Author: Aaron Collier

I’ve been homebrewing for about 10 years now. Like many, my progression through equipment (both DIY and purchased) and process took an iterative path. After only a few extract batches, I jumped into all grain excited to develop my own recipes and build a blinged-out brew stand with all those awesome pumps, hoses, and gadgets. With my first few full-boil batches, I quickly realized ice baths just wouldn’t cut the mustard for chilling wort in an acceptable amount of time. At this point, I read about and built a crude 25′ copper immersion chiller, the kind of mangled looking contraption we’ve all regularly seen pictures of. While faster than an ice bath, my inexperience and lack of understanding of proper chilling methods put me in a frustrating situation, I remained displeased with the speed at which my wort would reach acceptable pitching temps. I tried several ideas such as pre-chilling and stirring the wort while the IC was submersed, yet nothing quite seemed to work well enough. Admittedly, when I look back it’s fairly clear my feelings of chilling inadequacy were firmly motivated by my desire for ultra cool looking plate chillers and pumps, the wares that would make me look, feel, and brew like a pro. Of course this awesome equipment would make brewing easier, more efficient, and a lot more fun! Why else would it exist?

During this time, my local area transitioned to water meters, meaning rather than paying a flat rate for water, we’d be charged per usage. This was disconcerting. Now that I was going to be paying by the gallon, I really needed to find ways to avoid reckless usage. After reading a bunch about chiller efficiency in regards to water waste, I purchased a Chugger Pump and plate chiller. I also picked up a single tier stand from Marshall as this was right around the same time he finished setting up the brewing station he uses today. I was on my way to awesome brew days!

Boy, was I wrong.

The many batches I used this setup on were all frustrating in different ways. The pump would cavitate and have to be baby sat the entire time it was on and the plate chiller would spew nasty black junk out no matter how well I back-flushed it following the prior brew day. All of the extra hoses, clamps, and fiddly bits required for this kind of single tier system ultimately turned what I thought would be an amazing system into nothing but aggravation and annoyance. And with all the water I was using to back-flush the plate chiller, a futile endeavor at best, I was totally defeating the purpose of acquiring this equipment in the first place! Finally, I don’t have to mention how annoying an extra hour of clean-up is if you’ve had friends over for a brew day and enjoyed a tad too much homebrew. I’d had enough.

Back to the drawing board…

One of the things I love about my local brewing community is how open and honest everyone is. I was spending a brew day with Marshall and noticed how he manually moved water and wort around on his very simple setup (we’ve all seen the pictures). We were really having a blast. It was like those first few all grain batches where I’d had just a mash tun and pot with little else. It was so easy! The frustration level: zero. On top of that, this simplicity of equipment allows for the “clean as you go” method Marshall often encourages– once the brew day was done, there wasn’t really anything else to do except spray down the IC and scrub a couple kettles. This was exactly what I was looking for!

So, instead of adding more gear to my setup, I actually regressed back to more basic equipment, the kind that worked well for me before, keeping in mind the old adage, “gravity never fails.” I replaced my keggle mash tun with a 10 gallon Igloo cooler, my repurposed keg HLT was sold on Craigslist, and I replaced my keggle with a 14.5 gallon flat-bottom “economy” kettle. I also finally replaced the 3 burner brew stand with a single Blichmann burner with leg extensions. With the growing simplicity came increased enjoyment.

But I’d still yet to address what is often considered one of the most important parts of the brew day: chilling.

Having rid my brewery of pumps, I knew I would only be working with gravity and elbow-grease. My old plate chiller worked okay with gravity, I used it a couple times when my pump was broken and it did the trick, but it took a shit ton of water in order to go from kettle to carboy and be at my preferred pitching temp.

