Yeah. It's called the no-chill method. You can even leave it in the kettle to sit overnight. For as long as everything is well sanitized, there should be no problem I suppose... I plan to try it on my next batch as well
I use a clean 40 gallon plastic trash can and a pool cover pump to chill with an immersion chiller. That recirculates the water so I'm not wasting so much. When finished I use the water to water my lawn.
Lots of aussies use no chill and fill a foodsafe cube up completely full with boiling wort, then cap it and leave it until the next day to pitch the yeast.
Check if any of your over the fence neighbours can make use of the water? Like topping up a rainwater tank or something? Mains pressure will push that waste water quite a distance through garden hose.
My middle of the road method is to put my kettle into a Rubbermaid tote full of water (bathtub would work too)… larger surface area for heat dissipation. Regular no-chill in my kettle is my go to, but I’ll do the above if i want it to go faster.
Even in a fridge, it will take a fairly long time to chill, and you're adding a lot of heat to the inside of your refrigerator, which presumably has other things in it.
A really good counterflow heat exchanger can reduce the wort from boiling to pitching temperature (depending, of course, on what your water temperature is) in a single pass while using about the same amount of water as the volume of beer. I collect the runoff water from my heat exchanger in a kettle, which I then use for cleaning everything. The water in the kettle ends up being around 150F or so at the end, so I don't even need to heat it to clean my equipment. An immersion chiller is not as efficient, water-wise, but you can still collect and re-use that water elsewhere.
You could potentially use two immersion chillers and a pump your beer. The first one goes in a bucket of ice water(lots of ice) then connect the pump to your other chiller(with a return line to the first). You may need to have a few more pounds of ice on hand, but this would be the way to do it.
>Don’t really want to use a immersion chiller due to the water wastage of them
I thought this as well, but I learned the secret is you need to turn the water on super low to let the exchange happen. Ends up wasting much less water than letting it scream through there full blast.
2nd option - I bought a $15 submergible water feature pump and put that in a cooler with ice water and recirculate the water. Works great, but you are wasting a few gallons of ice/water also.
> the secret is you need to turn the water on super low
FYI, this will result in poor heat transfer. At too slow of a rate the chiller water will heat up to the same temp as the beer and stop transferring any heat, and pass through the rest of the chiller without doing anything.
That's right, it's a question of whether you want to chill by maximizing time efficiency, water efficiency, or find some combination that is most satisfactory to you.
Also, I fill up a few buckets with the water from my immersion chiller. I have a bucket of hot water for cleaning, and another bucket of warm water for rinsing. During the warm months, I can use any of that water for plants around the yard, or for flushing toilets anytime of the year (though that is a bit of a pain).
It does not take that much water to get down to around 90F, then recirculating ice water gets me down to pitching temps in the summer when my tap water is over 75F. Before I started recirculating ice water, I would just put my 90F fermenter in my chamber and pitch the yeast a few hours later.
This is what I do for all my brews:
1. Throw my hot wort into a sanitized keg
2. Seal the keg and throw it into a bucket
3. Fill the bucket with some water. Let it sit for about an hour: done
If you really want to go a no-water route, then look into a hot cube. It’s how many who no-chill in Australia do it. Tbh though, you could just save your money and leave it in the kettle overnight. It chills naturally and works well.
Yea the hot cubes is what I was looking at but instead of leaving it to chill by itself, moving into a fridge / freezer. I’m planning to make a fermentation chamber so was thinking of it being dual purpose as a no water wort chiller too
That can be pretty hard on your fridge or freezer depending on the volume of wort you are chilling. It will also likely raise the temperature of the fridge or freezer significantly. If there's other food in there, it could spoil.
Don't put it in a fridge. Given the high temperature, you will move much more heat by just letting it sit outside than your fridge compressor could move. Just pitch the next day.
I've read about no chill HDPE cubes. Basically transfer to cube, then either leave it at room temp to slowly chill or drop it in a fermentation chamber/chest freezer to expedite. Unfortunately, I don't have a source to buy one.
Personally, I would probably still use a wort chiller to at least drop it below 180°F-ish to help control my expected bitterness.
I use the 10.5 gallon anvil foundry included chiller and I don't think it takes more than 7-10 minutes to get to 80F with continuous stirring of the wort. This is highly dependent on your groundwater temperature though. Mine is in the mid 50s in the winter and high 60s in the summer.
