What is the advantages of cooling wort in a short time?
Cooling from boil to 100 degrees takes me over 30 minutes.
Would it really matter if it would take longer?
Does it effect taste, alcohol content, or what?
Cooling fast keeps late hop additions doing their job. They are meant for aroma and flavor and if it takes too long to cool, the beer will require dry hopping to compensate.
I cool 22 gallons in 6 minutes to 58F with dual CFC’s in series.
I also believe fast cooling creates more cold break which in turn makes the final beer clearer. Less protein haze.
You get a better cold break, which pulls more protiens out of the wort. These protiens are part of what causes the “dredded” chill haze! Other than that, your aroma hopps additions may change some due to the fact of the heat changes the way it breaks down the oils in the hopps.
What is best chiller for the money for 5 gallon batches?
Do you just let the water go down the drain? That seems like it would take 30 to 40 gallons of water.
Thanks for the replies
[quote=“jmarv”]What is best chiller for the money for 5 gallon batches?
Do you just let the water go down the drain? That seems like it would take 30 to 40 gallons of water.
Thanks for the replies[/quote]Probably an immersion chiller. You can direct the hot water out into a big pot and use it for cleanup. Water is cheap; I let mine go down the driveway.
Thanks MullerBrau
Do you need to stir when using a chiller?
[quote=“jmarv”]Thanks MullerBrau
Do you need to stir when using a chiller?[/quote]With an IC, you could stir a little to speed it up. Not necessary but it helps. With a CFC, no. The CFC is great because you are cooling WHILE to are transferring to the fermenter. On the downside, you need a spigot in your brew pot because you are transferring boiling wort and an Autosiphon would melt.
I use an immersion chiller and if you stir the wort while chilling you can get 5gal down to an acceptable temp with about 10-15gal of water depending on the temp of your water. I generally capture the first five gallons or so of the hottest water to use for cleaning.
I disagree with the idea that fast chilling results in more clear beer. No-chill brewers make clear beer. Theres no reason to think that a denatured protein is going to stay in solution if it isn’t subjected to a rapid chilling. Once it hits a certain temp its going to ld and drop out of solution. Rapid chilling is more visually dramatic but I think you’ll find the same amount of trub in a no-chill batch.
The part about aroma and flavor being affected is valid, although you can compensate for this with a slightly higher amount of late hop additions.
Noone mentioned DMS reforming, but this is also not born out in practice.
I’m being argumentative because I’ve been reading up on no-chill and it sounds quite interesting. Theres seems to be little data to support some of the dogma associated with chilling.
Rapid cooling also helps prevent the buildup of DMS. When boiling DMS is being driven off as its produced by the hot wort. When the boil stops but the wort is still 130°F or greater you are still producing some DMS by not driving it off. Also once you enter the temp range of 140°F to 40°F you are in the prime bacterial range as the others have stated. Rapid cooling is always a good idea when possible.
Thats the dogma, however in practice the no-chill brewers are not seeing any problems with DMS. Part of it is that today’s malts are kilnned enough that much of the precursor is gone, and also a 60-90min boil gets rid of most all of it leaving little to nothing to convert during the cooling stage.
I do get a hint of DMS occasionally in beers I’ve judged at contests, I’m not at all sure that this is always a matter of boil/chill process though. You can get a yeast that throws some sulfide and this can become esterified and give you similar aromas of cabbage and cooked corn.
[quote=“jmarv”]Thanks MullerBrau
Do you need to stir when using a chiller?[/quote]
if you dont stir make sure you have accurate readings before pitching, IC are fine I use one but you can have 60wort around the coils and 90 wort sitting in the middle of the pot
[quote=“grainbelt”][quote=“jmarv”]Thanks MullerBrau
Do you need to stir when using a chiller?[/quote]
if you dont stir make sure you have accurate readings before pitching, IC are fine I use one but you can have 60wort around the coils and 90 wort sitting in the middle of the pot[/quote]
Plus the chilling is a function of the temperature gradient. If there is cool wort around your chiller coil, it won’t carry away as much heat.