At the time I started discussing my setup with Marshall, he had just received and was in the process of reviewing the amazing King Cobra from JaDeD Brewing. I spent a brew day with him and watched him use this beast of an IC in what seemd a rather unconventional method. I was astounded at the speed with which his wort temp dropped, reaching just a few degrees above groundwater temps in mere minutes! Now, this was a few months before JaDeD Brewing had officially released the King Cobra to the public . I hastily sent them an email to let them know I was interested in potentially picking one up when they began full-scale production. That day finally came and… sticker shock. While it’s true you often get what you pay for, and I’m totally convinced the King Cobra is worth every penny, I wasn’t at a place where I could drop that kind of coin on a chiller. This prompted me to continue seeking alternatives that would allow me to produce great beer in less time for less money.

| ENTER NO-CHILL |

I eventually stumbled onto a thread in a homebrewing forum where the focus was on this wort chilling method referred to as “no-chill,” something I’d never heard of. My interest sparked, I embarked on an intensive mission to learn as much as I could about this technique, researched it deeply, discussed it with other brewers, and eventually listened to an episode of Basic Brewing Radio focusing on the no-chill method. It really seemed too good to be true, almost exactly what I was looking for. Spend a few bucks on a “cube,” dump the boiling wort in at the end of the brew day, let it cool overnight, then pitch yeast the following day? That would cut a lot of time off of these long frustrating brew days. My decision was made, I picked up a couple cubes and got going.

| THE SECRET NO-CHILL exBEERiment |

With cubes in hand, I devised a plan to determine if this technique would be viable for creating great beer. I decided the best way to do this would be to keep my project a secret from those I regularly share my beer with for as long as possible, as I was concerned how their expectation and preconceptions might impact their perception of the beer I was making.

A plan was developed: spend an entire year producing beers chilled using only the no-chill method, share these beers with friends unaware of this process change, then utilize their feedback to help determine whether this relatively novel technique is up-to-snuff. Furthermore, I vowed to myself that should this method produce beer of lower quality than expected, I’d finally invest in the King Cobra and return to a more conventional method of wort chilling.

I’ll not provide a detailed history of the no-chill method in this article, mainly because it’s so new that there really isn’t much history to tell. From what I could find, it appears to have been popularized by Australian homebrewers concerned about extensive water waste as well as the inability to chill wort to pitching temps given the warmer climate. Plus, it was simple and really convenient. As with anything novel, a sect of “pro-chill” brewers began to harp on the many risks of the no-chill method, the most oft discussed being the potential development of DMS due to hot wort being sealed in a container with no place for the steam to escape. Some were even brazen enough to suggest that botulism could be an issue. What? Were my beers going to taste like creamed corn or cooked cabbage? Was I going to fucking die?! Only time would tell.

| THE PROCESS |

Seeing that no-chill is a method for chilling wort, which happens basically at the end of the brew day, my typical brewing process didn’t much change. For this experimental year, I chose to employ both batch sparge or no sparge mash methods, the ultimate choice being recipe dependent. The boil would proceed as normal then once complete, and following any flameout hop addition rests, the near boiling temp wort was racked into a clean and sanitized HDPE cube.

Once filled, any excess air was squeezed out to ensure complete contact of the hot wort with the container walls and lid.

I would then store the cube in a relatively cool environment, either my garage or laundry room depending on outdoor temps, and allow it to chill to pitching temps overnight. The following day, the wort was poured vigorously into a fermentation vessel for aeration purposes and the yeast was pitched. At this point, the beer was placed in my temp controlled ferm chamber where standard fermentation procedures were employed.

| INITIAL IMPRESSIONS |

And so, I brewed my first batch of no-chill beer, an English Mild (BJCP Style 11A) slated for a local club competition. I thought this was perfect timing and was stoked that my first batch produced using this method would be tasted blind by qualified judges with zero knowledge about the process. Go figure, my Mild ended up taking 2nd in the competition with a score of 40 points. Woo! I began to feel like I was really onto something!

