Author: Marshall Schott

Apparently, Australia has water issues, something many of us in different parts of the world can relate to given the paucity of rain over the last couple years. As we all know, homebrewing isn’t the most friendly hobby when it comes to water conservation. Even utilizing more efficient techniques and equipment, the process of cooling the wort is quite wasteful, motivating many a homebrewer to come up with ways to repurpose their chiller discharge to assuage the guilt. My own chilling process requires between 20-30 gallons of water depending on groundwater temps and batch size, I always collect the first 5 gallons of hot runoff to use for post brewing cleanup, while the rest usually ends up running down the drain. It’s a sad reality that nowadays ends up costing me more than the judgment of my neighbors, but actual money since my city recently transitioned to metered water. Leave it to them innovative Aussie’s to come up with a method to deal with this problem that wouldn’t hamper their ability to make beer.

Arguably not a “new” method, the no-chill technique blasted onto the scene earlier this decade as a way for homebrewers to essentially eliminate the water wasted during the typical process of chilling with either an immersion or counterflow chiller. And it’s immensely simple, requiring only a plastic container that can tolerate high temps, usually referred to as a “cube,” which the wort is transferred to immediately after the boil is complete. The container is purged of any air bubbles via squeezing, sealed tightly, then left alone overnight or however long until it reaches pitching temp. Once there, the wort is transferred to a carboy and yeast is pitched. Like I said, simple.

Given the relative novelty of this approach, we’re still learning of the ways it effects beer differently than conventional quick chilling methods. One such impact noted by brewers who have adopted no-chill as a normal part of their process has to do with continued isomerization of alpha acids following transfer to the container due to the wort maintaining a high enough temperature. To combat this, many no-chill brewers have come to accept this method adds about 20 minutes of additional isomerization to the process and hence adjust all of their hop additions forward by that amount. However, for this first foray into no-chill exBEERimentation, I was interested in investigating only a single variable: chill time.

| PURPOSE |

To evaluate the differences between 2 beers of the same exact recipe where one was chilled quickly and the other utilized the “no-chill” method.

| METHODS |

I’ve been stoked to get to this xBmt as I’ve been curious about this method following my buddy Aaron’s Year of No-Chill experiment. When it came to the recipe, I knew I wanted to brew a style that would allow any differences to shine, and the choice was obvious…

I’m happy to announce that Brülosophy has partnered with Love2Brew to release a series of kits, the first of which is my Munich Helles recipe fermented with WLP029 German Ale/Kölsch yeast. I’m very excited to be affiliated with such a rad company focused on providing homebrewers with the highest quality ingredients and gear.

I received 2 kits for this xBmt, each including its own vial of very fresh yeast. Rather than making 2 separate starters, I decided to blend both vials in a single flask, using my preferred calculator to determine how large it would need to be in order to split between 2 batches and harvest some for future use.

As usual, I collected all the water and milled the grains the day prior to brewing, combining the contents of both kits into a single batch since this variable wouldn’t require separate mashes.

The following morning, I hit the flame under my burner, grabbed a bite and a cup of coffee, then returned about 15 minutes later to mash in. Rather than the typical 150°F/65.6°C mash temp, I targeted 153°F/67°C due to information I read following the latest mash temp xBmt, just to try something new.

I took a pH reading about 10 minutes in that confirmed I nailed my 5.2 target for this style.

About 45 minutes later, my mash alarm rang indicating it was time to collect the first runnings of sweet wort, after which I added the heated sparge water to the tun.

I then collected the rest of the wort and added it to the already heating kettle of wort. It wasn’t long before a vigorous boil was reached.

The boil went off without a hitch and I hit my target OG of 1.047 spot on. This is usually the point where I quickly chill the wort, but not on this day! Rather, immediately after killing the flame, I completely filled a clean and sanitized 5 gallon HDPE cube with near boiling wort, gently stirring to ensure equal distribution of kettle trub. This process took just shy of 2 minutes.

With the cube full, I proceeded to chill the rest of the wort like normal.

In less than 5 minutes, the wort temp had dropped to 82°F/27.8°C, only 6°F/3°C warmer than my groundwater temperature. I racked the wort to an awaiting carboy while gently stirring for trub dispersion then placed it in a cool chamber where it was left to finish chilling. Then I crossed my fingers and offered a sacrificial pint to Ninkasi in hopes my sanitation was adequate, as I left the quick chill batch un-pitched in the chamber until the no-chill batch was ready. It was my goal to limit the introduction of extraneous variables as much as possible. The no-chill wort had dropped to 78°F/25.6°C (ambient temp in my house) within roughly 15 hours, so I placed it in the chamber overnight to get it down to my target fermentation temp. The following morning, the cube was cool to the touch when I transferred the wort to a sanitized carboy.

I know some people prefer siphons, but I figured pouring through a funnel might be a good way to oxygenate. At this time, the wort was 61°F/16°C, it took another 2 hours to drop to the same 58°F/14.5°C target as the quick chill batch, after which the yeast starter was evenly split between each carboy. Expecting both batches to ferment similarly, I was a bit surprised to observe the no-chill batch developed a thicker krausen sooner than the quick chill batch.

