"No-Chill" Cubes

[vacant]

Sight-glasses on boilers is odd too. All that unboiled wort dumped in your fermenter. This way you do get the option to cycle the unboiled bit into the boiler.

Hold a bit of silicone tube over the top end and blow throw the other end.

[PeeBee]

Now here again... we come down to good design or designer who doesn't know the first thing about the product usage. ...

Nothing to do with how good, or not, the pump is. A good reason for me not to start mucking about with it. But it is interfering with readings the sight glass.

What I've done to (seemingly) work about the issue is (this was getting a zero reading on the sight-glass):

• In the empty (dryish) boiler add 500ml (room temperature, about 20C).

• Run the pump 2-3 seconds. (The G40/G70 is bottom, not side, draining and the pump outputs into the top of boiler).

• The sight-glass will be randomly reading 1 to 3 litres. Remove about 200 millilitres from tap at base of the sight-glass.

• Return the 200 millilitres to the boiler. DO NOT activate the pump or you will undo the effort!

• Stand for 3-5 minutes.

• The sight-glass will display just short of zero (1-200 millilitres).

The 1-200 millilitres short is going to cover the malt-pipe and hopscreen added next. The 500mls (plus a few millilitres to cover malt-pipe and hopscreen) can be deemed unrecoverable "deadspace".

NOTE: This phaffing is only to get setup figures for brewing calculators, and set things up for using those no-chill cubes. How to overcome the misreading of the sight-glass will come in handy operationally.

[PeeBee]

After a month of farting about with these "no-chill" cubes trying to be able to build recipes with a predictable volume outcome using them I think I've finally a solution. The spreadsheets I was trying to use weren't working. They were driving me nuts and getting hellish complicated which just resulted in "nuts²". Before finally figuring the recipe builder I was using would do it no bother (if you tweaked the right bits). This would work for over building recipes to provide quantities of beer ("stronger beer"?) than your equipment might make (provided you can supply the necessary volume for fermentation). Some will question why I'm doing this, but anyone else after predictable volume outputs won't need to ask "why?". [EDIT: That's a fib, I write it down to help me remember what I was doing. ]

First off; I use the "Beersmith" recipe builder, but this is a simple tweak that can probably be adapted for many other builders. Provided it had a "Batch Volume" setting (I can't think of any that don't).

The recipe is built as normal to a useable "Batch Size". Having sorted out the volumes of the no-chill cubes it seems a shame to be restricted to the quantities they dictate (they should be filled to exclude any appreciable airspace). Figure out which "no-chill" cube, or multiple of cubes, will hold most of the batch. Remember the cubes are filled with HOT wort that will shrink on cooling ... about 4% cooling from boiling to 20°C. Remember also the cubes aren't holding "boiling" wort when the lids are secured ... I allow for about 1% shrinkage (wort at 84-5°C).

e.g.

Batch Volume: 23.1 Litres
Fermenter "dead space" of 1.6 Litres
Into keg: 21.5 Litres

No-Chill Cube Volume: 22.4 Litres
If sealed at about 85°C, volume at 20C: 22.4L - 3% = 22.4 x ((100-3)/100) = 22.4 x 0.97 = 21.7 Litres (at 20°C)


So ... tweak the "Batch Volume" to be 21.7L instead of 23.1L. Only change the "Batch Volume" directly; don't use any available scaling function that alters other values too (like the ingredient amounts). Nothing strange so-far; I was doing this to get values to use in my spreadsheets, without realising the recipe builder was doing what I needed later, without any effort.

At which point: Any further effort from me writing this can wait until after I've had me tea.

[PeeBee]

How this looks in "Beersmith":

RoseAK1896.jpg (305.99 KiB) Viewed 52989 times

A lot of waffle to describe changing that one value ("Batch Size" near the top). One thing that does give away what I'm doing is that "Style Guide Comparison", not that I take any notice of it, and if I did it'll have done its job while designing the recipe (with "Batch Size" set to the final target value) where it would have read the desired final results:

RoseAK1896-style.jpg (33.4 KiB) Viewed 52989 times

For now, the recipe can be made and packed away in its "No-Chill Cube" ready to resurrect in a fermenter, days, weeks, months (maybe years ) down the line. The best recorded way of resurrecting the brew will depend on the recipe builder you use. I'm describing how to do it with "Beersmith" ...




(Any "attachments you see below: Ignore! They're the result of flippin' frustrating software bug that I can't always be bothered to work-around).

[PeeBee]

What follows might change following any update of "Beersmith".

In the "Vols" page of the "Beersmith" recipe builder is:

RoseAK1896-ferment.jpg (25.11 KiB) Viewed 52985 times

Ignore "Top Up Water", it doesn't do anything and is probably provided for real-time recording.

The "Batch Size" is the amount in the No-Chill Cubes made earlier. The "Meas Batch Size" is the desired amount in the fermenter (the "Meas Bottling Vol" plus any "Bottling/Fermentation Loss"). Most will be filled in, but not the "Meas..." values which you do. Check the "Add starter to bottling vol" box.

