Stoopidwon

Recipes 

Hey guys! I've looked through a dozen search results for cold crashing and still dont feel entirely comfortable enough to do it. Please someone answer a few questions.

1. How long before bottling do I cool it?
2. Do I warm it back up Prior to racking to bottling bucket?
3. Whats a good temp to cool it to?

Thank you in advance for any answers

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Mad One Legged Hopps Brewing
ON DECK:Shae-dy-day Brown, Outmeal Stout

PRIMARY:

SECONDARY 1:

SECONDARY 2:


BOTTLED: Irish Red, Copper Ale (2), Hanks Hefeweizen (2), Yakima Blonde, Oatmeal Stout

hercher

Recipes 

Bottle at room temperature. There is no need to crash it prior to bottling, because you don't want the yeast to drop out of suspension.

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Two Kids Brewery

Primary: nothing. :(
Seconary: Don't use one, generally
Kegged: Belgian Brown Ale (loosely based on Corsendonk's Brown Ale); Saison
Planned:

"For a quart of ale is a dish for a king." - Shakespeare

SMOKEU

Recipes 

Cool it for at least 2 days before bottling. Don't warm it back up before bottling. Get is as cold as possible, without freezing.

bierhaus15

Recipes 

Um, cold crashing before bottling is fine. The whole point of it is to get as much yeast out of suspension before you bottle, as to make a clearer beer. You could cold crash a beer 5x over and there would still be enough yeast to carbonate your beer within 3 weeks.

Cold crashing is especially useful if you don't use secondary fermentors or are using a yeast with low flocculation that you want looking very clear. When I do this, I will drop the temp in my ferment tank down to around 40 and leave the beer in there for at least 18 hours. Though watch your airlock for suckback.

daveooph131

Recipes 

+1 on those thoughts....

And if you don't get it carbonated up you can always add a little more yeast at bottling time without effecting clarity.

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Scrat Brewing Company

Jersh

Recipes 

I've never cold crashed before either, but I'm planning to do so with both of the current batches that I have fermenting.... I don't have room in my fridge for a carboy, so I'm thinking about using a large cooler full of ice water to do the crash? I figure about 20 pounds of ice topped off with cold water should do the trick? Anyone done it this way? Also, since my beer is in a Better Bottle, would it be better for me to remove the airlock and simply cover it with aluminum foil? I've heard that the B.B. walls can suck in during the cooling process.

SMOKEU

Recipes 

Is it a good idea to use finings when cold crashing before racking to a bottling bucket? Or will that cause there to be not enough yeast to carbonate?

drawdy10

Recipes 

Hey Bierhaus when you say watch for suckback..... I am noticing suckback everytime i cold crash i come back to see that the airlock has been emptied into my carboy, i use a starsan filled airlock so i am not worried but it is however then not an air-locked carboy anymore, can you elaborate on some remedies for this?

tslayer

Recipes 

I didn't see an answer to this question. Can someone help?

Also, once the beer is bottled is it then ok to condition at room temp for two weeks or should the beer now stay cold while conditioning?

Yooper

Recipes 

What happens is the chilling of the beer pulls a vacuum, "sucking" in the fluid in the airlock. The easy fix is to remove the airlock and bung, and replace it with sanitized foil and a rubber band around the foil to hold it in place. Once the beer is cold, and the same temperature as its surroundings, you can replace the bung and airlock if you want (but there isn't a need to).

For bottle conditioning, you'll need to keep the bottles someplace warm until they carbonate. Around 70 degrees is a good temperature for that. After about three weeks, they should be pretty well carbed and you can store them at a lower temperature if you choose.

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Broken Leg Brewery
Giving beer a leg to stand on since 2006