My next few batches were equally as successful. A Chocolate Stout and a Belgian Dubbel both came out without any off flavors that would lead me to think the process was problematic, and the time savings this allowed on brew days was really getting me excited. Like, boner excited. In fact, the brew days were so quick and easy, clocking in at less than 4 hour, that I brewed most of my batches in 2014 during the week after I got home from work (ahem… I work from home). Things were certainly looking up!

| WHY SO BITTER? |

Alas, not all could be as smooth as I had hoped. As summer approached and the club competition beers turned toward Pale Ale and IPA, the shortcomings of no-chill started to become apparent.

The first hoppy beer I made using this method was an iteration of Tasty McDole’s popular Janet’s Brown Ale. I completely neglected any recipe alteration to account for prolonged contact of the hops with the hot wort, an unfortunate mistake that led to a beer that was excessively bitter and grassy with awkward mint background notes. It was a mess. My frustration with the failure of these beers came to a head when one of my best friends in brewing told me he was worried about me. Hmph. This is the point where I began revealing my little secret, as I wanted to seek advice from my brewing brethren. After evaluating the aforementioned Brown Ale, there was unanimous agreement the culprit was most likely extended contact time of the hops with the hot wort. I went on to brew an English Bitter and an Imperial IPA, both of which were equally as problematic, exhibiting off-flavors I was dubbing “hop astringency” due to the excessive grassy and minty characters that could only be attributed to this process. I also brewed the infamous Belma beer from the Brewer’s Thumbprint xBmt. As discussed in that article, while all of those beers were odd in different ways, likely as a result of a shitty recipe, the off-flavors in my no-chill batch were very pronounced. Something was amiss, I was beginning to wonder just how meritorious this method really was. Then the year came to an end, it was time to reflect and make some decisions.

| CONCLUSIONS |

First and foremost, I’m comfortable saying that I would not recommend using this technique for very hop forward styles. The Pale Ales and IPAs I brewed simply didn’t come out very well. However, no-chill worked great for malt forward styles and never produced the off-flavors many swore it would, namely DMS presumed to be caused by not chilling fast enough. Every single beer I brewed lacked clarity and had a very unattractive haze, despite the use of Irish Moss and a good cold crash. Now, I completed this exBEERiment before learning of the greatness of fining with gelatin, which I’d guess is an effective way of achieving clearer no-chill beer, I’ll have to try this at some point. Last but most definitely not least, the risk of botulism, particularly since the yeast is pitched within 24 hours of boiling, is absolutely low enough to be of little concern to me. I’m basing this statement solely off the fact that my friends and I are still alive. That’s worth something, right?

Another thing to keep in mind is that the no-chill method doesn’t allow you to slack off with sanitation. By keeping everything clean and moving the hot wort into a sanitized cube, the likelihood of beer-ruining nasties setting up shop during the chill period is pretty damn low.

Was it a wasted year of brewing? Not at all! This actually completely reinvigorated my excitement for brewing and experimentation. At the beginning of this, Marshall had started his exBEERiment series and, once I revealed to him what I was up to, we talked about me penning this article (it’s been a long time coming). I also started to fine-tune my process and preparation for brew days, dialing in a workflow that made my brewing much easier and more enjoyable. As a result, and even with the added use of an immersion chiller, I regularly complete a brew day in less than 4 hours, making it possible for me to continue brewing during the week. So, I am now the proud owner of a JaDeD Brewing King Cobra IC and though I’ve moved back to more conventional methods of wort chilling, I still plan to use the no-chill method occasionally, particularly if I really need to save some time and the beer I’m brewing isn’t a hop-bomb.

| References |

No Chill Method – HBT Article

Dr. Deathweed

Basic Brewing Radio – August 2, 2012 – Chilling Expirement

| ABOUT THE AUTHOR |

Aaron has been a connoisseur of craft beer and a homebrewer for over a decade. On top of his day job working in IT, he is a Cicerone Certified Beer Server and provisional BJCP judge awaiting his results on the tasting portion of the exam. He is a dedicated all grain brewer who enjoys making a vast array of styles from delicious English Mild to hop-charged DIPA. He is also currently developing a mobile application for homebrewers as well as planning a podcast focused on beer evaluation.

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