Very high gravity wort for no-chill storage?

[Kev888]

I'm wondering about making and boiling some wort down to a very high gravity, in order to store it efficiently in no-chill cubes for later dilution and fermenting. Though probably not as thick as LME, as I don't want it getting too gloopy to handle/pour easily.

I know some people store wort for months in cubes, but I've not seen it combined with a reduction in this way. Has anyone tried anything like this, or foresee any issues with the idea?

Cheers
Kev

[aamcle]

Well it will darken and you might have to think about the hop balance because of the long boil.

Why not get a few more cubes? Once you knock off the cost of electricity or gas there might not be much in it.

Atb. Aamcle

[Kev888]

Hmm, yes I don't mind too much about the darkening but the hops could be challenging to get right, with both time and gravity changing so much. Good point, thanks. In fact the late hop flavour/aroma could well suffer no matter what I did - maybe I'd have to re-boil for them (after diluting and before fermenting), which would be a bit of a pain.

Yeah its probably not worth it in terms of cost, I was just trying to minimise bulk - I have several sacks and part-sacks of oldish grain that I will no longer have space for. Normally I'd just brew and store loads of beer, but I've currently no fermentation facilities and have sold off many of my cornies. I suppose I could rig something up though; it may make better beer.

Cheers
Kev

[Fil]

someone has considered this or similar, Something about concentrating AG wort for cost effective distribution as an alternative homebrew kit option, add water and yeast..... but sending 23l of FG wort was an expensive option. So diluting it to a more delivery friendly volume was proposed..
I cant recall the final nail in the project, and it may have been more of a cost issue when the energy to reduce was factored in, than a hopping or other quality effecting issue?

Is storage space a problem?? the correctly sourced cubes should stack, and while the sides get pulled in when the steam condenses in the cube they do if filled well keep general shape and structure well...
Or are you thinking more than 3 or 4 brews worth???

Or split a bigger over hopped brew into 2 or 3 smaller cubes and make each one up with water and hopless lme when the time comes to brew?





perhaps boil the hell out of an unhopped beer and hop with a tea or other extract and partial mash hopping techniques?

[themadhippy]

someone has considered this or similar, Something about concentrating AG wort for cost effective distribution as an alternative homebrew kit option, add water and yeast

think its pretty popular down under,seem to remember a picture posted showing an aussie homebrew shops stock of premade wort,just add yeast and go

[Kev888]

Thanks chaps. Yes, I remember that now - I'll have a look back and see if I can find the reasons, I 'seem' to recall they were financial, but partly influenced by not wanting to concentrate the wort too far. I'll also have a poke around on the aussie forums too, and see what I can find.

Fil, yeah the cubes stack well and could be kept outside in rather worse conditions than the grain so thats a big help. But I don't really want to buy loads more of them, it would be better just to chuck the surplus grain, which is getting fairly old now so not really worth going out of the way for.

Though your question about quantities has made me tot it up which has also been helpful. Being realistic and using only the good stuff then I'm only likely to use about half of it, so probably a couple of hundred litres worth at most. If I could reduce it to say 50%, then four cubes would seem quite reasonable. In fact reducing it less to roughly 60% normal volume would be convenient as a single 25L cube would then map directly to a single 40L brew length.

Cheers
kev

[Aleman]

The idea was to start with a high gravity wort so the amount of concentration was reduced. It's finding a supplier of sensible sized cubes that is taking the time. In order to keep the postage costs down ideally you need a 10L cube

[Kev888]

Ah yes, many thanks. My efficiency drops somewhat with higher gravity brews, but as part of the objective is to use grain up thats no great issue - it would make sense to reduce the amount of boiling needed.

Cheers
Kev