[quote=“tom sawyer”][quote=“grainbelt”][quote=“jmarv”]Thanks MullerBrau
Do you need to stir when using a chiller?[/quote]
if you dont stir make sure you have accurate readings before pitching, IC are fine I use one but you can have 60wort around the coils and 90 wort sitting in the middle of the pot[/quote]
Plus the chilling is a function of the temperature gradient. If there is cool wort around your chiller coil, it won’t carry away as much heat.[/quote]
yep, you almost HAVE to stir with an immersion chiller if you really want to know your true temp
I always had pretty bad results with an immersion chiller, even with pretty cool tap water running as hard as it can go.
For a long while, I did not stir because I wanted to keep the lid covering the wort as much as possible, but after a while the 45+ minute chill times just weren’t cutting it, and I was able to reduce it by 10-15 minutes with regular stirring (due I’m sure to the temp gradient as mentioned above).
I’m really interested in this no-chill idea. Not that I don’t trust Tom, but I’d love to see any info or articles you can share! I’m always thrilled when reality catches up with the “standard” techniques or ideas. Remember when Papazian and his contemporaries told us that brewing in aluminum was the worst thing you could do 
?
I guess based on the assumption that you were polishing your pots to a gleaming shine after every use, I’m sure there was some truth in this, but anything that gets me cheaper equipment with the side-benefit of less labor-intensive cleanup is OK by me!!
Not to plug another site, but search this on Homebrewtalk.com for some long and interesting discussions on no-chill. I’m going to be giving it a try myself when I need to brew again.
Thats the dogma, however in practice the no-chill brewers are not seeing any problems with DMS. Part of it is that today’s malts are kilnned enough that much of the precursor is gone, and also a 60-90min boil gets rid of most all of it leaving little to nothing to convert during the cooling stage.
I do get a hint of DMS occasionally in beers I’ve judged at contests, I’m not at all sure that this is always a matter of boil/chill process though. You can get a yeast that throws some sulfide and this can become esterified and give you similar aromas of cabbage and cooked corn.[/quote]
I didn’t realize that proven methods of reducing DMS is dogma. My bad. Boil for 10 minuites the beer will be fine. Drink corn…you’ll learn to like it. Now I remember why this forum sucks. You offer some advice and you immediately told that you are wrong. The info I provide was provided by Jamil. Argue with him then. I’m done.
As I understand it, Jamil hasn’t tried no-chill but he thinks its a bad idea. Kind of hard to understand how someone can dismiss a method without having given it a try. Its basically not doing the control in an experiment. I also understand he sells a chiller, not that I think thats why he doesn’t like no-chill as a method. When experts are asked questions, they feel compelled to give their opinions. When those opinions aren’t based on specific experience, they aren’t really expert advice. Doing a thousand quick-chills doesn’t prove that no-chill doesn’t work. Maybe they both do under the right circumstances.
I don’t blame you for repeating what you’ve read, people pass on advice they haven’t personally tested all the time. Heck I’m doing it when I talk about no-chill results, although I’ve done a couple and have never worried too much about rapid cooling in general. I know that there’s some dogma that originates from commercial processes that doesn’t necessarily apply to homebrewing.
I wasn’t attacking you, just offering an alternative point of view. Rapid cooling can help in some cases, but I’m just saying that its possible that it is unnecessary if you do things right. If I were going to boil 10min I would definitely rapid-cool. If I’m boiling vigorously for a good length of time, and using malt that is already low in SMM to begin with (read Palmer’s bit on that if you don’t believe me) then I think its just possible that there’s not much SMM left to be converted into DMS. At least that jibes with the many peoples’ results with no-chill.
I don’t expect you to pesonally believe this, I was just hoping to generate some discussion with you or the rest of the group. Sorry if I hurt your feelings in the process.
The no chill method has a pretty wide acceptance in Australian home brew circles.
I don’t know of anyone who has tried it or has done a side-by-side comparison, but if it works with no noticeable difference, the no chill method could be a revolutionary home brew development.
This is a topic that deserves our investigation and discussion to see if it really is an acceptable variation on the home brewing process.
even if it works or not, it would be easier for me to take the 10 minutes (20 minutes in summer)
to chill the beer down and get everything done that day. I wouldn’t want to postpone more tasks to the next day
