Overnight hop stand

I didn't really plan this out too well. Was brewing a best bitter, but started way too late. Boil finished at around 1 am, and I quickly brought the wort down to 180 degrees, tossed in two ounces of Goldings, covered tightly, and went to bed. Woke up around 8:00, strained and finished cooling, and pitched yeast. I did try a sample, and it was plenty bitter -- to sure if it's going to be overkill on a 1.042 bitter. Definitely had a lot of flavor, not just sharp bitterness. Any bets on how this will turn out? This was a 5.5 gal batch with 1.4 oz of Goldings at 60, another 1.5 at 15, and then the last two as a long steep after cooling to 180. 7.5 lbs of Maris Otter, half a lb of carapils, and a quarter lb of caramel 60.

Ok, I've read a few threads in today about this technique, but I'm curious:
How is this not an invitation to major DMS production?

Cheers!

DMS can be avoided with a good long boil.

You have stumbled upon "no chill" or as it appears, it's cousin "slow chill". It's actually a legitimate and easy way to do beer, IMHO. I made an American Wheat that came out wonderfully slow chilling.

There are calculators and all kinds of spreadsheets out there to derive more optimal hop scheduling. Essentially, everything get's moved forward. Your hop schedule was more standard, so you will likely lose some flavor and aroma, but I bet this turns out just fine (esb is a good style to no chill IMHO)

Key points to "slow chill" is to do a longish full boil, dry hop in a bag to avoid straining/fussing/transferring, and to add more flavor/aromatics, etc.

I am curious, you stated that you "finished chilling". Wasn't your beer cool enough to pitch after 7 hours at ambient?

No, it was still over 100 degrees. I guess I'm mostly worried about converting my 15 minute flavor addition and maybe even the steeping addition into bittering charges. One good thing is that this was a very low AA (3.9%) hops. Well, we'll see! I'm a pretty seat-of-the-pants brewer.

I though isomerization is when the hop oils dissolve into the wort, and that happens during the boil... though is the key word here. Does it isomerize better if there is a quick drop from 180-170°, or a slower drop in that temp range... is there a chart anywhere for reference??

So, this came out pretty good -- more bitter than I was planning, but certainly not over the top. Maybe a bit out of style, but the hopstand probably puts this beer out of style anyway.

I have, however, finally decided I'm not a huge fan of Nottingham, after many batches where I'm all "What's that weird taste?"

Also -- the long hopstand did result in a pretty good, complex hops flavor, although not a lot of aroma. Interesting beer, and a nice change from my usual American ales.

Out of curiosity, what temp are you typically fermenting your Notty at?

Challenger440 said:

Out of curiosity, what temp are you typically fermenting your Notty at?

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This time was mid to low 60s, although I probably ran it a little hot in the past. I think I'm just not a huge fun of the flavor. It comes off (in this beer) a little lager-y to me. Not sure I can break that down into more specific flavors.