No Chill Cubes

aero-spaced-out · Oct 17, 2024

Hello,

I've had a disaster of a first brew in my backroom with no running water. Steam condenser didn't work as well as I though it would with a large capacity pump which was inconvenient but manageable.

The biggest sticking point was cooling.
I tried using my immersion coil chiller and this ended up being incredibly inefficient and messy.
I managed to get it down to about 37°C before transferring to my fermzilla for the evening and pitched the yeast this morning.

I will not be using this method again in this setting. Which lead me to the no chill method.

I'm looking at these:

https://www.bluestarpackaging.co.uk...-evident-cap---30-recycled-content-3810-p.asp

Also looking at the 20L from Malt Miller too and a couple of 1/2L ones too from Bluestar to maximise my yield.

Anybody able to share their experience with no chill?
It's rather deflating that the money I spent on the cooling equipment is effectively wasted in my current setting but needs must you know?
Once I get a different place with better room and running water access it'll come into its own again.

Larse · Oct 17, 2024

If you have a bath, you could always fill with cold water and put it in there. A couple of cheap bags of ice would help. It's the way I used to cool my wort in my early brewing days.

aero-spaced-out · Oct 17, 2024

Larse said:
If you have a bath, you could always fill with cold water and put it in there. A couple of cheap bags of ice would help. It's the way I used to cool my wort in my early brewing days.

Unfortunately not, its a walk in shower in a shared house. First brewday with the new kettle nearly ruined the kitchen and have been banished to the backroom that I also use as a workspace.

Planning it so that I can have my water heated for me arriving home from work.
Get the brew done and then into the cube for the evening and still get to bed at a reasonable hour after cleaning is finished.
I can transfer to the fermenter the following day or weekend when the wort has cooled in the cube as I have read that as long as the headspace is minimised as much as possible and properly pasteurised that it remains shelf stable for a little bit. Wouldn't be sat very long if I'm doing a brew anyways.
Didn't get to sleep until after 1.30am and still have cleaning to do when i return home simply because of the mess from the cooling fiasco last night.

The cubes worked well for you in the early days then?

Larse · Oct 17, 2024

aero-spaced-out said:
Unfortunately not, its a walk in shower in a shared house. First brewday with the new kettle nearly ruined the kitchen and have been banished to the backroom that I also use as a workspace.

Planning it so that I can have my water heated for me arriving home from work.
Get the brew done and then into the cube for the evening and still get to bed at a reasonable hour after cleaning is finished.
I can transfer to the fermenter the following day or weekend when the wort has cooled in the cube as I have read that as long as the headspace is minimised as much as possible and properly pasteurised that it remains shelf stable for a little bit. Wouldn't be sat very long if I'm doing a brew anyways.
Didn't get to sleep until after 1.30am and still have cleaning to do when i return home simply because of the mess from the cooling fiasco last night.

The cubes worked well for you in the early days then?

Ruined the kitchen how? Lots of sticky stuff on the walls? Been there, done that, now I do my boils outdoors, so brew day has to be a dry day.

Didn't use cubes, just the fermenting bucket in a bath full of cold water. Worked quite quickly albeit with lots of stirring which I suppose helped aeration.

This time of the year, you could always pop the cube outside and that would cool it quickly enough.

aero-spaced-out · Oct 17, 2024

Larse said:
Ruined the kitchen how? Lots of sticky stuff on the walls? Been there, done that, now I do my boils outdoors, so brew day has to be a dry day.

Pretty much exactly that lol, extractor fan on full, windows open, fan blowing the air out
It wasn't until one of them walked in and a water droplet drip onto them from the condensation that was gathering on the ceiling and then pointed out how the wall near the kettle looked discoloured that I realised it wasn't doing what it should lol.

Steam condenser works better and didn't ruin the walls in the backroom so taking it as a win.

But cooling was sticky and messy and inefficient so no chill cube seems the best way to go

Rwilts · Oct 17, 2024

Plenty of us here are no chillers... I tried immersion chiller once and had same experience as you , I have done 100+ no chill brews and and very happy with outcome. You can alter recipes to take account of wort being hotter for longer but I don't bother.

Good discussion here

Thread 'No chill' https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/no-chill.103940/

peebee · Oct 17, 2024

The one thing I found (okay, there might be more than one) was topping the "cubes" up with hot wort and finding they distorted in a way that they could hold considerably more wort than expected. This led to some difficulty in judging the final volume, gravity, so-forth. I use the Malt Miller cubes BTW. Also; filling these hot, floppy, "bladders" wasn't greatly accurate and potentially very messy. I've cured this using tensioning straps, wooden platters, and elaborate filling plumbing. I'll get some piccies later.

I haven't tested the "enhancements" yet, but they're done and awaiting a brew in the coming days.

By way of "value adding" with this method: I'm of the belief that filling these cubes will effectively insert a "break" into the brewing process. No need to finish the brewing in a day! Boil to cube, then stop for a day (or two, or a week, or a month, etc.). Time in which to get the fermenter ready, yeast starter going, and all those niggly little tasks that fill out brewday into one long tiresome chore.

jof · Oct 17, 2024

I thought you only used cubes if you needed to store the wort for a while before adding the yeast.

To transfer to a cube for overnight chill seems pointless to me if you will put it into the FV the next day.

Do you have a garden or even just a yard area?
Get a 2nd hand gazebo & brew outdoors.

Rwilts · Oct 17, 2024

jof said:
I thought you only used cubes if you needed to store the wort for a while before adding the yeast.