The "Starter Size Used" can be filled in with the difference between the two "Batch Sizes". This will be the amount added with the "No-Chill Cubes" into the Fermenter. It will also include any yeast starter used (if the yeast starter has a greater volume, it will need some tweaking of the modified "Batch Size" use for earlier creating the recipe).

The "Est Bottling Vol" should be showing the capacity of keg you had originally intended to use. Finished.

[PeeBee]

Small detail I missed above: I'm using an adaption for "Full Boil Length Mashing" (or "No Sparge") where I truncate the mash water so the "Mash Volume Needed" doesn't exceed the "Mash Tun Volume" and put it back as "Kettle Top Up" so the estimated pre-boil volume stays as originally calculate (the "Kettle Top Up" more likely gets added to the mash as a "sparge").

RoseAK1896-kettletopup.jpg (28.49 KiB) Viewed 52895 times

... in case anyone attempts to brew with these figures and finds they don't seem to add up. And I know one person following this who got terribly mixed up about it ... me! Another excuse to delay the "real" work this will require.

None of it is made easy by the Grainfather's volume stamps over-stating its volume by a couple of percents (as the stamps are applied during manufacture, I guess everyone with a Grainfather (G30) suffers the same?

[MashBag]

Have you considered the water volume changes?

[PeeBee]

Have you considered the water volume changes?

Have I ... !

To the Nth degree, in triplicate, etc. One of the "advantages" of being as I am; things must work out in more than one way so when I forget why I'm doing something, there's always something else to remind me "I must have had a reason for it". But things do go wrong when I forget what I am.



Here's putting it all to the test the other day:

20231209_185740.jpg (136.2 KiB) Viewed 52668 times

May have my "Boil Off" (per hour) slightly wrong, so the indicated "Post Boil" volume was about 1/2L less than expected, so the Grainfather got tilted to squeeze more out. The "no-chill" cube is full to the brim as required and the ratchet straps and "shape retaining patterns" (slabs of wood) are doing a fine job. That's 22.4L in, 1% shrinkage allowed for it going in off the boil, 3% shrinkage allowed for it cooling to 20C. I expect to get 21.7L out of it when it goes in the fermenter with the 1.4L Yeast Starter currently being built. 23.1L. That'll be one full keg (21.5L) allowing for 1.6L dead space in a Grainfather Conical Fermenter. I'll get the gravity when it's in the fermenter, but I'm expecting about two or three points short following refractometer checks during making (the OG will be taken by pyknometer of course!) ...

Any more questions about volumes?

[PeeBee]

More daring with my cube this time. I went four days before putting the yeast in (the WYeast pack was five months past its "Best Before" date. Only 7% vitality according to the starter builder. Took three days to build it back up (not something to recommend, that's possible 93% (93 billion) dead, potentially subject to autolysis, yeast cells I chucked in the beer ... ah, but only potentially ...

So, four days ... scary!

20231214_145102_WEB.jpg (53.36 KiB) Viewed 52615 times

[LeeH]

Is it though?

How long to the fresh wort kits last from the malt miller?

It’s gone from boiling into clean container. Pretty standard food industry stuff.

[PeeBee]

Is it though? ...

Looking good?

RoseAK1896-secondary.jpg (53.7 KiB) Viewed 52487 times

The yeast ("West Yorkshire") chucks the standard Tilt hydrometer about abit. I take heart from those "fresh wort kits". It's how I dared go to four days this time. Four years next time?

[LeeH]

4 years might be a stretch.

[MashBag]

Dead yeast is supposed to be excellent nutrition!

[PeeBee]

Dead yeast is supposed to be excellent nutrition!

But it can taste of poo (or Marmite, burnt rubber, etc., etc., but none have the same impact as "poo").

I'm actually experiencing it at the moment. The beer's almost finished, but recently, ever now and again, my mouth is filled with an awful flavour. Odd that it isn't a uniform taste throughout the beer. But it's a bad enough "Russian Roulette" for me to be avoiding drinking the remaining beer. The remains will probably be ditched.

It's probably the result of me using out-of-date yeast packs. And I've been doing it again! I need to stop it.

If McMullan was still here he'd be telling me how silly I am (or more likely "You *!%&&* %&!!$ @*$&%%") ... I don't think he ever forgave me for ignoring his "micro-inoculations" instructions for using out-of-date yeast packs ... well, I can't justify the time, and this is the first time its happened. But seems I've potentially got the second time in the fermenter at the moment (yeast pack was 5 months past best-before). Un-necessary risks. As for McMullan, I think I was fated to be a dick in his eyes anyway.

[WalesAles]

As for McMullen, I think I was fated to be a dick in his eyes anyway.

McMullan is probably reading this and saying to himself `I told PeeBee this but he won`t listen, what a Dick`

WA