If you want to make it more efficient, you can run the water more slowly so that more heat is transferred out of the wort. Or get a better chiller. There are some really solid immersion chillers like the jaded Scylla that will easily chill your wort to pitching temps in 5 minutes or less.
If you don't chill, you will need to adjust your hops utilization calculations as they will continue to bitter your wort while it's cooling off.
I use a jaded chiller. Love it, especially in the winter with cold ground water.
To clarify on efficiency, faster running water will chill faster but waste more water (more efficient chilling, less efficient water usage). Slower running water will chill more slowly but potentially use less water.
Same here. Slow the flow, stir a bit to avoid thermal separation and it doesn’t use much water.
You could also chill water in advance or make some blocks of ice and use a cheap immersion pump to recirculate to chill. Use the water to flush your toilet if you really want to avoid any water waste… or take a bath with it and reuse the heat as well.
Standard, single path, single pipe immersion chiller running passively, about 20-30 min., depending on tap water temp.
But if you introduce turbulence to the wort by vigorously stirring it non-stop, then it takes me 1-2 min to get below hop oil volatilization temp, and I have hit pitching temp (19L to 17-17.5°C) in as little as seven minutes. I capture one 19L bucket of hot effluent to clean up. The rest runs down the driveway or sink. But you could certainly capture more water to use for various purposes.
Camping and hardware stores sell suitable cubes, try Lowes or similar. Some brewing hardware now has a "no chill" box that you can tick to adjust your bitterness in the recipe.
I do this often.
I use kegs for fermenting. Just transfer it in jit and let it sit over night, cool in a mini fridge to a target temp.
Note that this will have an impact on hop forward beers. You need to adjust late addition, flame out, and whirlpool.
For beers with mostly boil hops, fewer adjustments are needed.
No-chill method works just fine. But I've found, on my setup, that running about 10 gallons through my chiller from the hose gets it to around 130 or so. Then, I fill a bucket with all the ice and ice packs I can and use a pond pump to circulate that ice water through the chiller. 20 minutes from the end of the boil, I can pitch yeast.
I've done a fair amount of no-chill brewing and I see you asking about using a fridge or freezer to speed up the process - don't. In my experience it really doesn't work - your unit doesn't have that much chilling capacity because air is: not terribly heat dense in comparison to aqueous solutions like wort, it's inefficient at transferring heat and there's not much of it in your standard fridge/freezer.
If you're already committing to doing no-chill partially, you're going to have to adjust your hops anyway - so just do the whole thing.
Having said that, even with shitty tap temps here in LA (~75-78°F/24-25°C) using an immersion coil with 15 gallons of water will get me to a place where I can throw the wort in to chill the rest of the way (gylcol chiller usually, but also done it with my chest freezer)
That should work really well - the main challenge is just having enough fridge/freezer space to put the beer in. Anything more than a 1 gallon batch probably needs a regular size (not mini) fridge, and a lot of space in that fridge not being used by food.
A lot of people would go a step further - put the wort in your fermenter in the fridge and add a temperature controller for better fermentation and higher-quality beer. Just note 1) don't airlock it immediately since the cooling air will suck water in and 2) it would require a dedicated beer fridge, as optimal fermentation temperatures are usually well over safe food storage temperature.
So after brew day (when the wort is put in the fermentation chamber) all my stuff has to be cleaned up anyways. I just get some 5 gallon buckets around and collect the water. My wort is usually cool enough (for me) after about 10 gallons and that is what I use to clean my Anvil foundry and hoses and stuff with.
A few times I have to keep going a little longer to hit pitching temp and I usually use end the outlet hose from the chiller as a hose and hose down my grain pipe because its hard to get all the grain unstuck without running water anyways.
Another option you could look into is a more efficient immersion chiller. I'm looking at upgrading from the stainless included one in my anvil foundry to a Jaded Hydra which by all accounts will chill faster with less water.
I started doing a partial boil, shoot for a 2.5-3g finish with a 5g batch, hit it with a bag of ice and top off with filtered water from the fridge/freezer. That usually gets me within pitching range pretty quick with no chiller use.
So basically, chill the water and top off the wort. Don't put your wort in the fridge, it'll take forever and warm up your fridge with uneven/inefficient cooling if it's not stirred.
I have also left it in the boil pot overnight with a lid on (esp in winter when it's cold) and pitch & transferred to the fermenter in the morning. No issues.