Things eventually picked up for the quick chill batch and both were chugging along by day 4, which is about the time I began to ramp the temp to encourage complete and quick attenuation.

By 6 days in, fermentation appeared complete for both beers and I took an initial hydrometer reading, it was consistent with the reading I took 2 days later.

The .001 SG difference between the batches was sort of interesting, though arguably negligible. The beers were then cold crashed, fined with gelatin, racked to kegs, then allowed to carbonate and condition for 5 days before being served to participants. This kit version was just as attractive as those I’ve made in my garage many times prior.

Curiously, the no-chill batch appeared ever-so-slightly darker with a touch more haze than the quick chill batch, a difference I can only assume is attributable to the variable being tested.

| RESULTS |

A total of 22 people participated in this xBmt including BJCP judges, experienced homebrewers, and dedicated craft beer junkies. Each participant was blindly served 2 samples of the no-chill beer and 1 sample of the quick chill beer then instructed to identify the one that was different. In order to achieve statistical significance given the sample size, 11 participants (P<0.05) would have had to correctly identify the quick chill sample as being unique. In the end, 14 tasters (p=0.001) made the accurate selection, indicating the quick chill beer was reliably distinguishable from the no-chill beer by the participants and thus suggesting each method may uniquely impact the ultimate character of beer.

The tasters who were correct on the triangle test, a solid majority, were subsequently asked to complete a brief evaluation comparing only the different beers while still blind to the variable being investigated. Overall preference was split evenly with 6 tasters endorsing the quick chill beer, 6 preferring the no-chill beer, and 2 saying the beers were different but they had no particular preference. Similarly, when asked to select which beer was produced utilizing the quick chill method, 7 chose correctly and 7 chose incorrectly. In conversations following completion with the xBmt, quite a few of the tasters who were accurate on the initial triangle test noted the quick chill beers as being generally cleaner tasting while the descriptors used for the no-chill beer included grainy, grassy, and “just different.” Only 1 person alluded to the idea there might be a difference in bitterness, but this came only after he completed the survey and we were discussing the nature of the xBmt. Other than that, bitterness was not noted by anyone else.

My Impressions: I had friends triangle test me on this one more than I have for any other xBmt, I only failed 1 of the 6 trials, which I’m chalking up the fact it was a late Saturday night. Like many of the participants, I experienced the difference in aroma alone as being quite noticeable, with the no-chill beer possessing more of a wet hay character while the quick chill beer had a very clean and bready Pils malt aroma. This basically followed through in the flavor, though I didn’t perceive the difference as being nearly as stark. Interestingly, I did not perceive the no-chill batch to be more bitter than the quick chill beer. Likely as a function of what I’d come to expect from a recipe I’ve made so many times, I definitely preferred the quick chill beer, but that’s not to say the no-chill beer was bad, it wasn’t at all. In fact, they were both delicious enough that neither keg lasted as long as I would have liked.

| DISCUSSION |

As an annoying questioner of claims untested, it may surprise some that I didn’t actually doubt the merits of this unique method when I first heard of it, at least consciously. It’s totally possible, of course, the fact so many used it to simplify their brewing influenced my thinking. Only after Aaron’s yearlong no-chill experiment did I start to wonder if allowing beer to cool very slowly had some sort of qualitative impact on beer compared to more conventional quick chilling. The single data point from this xBmt seems to suggest it does, at least on a deliciously malt forward and crisp Munich Helles with a minimal amount of hops. However, despite achieving significance, neither method had a detrimental effect– both beers were quite delicious! To me, this says the no-chill method is equally as valid as quick chilling and, as with most process components, it’s up each individual brewer to decide the approach they like best.

Of course, it’s possible these results would have been different had other variables been tweaked, and I presume many are just as curious as me about how much of an impact delaying hop additions by 20 minutes would have had on the no-chill batch. Trust me, there’s no way this won’t be tested, likely on a higher ABV and much hoppier beer.

I’m curious to hear from others who have played around with no-chill or other wort chilling techniques. Does your experience align with this data? Have you developed a modified technique? Please share your experience in the comments section below!

Support Brülosophy In Style!

All designs are available in various colors and sizes on Amazon!

Follow Brülosophy on:

| Read More |

18 Ideas to Help Simplify Your Brew Day

7 Considerations for Making Better Homebrew

List of completed exBEERiments

How-to: Harvest yeast from starters

How-to: Make a lager in less than a month

| Good Deals |

Brand New 5 gallon ball lock kegs discounted to $75 at Adventures in Homebrewing

ThermoWorks Super-Fast Pocket Thermometer On Sale for $19 – $10 discount

Sale and Clearance Items at MoreBeer.com

If you enjoy this stuff and feel compelled to support Brulosophy.com, please check out the Support Us page for details on how you can very easily do so. Thanks!

Advertisements

Share this: Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Tumblr

Email



Like this: Like Loading...