There was a recent article about letting boiled wort chill naturally as opposed to traditional copper chiller or chill plate procedures. I'm gonna give it a try today, but was wondering if any of you have already tried this method. Basically, the article suggests moving boiled wort to a 2.5 gallon or 5 gallon plastic food grade vessel safe enough to handle near-boiling liquid. It also said that you can use a keg for the same purpose. What the article didn't say was whether you could place any of these containers in a refrigerator or kegerator to help speed the cooling process prior to pitching the yeast. I've been brewing for nearly three years and have had recent bad luck with a bug somewhere along the line. I suspect it's coming from the pump, chill plate, or tubing I use on the way to the fermenter. The fermenter might also be the culprit as I have some serious scale built up inside my stainless steel conical. At any rate, I'm going back to the basics with a five gallon batch, a glass carboy and blow-off tube.
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No Chill Brewing
- Thread starter MikeinRH
- Start date
jtoots
Grandmaster Brewer
yep, this issue has been discussed recently either here or on the AHA forum... quite a few folks go with this method and do place the fermenter in a fridge.
i recently did a take on this, which is admittedly a notch more risky, where I chilled down to about 80 then transferred and refrigerated overnight. i wasn't crazy about hot wort in a glass carboy. still fermenting away so i can't say if this was a success or a failure yet.
i recently did a take on this, which is admittedly a notch more risky, where I chilled down to about 80 then transferred and refrigerated overnight. i wasn't crazy about hot wort in a glass carboy. still fermenting away so i can't say if this was a success or a failure yet.
jtoots
Grandmaster Brewer
haha the fermenter full of wort prior to pitching...
that is to say, pitching is done the day after brewing.
that is to say, pitching is done the day after brewing.
brewfun
Grandmaster Brewer
The entire point of this technique is to conserve water. It's based on pasteurization and on eliminating a layer of air above the wort. The container should be plastic, not glass or metal because of the inherent vacuum caused by cooling. Plastic will flex. If the article said a metal keg could be used, I'd advise caution.
Unless there is nothing else in the fridge, I'd advise against putting the hot container in there. It will warm the fridge considerably, placing certain foods into the temperature danger zone for far too long. It's also a lot of work for the fridge compressor to chill that much heat.
Just transfer the boiling wort directly into the container It will effectively "can" itself and be aseptic. If the container is air free, it can cool over night at room temperature.
Unless there is nothing else in the fridge, I'd advise against putting the hot container in there. It will warm the fridge considerably, placing certain foods into the temperature danger zone for far too long. It's also a lot of work for the fridge compressor to chill that much heat.
Just transfer the boiling wort directly into the container It will effectively "can" itself and be aseptic. If the container is air free, it can cool over night at room temperature.