No-chill brewing & cold break

[Burgs]

I'm currently in chiller limbo at the moment and not really satisfied with any of my options.

My old immersion chiller was easy to clean and sanitize but was inefficient due to its size and over half of it being up and out of the wort.

I traded that for a plate chiller but I am noticing a little buyers remorse with that because I'm not sure how easy it's going to be to keep clean.

I don't think a CFC would suit my setup well at this point because I don't have a pump.

So, I'm thinking about no-chill. I'm ok with making hop adjustments. I like the idea of draining directly after flameout and my boiling wort sanitizing the vessel.

What I'm unsure of is the importance of cold break in all of this. I have heard plenty of people say that their no-chill beers are perfect as far as clarity - is that all there is to it, though? Is rapidly cooling from boiling to pitching doing anything other than just forcing that break material to precipitate out? Is cold break & potentially chill-haze an aesthetic thing only (I think so)?

If I choose to do this, I would pitch the next day, rather than letting it sit in the container for an extended period of time. So, I'm not going to give it a lot of time to settle out and I won't be racking anyway, my plan would be to dump everything and aerate into my better bottle and then pitch.

So, my reasons for interest in this aren't the normal - water conservation, not having a chiller - BUT more so that I'm just not happy with my current chilling options and I honestly think this seems like a more elegant solution. So, no-chillers, do you share this opinion or do you feel you are no-chilling out of some limitation and you're just kinda forced into it and compromising the quality of your beer?

Thanks!

 

[Schmutzli]

I was forced to no-chill on my last batch due to inopportune plumbing issues. I drained onto a gallon of water (I thankfully had set aside) to accelerate the cooling and then wrapped the fermenter in a wet towel swamp cooler style. Even with that, it was >90F 8 hours later (5.5gals). Figure on almost 24 hours to reach pitching temp that way.

Being my first no-chill, I can't speak to the results. Since I've never placed a huge emphasis on clarity, my biggest concern is infection since some microbes need 1hr over 150F to die. I'll post my results in a few weeks.

 

[ArcLight]

>>My old immersion chiller was easy to clean and sanitize but was inefficient due to its size and over half of it being up and out of the wort.

Easy work around, plop a couple of these in your wort. Sanitize them fist, and fill them with water.

http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=26047
http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?sku=66154&catid=611

Immersion chillers work well. Just make sure you stir. If you don't they are not nearly as effective.

 

[Burgs]

>>My old immersion chiller was easy to clean and sanitize but was inefficient due to its size and over half of it being up and out of the wort.

Easy work around, plop a couple of these in your wort. Sanitize them fist, and fill them with water.

http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=26047
http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?sku=66154&catid=611

Immersion chillers work well. Just make sure you stir. If you don't they are not nearly as effective.

Yeah, I think I have seen you or someone else post that before. Pretty smart workaround really - but not one that I thought of or really considered before I sold/traded my IC. I did always stir though, and (this is just me being lazy but) that's part of what made it feel like a pain in the ass to me.

Our groundwater was almost uselessly hot for a lot of this summer too, so I'd find myself and whoever was helping me brew doing a lot of work just to get wort down to like 85 - which sucks IMO. I know that the groundwater thing will hurt any chiller without a pre-chiller but my rationale was at least with a plate chiller I can get down to that crappy 85 in a quicker single pass and then throw it in the keezer.

I really wanted to hear from some no-chill zealots - people who would defend this process and who weren't using it out of some kind of limitation. I dunno, I may just try it or I may just bite the bullet and try to clean this damn plate chiller. I hope the baking thing really works...

 

[ArcLight]

No Chill works, and is extensively used in Australia.
I think it's mostly because of water scarcity, though some find it convenient.
The Australians say their beer is fine, and dont have DMS problems. They do full 60-90 minute boils though.
You can read about it on the AussieHomeBrewer website, and maybe the Biabrewer.org website.

They transfer the entire contents into the cube (maybe they have a filter around the diptube for larger particles.

Just make sure the seal is air tight. And that once you transfer, you slosh around the hot wort to sterilize everything.
They tend to squeeze the extra air out as much as they can. When it cools it will contract a bit.
If its not contracted, you may have a leak or an infection.

 

[rellty]

Seems like a lot of extra work to me. I use a cfc with no pump, its all gravity fed. I use a copper union to connect it to boil kettle, run some boiling wort thought it to sanitize. Wort comes out at around 70f. Fast and easy

 

[eulipion2]

I am a BIAB/no-chill brewer, and I love it! My beers are mostly clear, though the occasional haze does occur. If it's really that important to you, cold-crash your beer a couple weeks before bottling. I use these WinPak cubes. If you get a 5-gallon one, you can squeeze out the air and leave for months. If you get the 6-gallon, don't squeeze the air and you can use it as the fermenter as well.

I generally use the 6-gallon (5.5-6 gallon batch), squeeze out the air, and rack to a carboy, mainly because I like to see what I'm fermenting. I do recommend spending a little extra for the wrench though. Sometimes the lids can be really tough to get off without it.

 

[djt17]

I have done 6 no-chill batches. All were recipes I have done before, I haven't noticed any differences in the beers. I also had an IC from when I was doing 2.5 gal batches, just wasn't cutting it with 5 gal. I drain into a corny keg after flameout, the next day I siphon into my carboy & pitch. I am able to leave a lot of break & hop material in the keg. All but one were FWH, so no hop adjustment was necessary. The other one I bittered at 40 & then another addition at 5, I think this was the best beer I have ever made.

 

[jds]

I haven't had any clarity issues with no-chill beers. I do all the things I did before I stopped chilling my beer: whirlfloc for the last 10 minutes of the boil, ferment on the break, cold-crash, and fine with gelatin. This gives me nice-looking beer.