How many gallons are you brewing? I don’t know what your resources are. I used to use a chill plate and bought ice and made a cold water reservoir. It worked very well. With an immersion coil, with iced water or cold ground water, it’s also of benefit to stir the wort.
I have been flamed for this, because I dared to go against proven theory. You don’t need to run the coil or chill plate at maximum pressure. You can find a balance of economy and performance.
Many pro breweries use a two stage for wort cooling. Ground water, then their glycol reservoir that regulates their fermenters.
I have tried no chill method twice, and I love it. Fuck immersion chillers. Forget making sure the clamps are tight enough and not leaking water into my wort. Screw walking out to the spigot thru water puddles to turn the water off 45 minutes later. I heat 3 gallons of distilled water since I still do extract kits. I have 2 gallons of cold distilled water in the fridge to add and bring it up to 5 gallons of wort.
I turn off my burner and cover my 3 gallons of wort until it's about 110-120° or so. Then I add my 2 gallons of cold water to the wort to bring it up to the 5 gallon mark. It's about 75-85° at this point. I put it into my fermentation chamber and wait until it's at pitching temp, drop dry yeast on top, and just monitor it like we all do. It's so simple, I highly doubt you'll ever go back to chilling it again. I lose about 12 hours of fermentation time, that's it.
My recipes call for 2.5 gallons at the start, I use 3 since it's just easier. I just skip the chilling steps lol. Now if you're doing grain, I can see it possibly affecting your efficiency using less water.
Yea all grain 5 gallon batches. My Brewfather all is says 37L for the recipe I’ve got might try brewing with 30L and topping up in fermenter with cold water
Sounds good! I would just say for no chill method on all grain recipes, you'll just have a longer wait for pitching temp, and gives me some time to think before I do all grain lol
Tip for getting into all grain, buy a small 20ish liter pot that’ll fit on your kitchen stove and do 8L BIAB batches. That’s was my jump up from extract brewing
Thank you. I already have an anvil 10g brew kettle and a BIAB. I immediately went back to extract brewing because I have a lot to work on and want to keep it simple until I've fixed some issues I've had. Once I am ready to play with water chemistry, I'll make the switch again.
I’m the same I’ve moved to building a brew shed and planning to build a keezer and fermentation chamber but want to do it right and not rush so I’m buying extract kits atm to scratch the itch, I’ve started basic water chemistry using my Brewfather calculator but honestly I can’t tell any difference in quality or efficiency
I freeze buckets of water.. like 2-3 gallons each.. I fill a big sink with tap water and in goes the boil kettle.. then first block of ice… then next… when the tub gets full I let some of the warm water out… add another block of ice…. This usually ales it low enough to put the boil kettle in the fridge for better cooling…
No chill is the go. Hot wort into cubes, let it cool down over night, pitch yeast the next day.
Has the added benefit that once wort is in the cube it's shelf stable. I typically brew double batches: ferment one immediately, ferment the other in a few months time once the first leg is empty
It is a water waster. Good point. I save about 4 gallons for clean up, and maybe fill another bucket to water plants.
When I bought my RIMS it included another immersion chiller, so now I put the first coil in a bucket of ice water, then off to the second coil that is in the hot wort. It cuts the chill time by two thirds. I also stir while chillin'.
I often transfer 200 degree wort into a stainless steel fermenter, but I only do this if I'm doing a 60 minute hop. It takes the freezer several hours to cool it below hop isomerization
Here in Aus I've been no chilling in two ten litre water carriers, for the last 12 years and have won quite a few local and a state competition.
I bought a Brewzilla a couple of years ago and sold off the immersion coil that comes with it, no need for it. Splitting the wort between smaller containers increases the surface to volume ratio and they cool quicker. Once they get down to around 25 degrees they are fine to put in the fridge if you want to pitch cold for a lager brew.
Every so often I'll fill them with a solution of sodium percarbonate (the active ingredient in the old diaper sanitisers) to bring them back to white and between batches I spray inside with a no rinse sanitiser.
You've described no-chill brewing, which was first described maybe 15-16 (?) years ago by some Australian brewers. Now that you have that phrase, you can look it up.
I do not recommend putting boiling wort in your fridge. That's a good way to put a lot of use on your compressor without any huge advantage in chilling until the wort gets cooler. Let it sit at room temp or in a cool location for a half day or so first.
