My question is as this a two parter.
What would happened of I were to drain my wort into my fermenter (plastic bucket) without cooling it first and let it cool in the bucket then pitch the next day?
Could I store wort in my fermentor that is cooled (plate chiller used) while I am waiting for my starter to finish out. I am asking bc I plan on buying all my stuff in one day and I won’t have the forethought to buy yeast a couple of days before hand.
You risk oxidation by moving it when it’s hot, but I suppose if you’re careful, you could get by with it. As for waiting, you can do that too, but your sanitation process needs be top notch.
Putting hot wort in a fermentor is a technique called no-chill and has found proponents especially in Australia. The problem most often reported is that this changes hop character by increasing bitterns and reducing the flavor/aroma due to the lengthy period the wort is hot. For a malt-forward beer this isn’t a problem, for a hoppy beer you have to add more hops late and even then I’m not sure you get the same result. In any case, putting hot wort in a bucket might not be a great idea because they are generally not really air tight and you’ll suck air and possible contaminants into the bucket when the wort cools and shrinks. People most often use plastic jugs that seal well and are flexible enough to collapse a little without letting air in. Once cooled, you transfer the wort or just ferment in the same container.
As for storing cooled wort, I’ve often cooled to double digits then put the wort in the fermentor to let it get down to pitching temp, and pitched yeast the next morning. You need to have good sanitation but I don’t think theres a big down side to this. I’d rather do this than pitch when the wort is warm or my yeast cell count was low, both of those practices are almost guaranteed to produce poor results.
I put hot wort into a bucket with my lambics so they get some natural bugs and sourness…so I wouldnt do it for normal beers. Although I leave the bucket partially open as well.
I almost always store cooled wort in my chest freezer and get it to pitching temps, then pitch the next day, and have had no issues whatsoever. As mentioned just make sure your sanitation is top notch.
You can also expect chill haze, because you’re not going to get a good cold break from rapid chilling. It’s primarily cosmetic, but I do like a nice clear beer.
Wouldn’t no-chill result in a horrendous DMS problem? Or is that overcome some other way?
No chill method is fine. Especially if it is getting late and I just want to go to bed–I’ll just put the 5.5 gallon SS BK (with lid on it) in the beer fridge (True GDM-12F) and let it chill down to pitching temps overnight.
The risk of contamination is there if your process isn’t completely sanitary.
Do not seal up the fermentor and attach a blow of tube to a vessel containing water or sanitizer unless you want to suck it up into the fermentor as the wort cools and the headspace volume (gas) significantly contracts thereby creating suction on the blow off tube.
If you’re boiling long enough, then almost all the SMM has been converted to DMS, and the DMS boiled off. Switching to no-chill would only be a problem if your boil wasn’t quite long enough.
The australian no-chill method seems to work. I have not tried it myself but also I have not read any major DMS horror stories about it. They seal the hot (near boiling/sterile) wort in a plastic gerry can and cap it to cool. There is very little worry about contamination because everything was at least sanitary when it was sealed up.
I do, fairly often put the wort in the bucket and stick it in my fridge to finish chilling to pitching temp though.
SS kettles chill down faster than plastic buckets, but I’m not sure if the time difference is practically significant. I can only fit the 5.5 gallon SS kettle (and not the 20 gallon SS Kettle) in the fridge. However, I can fit all my buckets and corny kegs in the fridge. Use what works.
The medium you’re using to chill is going to have far more impact. Room-temperature water will chill the wort ~25 times faster than room-temperature air, for example.
headspace “volume” actually expands because the wort contracts this causes a pressure drop which then sucks…
Now I’m a complete newbie at brewing, but for the last 2 of my 3 beers, I cooled the wort just enough so that I was comfortable with the idea of carrying it over to the fermenter, then dumped it in and diluted it to the full 5 gallons with store-bought bottled water. (I’d be more comfortable with the whole thing if I could do a full boil, but I don’t currently have the pot to do it, and I’m not certain the electric stove could manage it.) Let it cool overnight to my pitching temperature of 64F, pitched the yeast in the morning.
I’ve had no problems – the beer tastes good, oxidation and contamination haven’t been issues, nor has DMS. Yes, there’s some chill haze, but I consider that to be cosmetic and a side-effect of not yet owning a good chiller. However, if your sanitation isn’t up to snuff, a long cooling period is risky.
ETA: I cover the hole where the airlock attaches with a piece of sanitized Al foil. You might be OK with an S-shaped airlock, but don’t seal your hot wort with a 3-piece, as the liquid will be drawn into your fermenter as the headspace cools.
If you’re doing partial boils there really isn’t much reason to own a chiller. Just freeze the top-off water in advance and it will come down to pitching temp in a few minutes.
Hm, hadn’t considered nearly freezing it.
I still have the problem of having an insanely small freezer, but I’ll definitely consider it once I get a spare fridge to convert to a fermentation chamber. My simplified swamp cooler methods aren’t likely to work to my satisfaction this summer.
Well, nearly freezing it wouldn’t help much. You want to make those 334 J/g work for you.
I hear you, but getting said water out of the milk jugs once frozen is more difficult.
If you have chilled the wort and it just needs to drop another few degrees to pitching temp I’d say yeah you can do it with reservations. What you can do is freeze PET bottles (plastic soda bottles), sanitize them and drop into the fermenter to cool the wort down further. I’ve adopted this as an alternative to the ice-water recirc and have eliminated a pump, two hoses and a bucket from my brewery, plus the need for ice.
I’ve let wort sit in the kettle to see how long it would take to cool down to ambient temps from boiling. It took days, and I doubt a fermenter treated the same way would cool very well even in a controlled environment. Plus, I have reservations from exposing plastic- yes even HDPE, to boiling or high-temp liquids which might cause chemicals to leach into your acidic beer. Picking up a fermenter with very hot or near boiling temps liquid inside will assuredly crack the bottom interior and leave places for the bugs to hide. Ruined two good fermenters doing that.
So my advice is to build an immersion chiller and then resort to frozen PET bottles when you hit your water temp. Let it sit, covered with the bottles floating inside. I’ve found that 4 one-liters are better than 2 two-liters. Give this a stir every 10 minutes. Tip- if you can, leave a long handled spoon in there so you don;t have to continually re-sanitize it.
I use gallon zip-top bags and just cut them open. They have the added benefit of taking up less freezer space.
I’ve also frozen ice directly in the fermenter and dumped the hot wort in on top of it.
I have a 30 plate, plate chiller from dudadiesel. I was seeing if being lazy would be alright this one time but it sounds like it isn’t worth it. I was trying to cut corners so I could brew Saturday but I can’t brew now bc I have house work.
I guess I will build a brew stand instead of brewing so it’s just a mater of attaching hoses not setting things up every time.