To transfer to a cube for overnight chill seems pointless to me if you will put it into the FV the next day.

Do you have a garden or even just a yard area?
Get a 2nd hand gazebo & brew outdoors.

i know a few here advocate chilling in the FV or boil kettle. For me transfering boiling wort into a container designed to cope with the heat is worth the extra step to pouring directly into the FV. Addittionaly since i now ferment in a Fermzilla i dont think they are rated for hot liquids.

Larse · Oct 17, 2024

Rwilts said:
i know a few here advocate chilling in the FV or boil kettle. For me transfering boiling wort into a container designed to cope with the heat is worth the extra step to pouring directly into the FV. Addittionaly since i now ferment in a Fermzilla i dont think they are rated for hot liquids.

They can take up to 55° according to the manufacturer. Probably take over an hour to reach that temp by just leaving it sit.

aero-spaced-out · Oct 17, 2024

jof said:
To transfer to a cube for overnight chill seems pointless to me if you will put it into the FV the next day.

I see what you mean but circumstantially it would work better for my setup. It is what it is, I'm not mad about getting to try something new, I'm just a bit miffed at the money that was spent on the cooling equipment effectively going to waste until such times as I can get a space for use with it.

jof said:
Do you have a garden or even just a yard area?
Get a 2nd hand gazebo & brew outdoors.

I do have a small enclosed suspended wooden decking but it's 3 floors below (tall terraced house lol) the room my temp chamber is in which is why I now brew in that room.

my initial brew was done in the kitchen (also three floors below) and carrying a fermzilla with 23-25L of wort up those stairs was not okay.
Too precarious and just downright exhausting

So that kinda rules out the decking lol

So I'm kinda caught in the room. No big deal really I can make it work with the no chill

As I say, purely circumstantial

aero-spaced-out · Oct 17, 2024

Larse said:
They can take up to 55° according to the manufacturer. Probably take over an hour to reach that temp by just leaving it sit.

Definite take over an hour lol
I was deflated with tiredness last night and put my wort into my FZ at 40°C at about 11pm
Placed the FZ into my temp chamber fridge with my controller set at 22°C so that the cooling would be on all night. There is a small fan in it for circulation.
Left the PRV slightly to ensure that the temp change didn't implode my FZ.
It sat like that until I woke up to pitch my yeast at around 7.15am this morning before work.

See the two attached screenshot from my RAPT dashboard

aero-spaced-out · Oct 17, 2024

Rwilts said:
Plenty of us here are no chillers... I tried immersion chiller once and had same experience as you , I have done 100+ no chill brews and and very happy with outcome. You can alter recipes to take account of wort being hotter for longer but I don't bother.

Good discussion here

Thread 'No chill' https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/no-chill.103940/

This was very useful and informative. Thank you very much!
Think I'm gonna go ahead with the no chill method and this just reinforces it for me.

Larse · Oct 17, 2024

aero-spaced-out said:
Definite take over an hour lol
I was deflated with tiredness last night and put my wort into my FZ at 40°C at about 11pm
Placed the FZ into my temp chamber fridge with my controller set at 22°C so that the cooling would be on all night. There is a small fan in it for circulation.
Left the PRV slightly to ensure that the temp change didn't implode my FZ.
It sat like that until I woke up to pitch my yeast at around 7.15am this morning before work.

See the two attached screenshot from my RAPT dashboard

The drop from (say) 95° to 55° in an ambient temperature of around 20° is a hell of a lot faster than from 40° to 20°. From 100° to 95° would be only about 5 minutes. Based on calculations for water cooling (there are online calculators for this), water would cool to that temp in about an hour. Wort, being denser than water would take a bit longer which is why I said over an hour. There are other factors like the insulating properties of the container, but it's the temperature differential between the wort and ambient that makes the initial drop faster and the remaining drop slower.

Same principle as a wort chiller really. If you've used one, you'd remember how long it would take to get from 30° to 20° relative to the drop from almost boiling.

MrRook · Oct 17, 2024

I've been doing this for years with no issue: seal the lid with plastic wrap and into the cellar overnight.

aero-spaced-out · Oct 17, 2024

Larse said:
The drop from (say) 95° to 55° in an ambient temperature of around 20° is a hell of a lot faster than from 40° to 20°. From 100° to 95° would be only about 5 minutes. Based on calculations for water cooling (there are online calculators for this), I'd say the target of 55° would be reached in less than 90 minutes. Water would cool to that temp in about an hour.

Ahh my apologies, was thinking from POV of after transfer to FV to pitching temp.

Larse · Oct 17, 2024

aero-spaced-out said:
Ahh my apologies, was thinking from POV of after transfer to FV to pitching temp.

No prob. Just seeing if direct transfer to the FV after a relatively short wait would work for you and eliminate the middle man (cube).

jof · Oct 17, 2024

I think @MashBag is a minimal effort AG brewer, even fermenting in the kettle (which I might try at some point)
At one point I think he was using a standard fan pointed at the kettle to increase the cooling rate as a simple alternative to a fancy chiller.

MashBag · Oct 17, 2024

Absolutely. Try it you might like it.
Half filled cornies are next.

aero-spaced-out · Oct 17, 2024

Larse said:
No prob. Just seeing if direct transfer to the FV after a relatively short wait would work for you and eliminate the middle man (cube).

Likely would yes
It's kinda how I handled it last night with my initial cooling period being expedited by the somewhere messy IC.
Thinking about cubes bc it opens up the potential for me to do brews after work and still have time to clean

Considering I was set up properly and on time when I arrive home lol

No Chill Cubes

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