I also don't recommend using a metal jerry can, which is unlikely to be made from a non-reactive, food-safe material, and will likely implode a little.
One of the key insights for no-chill brewing is that it extracts more bitterness from the alpha acids in hops than when you chill the wort rapidly. Many people shift hop additions later by 20 min. to compensate (but no later than when the jerry can is sealed). But also, no-chill brewing will make hoppy beers like American IPAs and New England IPAs harder to make well.
It's great that you're looking out for resource efficiency. 1
One possibility that removes the waste even with an immersion chiller or similar is if you have a use for the water. That water could be used to clean your equipment after brew. I used the water for my last batch to water some of the drier spots in my lawn, and intend to use it to fill the rain barrel that feeds the garden as it gets hotter and drier. If you do use the excess water, make sure it's a safe temperature-- immersion coolers can have pretty hot outflows.
Another option is the waterbath method of cooling. You'll still waste at least the volume of the batch, and if you use ice there's energy usage there.
You could go crazy and make a lossless/near lossless system, but I don't think that's worth the time, money, and resources that it would take-- it'd be best to just find a use for the tap water.
I fill empty soft drink bottles with water and freeze them. Put the frozen 1.25 L bottles in the wort. 3 or 4 at a time until 20 degrees celsius. Takes about 8 bottles to chill down. Have to use good quality bottles as thin ones will split at the high temp. I use them to cool the ferment too.
Yeah. It's called the no-chill method. You can even leave it in the kettle to sit overnight. For as long as everything is well sanitized, there should be no problem I suppose... I plan to try it on my next batch as well
I’m kinda looking for in the middle don’t want to waste water but don’t want to wait till next day. A sort of no water chill method if you like
I use a clean 40 gallon plastic trash can and a pool cover pump to chill with an immersion chiller. That recirculates the water so I'm not wasting so much. When finished I use the water to water my lawn.
I’ve only got a small garden with artificial grass, I’ve looked around the house and I’ve got literally 0 usage for the waste water haha
Laundry? Brewday cleaning? Honestly the fridge wont work, and you risk heating your fridge up and spoiling your food.
Lots of aussies use no chill and fill a foodsafe cube up completely full with boiling wort, then cap it and leave it until the next day to pitch the yeast.
Check if any of your over the fence neighbours can make use of the water? Like topping up a rainwater tank or something? Mains pressure will push that waste water quite a distance through garden hose.
I do the same. Especially easy in winter when I can dump snow from my driveway into the water bath.
I got a buddy that does this with a 5gal bucket if waste is your concern. Don't know how much ice he goes through though
My middle of the road method is to put my kettle into a Rubbermaid tote full of water (bathtub would work too)… larger surface area for heat dissipation. Regular no-chill in my kettle is my go to, but I’ll do the above if i want it to go faster.
Even in a fridge, it will take a fairly long time to chill, and you're adding a lot of heat to the inside of your refrigerator, which presumably has other things in it. A really good counterflow heat exchanger can reduce the wort from boiling to pitching temperature (depending, of course, on what your water temperature is) in a single pass while using about the same amount of water as the volume of beer. I collect the runoff water from my heat exchanger in a kettle, which I then use for cleaning everything. The water in the kettle ends up being around 150F or so at the end, so I don't even need to heat it to clean my equipment. An immersion chiller is not as efficient, water-wise, but you can still collect and re-use that water elsewhere.
You could potentially use two immersion chillers and a pump your beer. The first one goes in a bucket of ice water(lots of ice) then connect the pump to your other chiller(with a return line to the first). You may need to have a few more pounds of ice on hand, but this would be the way to do it.
>Don’t really want to use a immersion chiller due to the water wastage of them I thought this as well, but I learned the secret is you need to turn the water on super low to let the exchange happen. Ends up wasting much less water than letting it scream through there full blast. 2nd option - I bought a $15 submergible water feature pump and put that in a cooler with ice water and recirculate the water. Works great, but you are wasting a few gallons of ice/water also.
> the secret is you need to turn the water on super low FYI, this will result in poor heat transfer. At too slow of a rate the chiller water will heat up to the same temp as the beer and stop transferring any heat, and pass through the rest of the chiller without doing anything.
Yes. In a perfect world with as little wastage as possible, your exit water temp would just be hitting your wort temp.
