jerrycan/aguatainer that you put the wort in while it is boiling hot and it vacuum seals as it cools, protecting the wort, then nothing....you're fine. They've been doing that in Australia for decades, and here for a few years.

But if you're leaving it in an un-vacuum sealed vessel, like your kettle or something, then what will happen is that around 130 degrees or so, lactobasillus will take hold and your wort will become sour. This is one of the tricks in making sour mash beer, it is what you do on many of the guiness clones, you pull a measure of hot wort, and let it cool, allowing lactobasilus to take hold.

As for the the stuff vespa and homebrewdad mentioned has actually largely been discredited/disproven BECAUSE of no-chill brewing. None of those supposed issues show up on no-chill beers. That has largely led folks to believe, at least in terms of a vacu sealed vessel, that proteins preciptate out just fine and the beer is not cloudy either.

The no chill brewing thread is an historical hoot on here, because all the nay-sayers where coming out where all manner of supposed "Issues" like botulism and such, while folks kept saying, that it's been done for decades in Australia and noone's died, yadda yadda yadda....

And finally some Aussie brewers IIRC came in and told everyone to shut the Hell up, that if all those nasty things were happening did we think they'd still be doing it that way? And then after that, and people starting testing loving it, folks came around.

Good read, Revvy. You learn something new everyday here. I was never too worried about DMS or spoilage. For me, the end of the boil feels like I am in the home stretch after a long brew day - I just like to chill that sucker fast and be done for the day.

Vespa said:

Good read, Revvy. You learn something new everyday here. I was never too worried about DMS or spoilage. For me, the end of the boil feels like I am in the home stretch after a long brew day - I just like to chill that sucker fast and be done for the day.

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Me too. But I can see how no-chill has merit where water is not easily come by like in parts of australia.

I appreciate all of these carefully considered replies, I'm sure we are going to get along just fine!
My background is scientific/technical but I have little knowledge of fermentation. I approach problems in a logical and pragmatic fashion and I'm not afraid of trying a short cut or different method at least once. Also, my taste buds are not particularly acute, I would never make a top chef; there is every chance small amounts of residual protein will go unoticed.
A couple of thoughts/observations: when we make the wort, we are very precise about the temperature, too hot and we get nasty proteins. What if we reduce the temperature by 10% and increase the simmering time? Would this method not dissolve all the sugars and reduce proteins?

When I asked about this at the home brew shop (in Aldershot, UK) they said that they have some customers who cooled their wort in the bath. It sounded to me like this was quite a faff. Sterislising a whole bath??!! Siphoning also would be a pain, I'd have to run a hose pipe from upstair to downstairs. And how do I get out the very last bit, its not like you can tilt the whole bath! Plus I could only do this when the wife was away, she'd ph*cking lynch me! After reading your replies, I think I realise that he meant that you put the big stock pot in the bath.....I think a much better idea is to put the stock pot in the ourside water butt.

Cheers all
Steve

SteveMcD said:

I appreciate all of these carefully considered replies, I'm sure we are going to get along just fine!
My background is scientific/technical but I have little knowledge of fermentation. I approach problems in a logical and pragmatic fashion and I'm not afraid of trying a short cut or different method at least once. Also, my taste buds are not particularly acute, I would never make a top chef; there is every chance small amounts of residual protein will go unoticed.
A couple of thoughts/observations: when we make the wort, we are very precise about the temperature, too hot and we get nasty proteins. What if we reduce the temperature by 10% and increase the simmering time? Would this method not dissolve all the sugars and reduce proteins?

When I asked about this at the home brew shop (in Aldershot, UK) they said that they have some customers who cooled their wort in the bath. It sounded to me like this was quite a faff. Sterislising a whole bath??!! Siphoning also would be a pain, I'd have to run a hose pipe from upstair to downstairs. And how do I get out the very last bit, its not like you can tilt the whole bath! Plus I could only do this when the wife was away, she'd ph*cking lynch me! After reading your replies, I think I realise that he meant that you put the big stock pot in the bath.....I think a much better idea is to put the stock pot in the ourside water butt.

Cheers all
Steve

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The temperature of the mash doesn't control proteins, it controls the type of sugars produced, long chain unfermentable ones when it is near the top of the range, short chain, very fermentable ones as we mash cooler. If you want a "dry beer' you mash at the cool end, if you like it malty you mash high.

So, Revvy, a side question to this:

If I am planning to do a "hopstand" with my IPA (basically cooling it to around 170 - 180 degrees, adding hops and letting it stand for 30 minutes), you are saying I need to be careful that my wort does not dip near 130 degrees during that 30 minutes or I'll get a sour beer? But if I do my hopstand at around 180 and don't drop below, say, 150 in that 30 minutes, I should be fine if I rapidly chill down to pitching temp following the stand?

Learn something new every day. I guess that's why I read here.

When I do late boil aroma additions,I let it steep for no more than about 10 minutes after the late extract addition. then chill in ice bath. It improves the aroma a bit,& gets gunk settled to the bottom of the kettle.

SteveMcD said:

What is the down side of just being patient and letting the wort cool down over 24 hours?

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Increased risk of chill haze due to lack of cold break, increased risk of infection due to longer time in "vulnerable" temperature range without the yeast establishing a dominant foothold, longer brew process.

SteveMcD said:

This would be much less faffing than purchasing, sterilising a proper coling system.

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The "purchasing" can be done for $50 for a basic copper chiller. Sterilising is as simple as immersing the chiller in the boiling wort with 10 minutes remaining in the boil. The boiling wort sterilizes the chiller in place.

Or place the chiller in a bucket of starsan while doing late boil additions &/or late extract additions. Then it's not in the way geting gunked up.

what's the range of the "vulnerable" temp range?

It's vulnerable because there's no yeast in it to dominate the sweet wort when it gets down to 70-80F or so imo. But anything below 160F pasteurization temp to be exact. It takes that temp to kill most of the common beer nasties.