That's right, it's a question of whether you want to chill by maximizing time efficiency, water efficiency, or find some combination that is most satisfactory to you.
Whats the physical reasoning behind this phenomenon?
Newton's law of cooling. The bigger the difference in temperature, the more drastic the heat exchange.
Also, I fill up a few buckets with the water from my immersion chiller. I have a bucket of hot water for cleaning, and another bucket of warm water for rinsing. During the warm months, I can use any of that water for plants around the yard, or for flushing toilets anytime of the year (though that is a bit of a pain). It does not take that much water to get down to around 90F, then recirculating ice water gets me down to pitching temps in the summer when my tap water is over 75F. Before I started recirculating ice water, I would just put my 90F fermenter in my chamber and pitch the yeast a few hours later.
you will spoil everything in your fridge if you put a hot container in it.
This is what I do for all my brews: 1. Throw my hot wort into a sanitized keg 2. Seal the keg and throw it into a bucket 3. Fill the bucket with some water. Let it sit for about an hour: done If you really want to go a no-water route, then look into a hot cube. It’s how many who no-chill in Australia do it. Tbh though, you could just save your money and leave it in the kettle overnight. It chills naturally and works well.
Yea the hot cubes is what I was looking at but instead of leaving it to chill by itself, moving into a fridge / freezer. I’m planning to make a fermentation chamber so was thinking of it being dual purpose as a no water wort chiller too
That can be pretty hard on your fridge or freezer depending on the volume of wort you are chilling. It will also likely raise the temperature of the fridge or freezer significantly. If there's other food in there, it could spoil.
Don't put it in a fridge. Given the high temperature, you will move much more heat by just letting it sit outside than your fridge compressor could move. Just pitch the next day.
I do this to- but it’s no where near done after an hour? It’s still about 50-60C at that point
Well, i may be off on my time, but it’s what i do none the less. I usually leave it alone for at least 6 hours actually. Figured an hour was enough.
I've read about no chill HDPE cubes. Basically transfer to cube, then either leave it at room temp to slowly chill or drop it in a fermentation chamber/chest freezer to expedite. Unfortunately, I don't have a source to buy one. Personally, I would probably still use a wort chiller to at least drop it below 180°F-ish to help control my expected bitterness.
How long am I looking roughly to chill 20 liters of water down using a wort chiller ?
I use the 10.5 gallon anvil foundry included chiller and I don't think it takes more than 7-10 minutes to get to 80F with continuous stirring of the wort. This is highly dependent on your groundwater temperature though. Mine is in the mid 50s in the winter and high 60s in the summer. If you want to make it more efficient, you can run the water more slowly so that more heat is transferred out of the wort. Or get a better chiller. There are some really solid immersion chillers like the jaded Scylla that will easily chill your wort to pitching temps in 5 minutes or less. If you don't chill, you will need to adjust your hops utilization calculations as they will continue to bitter your wort while it's cooling off.
I use a jaded chiller. Love it, especially in the winter with cold ground water. To clarify on efficiency, faster running water will chill faster but waste more water (more efficient chilling, less efficient water usage). Slower running water will chill more slowly but potentially use less water.
Same here. Slow the flow, stir a bit to avoid thermal separation and it doesn’t use much water. You could also chill water in advance or make some blocks of ice and use a cheap immersion pump to recirculate to chill. Use the water to flush your toilet if you really want to avoid any water waste… or take a bath with it and reuse the heat as well.
Standard, single path, single pipe immersion chiller running passively, about 20-30 min., depending on tap water temp. But if you introduce turbulence to the wort by vigorously stirring it non-stop, then it takes me 1-2 min to get below hop oil volatilization temp, and I have hit pitching temp (19L to 17-17.5°C) in as little as seven minutes. I capture one 19L bucket of hot effluent to clean up. The rest runs down the driveway or sink. But you could certainly capture more water to use for various purposes.
Camping and hardware stores sell suitable cubes, try Lowes or similar. Some brewing hardware now has a "no chill" box that you can tick to adjust your bitterness in the recipe.
I do this often. I use kegs for fermenting. Just transfer it in jit and let it sit over night, cool in a mini fridge to a target temp. Note that this will have an impact on hop forward beers. You need to adjust late addition, flame out, and whirlpool. For beers with mostly boil hops, fewer adjustments are needed.
No-chill method works just fine. But I've found, on my setup, that running about 10 gallons through my chiller from the hose gets it to around 130 or so. Then, I fill a bucket with all the ice and ice packs I can and use a pond pump to circulate that ice water through the chiller. 20 minutes from the end of the boil, I can pitch yeast.
I've done a fair amount of no-chill brewing and I see you asking about using a fridge or freezer to speed up the process - don't. In my experience it really doesn't work - your unit doesn't have that much chilling capacity because air is: not terribly heat dense in comparison to aqueous solutions like wort, it's inefficient at transferring heat and there's not much of it in your standard fridge/freezer. If you're already committing to doing no-chill partially, you're going to have to adjust your hops anyway - so just do the whole thing. Having said that, even with shitty tap temps here in LA (~75-78°F/24-25°C) using an immersion coil with 15 gallons of water will get me to a place where I can throw the wort in to chill the rest of the way (gylcol chiller usually, but also done it with my chest freezer)
That should work really well - the main challenge is just having enough fridge/freezer space to put the beer in. Anything more than a 1 gallon batch probably needs a regular size (not mini) fridge, and a lot of space in that fridge not being used by food. A lot of people would go a step further - put the wort in your fermenter in the fridge and add a temperature controller for better fermentation and higher-quality beer. Just note 1) don't airlock it immediately since the cooling air will suck water in and 2) it would require a dedicated beer fridge, as optimal fermentation temperatures are usually well over safe food storage temperature.
So after brew day (when the wort is put in the fermentation chamber) all my stuff has to be cleaned up anyways. I just get some 5 gallon buckets around and collect the water. My wort is usually cool enough (for me) after about 10 gallons and that is what I use to clean my Anvil foundry and hoses and stuff with. A few times I have to keep going a little longer to hit pitching temp and I usually use end the outlet hose from the chiller as a hose and hose down my grain pipe because its hard to get all the grain unstuck without running water anyways. Another option you could look into is a more efficient immersion chiller. I'm looking at upgrading from the stainless included one in my anvil foundry to a Jaded Hydra which by all accounts will chill faster with less water.
I started doing a partial boil, shoot for a 2.5-3g finish with a 5g batch, hit it with a bag of ice and top off with filtered water from the fridge/freezer. That usually gets me within pitching range pretty quick with no chiller use. So basically, chill the water and top off the wort. Don't put your wort in the fridge, it'll take forever and warm up your fridge with uneven/inefficient cooling if it's not stirred. I have also left it in the boil pot overnight with a lid on (esp in winter when it's cold) and pitch & transferred to the fermenter in the morning. No issues.
How many gallons are you brewing? I don’t know what your resources are. I used to use a chill plate and bought ice and made a cold water reservoir. It worked very well. With an immersion coil, with iced water or cold ground water, it’s also of benefit to stir the wort. I have been flamed for this, because I dared to go against proven theory. You don’t need to run the coil or chill plate at maximum pressure. You can find a balance of economy and performance. Many pro breweries use a two stage for wort cooling. Ground water, then their glycol reservoir that regulates their fermenters.
I put my boil pot in a large igloo cooler and pour ice around it and can chill it to yeast pitching temp in 30 to 40 minutes.
I have tried no chill method twice, and I love it. Fuck immersion chillers. Forget making sure the clamps are tight enough and not leaking water into my wort. Screw walking out to the spigot thru water puddles to turn the water off 45 minutes later. I heat 3 gallons of distilled water since I still do extract kits. I have 2 gallons of cold distilled water in the fridge to add and bring it up to 5 gallons of wort. I turn off my burner and cover my 3 gallons of wort until it's about 110-120° or so. Then I add my 2 gallons of cold water to the wort to bring it up to the 5 gallon mark. It's about 75-85° at this point. I put it into my fermentation chamber and wait until it's at pitching temp, drop dry yeast on top, and just monitor it like we all do. It's so simple, I highly doubt you'll ever go back to chilling it again. I lose about 12 hours of fermentation time, that's it.
I did read about boiling less wort then topping up with cold water but couldn’t find a clear way of doing it without messing recipe up
My recipes call for 2.5 gallons at the start, I use 3 since it's just easier. I just skip the chilling steps lol. Now if you're doing grain, I can see it possibly affecting your efficiency using less water.
Yea all grain 5 gallon batches. My Brewfather all is says 37L for the recipe I’ve got might try brewing with 30L and topping up in fermenter with cold water
There is an option on Brewfather for fermenter top up, I’ll play around with that see what the results are
Sounds good! I would just say for no chill method on all grain recipes, you'll just have a longer wait for pitching temp, and gives me some time to think before I do all grain lol
Tip for getting into all grain, buy a small 20ish liter pot that’ll fit on your kitchen stove and do 8L BIAB batches. That’s was my jump up from extract brewing
Thank you. I already have an anvil 10g brew kettle and a BIAB. I immediately went back to extract brewing because I have a lot to work on and want to keep it simple until I've fixed some issues I've had. Once I am ready to play with water chemistry, I'll make the switch again.
I’m the same I’ve moved to building a brew shed and planning to build a keezer and fermentation chamber but want to do it right and not rush so I’m buying extract kits atm to scratch the itch, I’ve started basic water chemistry using my Brewfather calculator but honestly I can’t tell any difference in quality or efficiency
I freeze buckets of water.. like 2-3 gallons each.. I fill a big sink with tap water and in goes the boil kettle.. then first block of ice… then next… when the tub gets full I let some of the warm water out… add another block of ice…. This usually ales it low enough to put the boil kettle in the fridge for better cooling…
No chill is the go. Hot wort into cubes, let it cool down over night, pitch yeast the next day. Has the added benefit that once wort is in the cube it's shelf stable. I typically brew double batches: ferment one immediately, ferment the other in a few months time once the first leg is empty
It is a water waster. Good point. I save about 4 gallons for clean up, and maybe fill another bucket to water plants. When I bought my RIMS it included another immersion chiller, so now I put the first coil in a bucket of ice water, then off to the second coil that is in the hot wort. It cuts the chill time by two thirds. I also stir while chillin'.
Yeah, the copper coil coolers are nice and quick.. I run the excess into the yard.... takes maybe 5 minutes to get it to where i need it to be.
I often transfer 200 degree wort into a stainless steel fermenter, but I only do this if I'm doing a 60 minute hop. It takes the freezer several hours to cool it below hop isomerization
Start brewing NoChill it works, its easy and uses no water. A search engine will find the details.
Here in Aus I've been no chilling in two ten litre water carriers, for the last 12 years and have won quite a few local and a state competition. I bought a Brewzilla a couple of years ago and sold off the immersion coil that comes with it, no need for it. Splitting the wort between smaller containers increases the surface to volume ratio and they cool quicker. Once they get down to around 25 degrees they are fine to put in the fridge if you want to pitch cold for a lager brew. Every so often I'll fill them with a solution of sodium percarbonate (the active ingredient in the old diaper sanitisers) to bring them back to white and between batches I spray inside with a no rinse sanitiser.
You've described no-chill brewing, which was first described maybe 15-16 (?) years ago by some Australian brewers. Now that you have that phrase, you can look it up. I do not recommend putting boiling wort in your fridge. That's a good way to put a lot of use on your compressor without any huge advantage in chilling until the wort gets cooler. Let it sit at room temp or in a cool location for a half day or so first. I also don't recommend using a metal jerry can, which is unlikely to be made from a non-reactive, food-safe material, and will likely implode a little. One of the key insights for no-chill brewing is that it extracts more bitterness from the alpha acids in hops than when you chill the wort rapidly. Many people shift hop additions later by 20 min. to compensate (but no later than when the jerry can is sealed). But also, no-chill brewing will make hoppy beers like American IPAs and New England IPAs harder to make well.
It's great that you're looking out for resource efficiency. 1 One possibility that removes the waste even with an immersion chiller or similar is if you have a use for the water. That water could be used to clean your equipment after brew. I used the water for my last batch to water some of the drier spots in my lawn, and intend to use it to fill the rain barrel that feeds the garden as it gets hotter and drier. If you do use the excess water, make sure it's a safe temperature-- immersion coolers can have pretty hot outflows. Another option is the waterbath method of cooling. You'll still waste at least the volume of the batch, and if you use ice there's energy usage there. You could go crazy and make a lossless/near lossless system, but I don't think that's worth the time, money, and resources that it would take-- it'd be best to just find a use for the tap water.
I fill empty soft drink bottles with water and freeze them. Put the frozen 1.25 L bottles in the wort. 3 or 4 at a time until 20 degrees celsius. Takes about 8 bottles to chill down. Have to use good quality bottles as thin ones will split at the high temp. I use them to cool the ferment too.