Cold Crashing Cider

Please Define

Why?
When?
What to do?

Cold crashing is when you chill the cider down to the point where the yeast goes dormant and drops to the bottom. Some people to use it to clear other sediment as well, my experience is only in using it to stop fermentation. IMHO its the best way to control the amount of final sugar, because fermentation stops very quickly, you are not introducing any new chemicals and you dont need to introduce any other sugar into your juice to get a sweet cider.

You do it when you like the sweetness level in the taste. After primary fermentation has stopped, give the juice a few days of secondary fermentation and then check SG and taste every couple of days, unless you want it dry in which case let the secondary finish unperturbed.

To cold crash, rack the juice, replace the airlock with a stopper and put it in the fridge for a couple of days. Rack it again when you take it out. Depending on the yeast (most drop out of solution) and your siphoning skills, you with end up with juice and a negligible amount of yeast. The only drawback is fridge space and since you are brewing 5 gal, it might not be your best option because shuffling 5 gal around is a pain. I only do it only for smaller batches now. If you have a way to easily chill your brew, I would recommend it.

If you are going for a sweet cider I would recommend racking as soon as it is at point that you like, regardless of whether you cold crash. I've found that with the yeast I mainly use (Nottingham), bumping the juice with sugar to at least 1.064 allows fermentation to be stopped just by racking. I'm not sure why but I think there is something about the extra sugar that encourages the yeast stay near the bottom during secondary fermentation. I'm not sure if this is true for WLP300, but should be able to tell you in a few days because I have a couple of test batches that are getting close. So how does your's taste?

I sampled at hydro reading and it reminded me of lemoade
I started my 5 gallon batch on oct 29 using raw apple cider, wlp300, and table sugar.
og was 1.054
gravity today was .986 if i read it correctly.

I did rack to clearing vessel today.

That's mighty dry. Well, does it taste like good lemonade? A lot of people like it dry. If you want it sweeter, you might want to add some more or the original juice. You could try adding a little bit and see if fermentation starts back up. If so, I would add enough to take it up to 1.015 or so and then let it ferment back down to taste. Or if you got all the yeast out when you racked it, just add juice to taste. It shouldnt take much, maybe a quart or two in 5 gal. I just checked out my WLP300 batch with no sugar and it still has a ways to go at 1.024. It tastes very good though. I crashed a few others that I started at the same time (11/15) and were further along in fermentation WLP302 at 1.004, Nottingham at 1.010 and Safale S04 at 1.010. Of the six yeasts I tested in this last round the WLP300 took the longest to start.

Hi CvilleKevin. This information is fantastic..!! I have just two questions for you.

#1 do you ever use methods other than sulfites to kill the wild yeast in fresh cider? I know some people (you?) have mentioned you didn't like boiling due to haze(?) or something.

#2 What in the world do you do with all this hard cider? I can't manage to drink more than 2gal a week without screwing up my job performance ... LOL

What do you do? well, I am a college student and i bottled 11 gallons a few minutes before leaving for spring break, cant wait to get back to say the least. Will be a good time for me and my friends!!!

I am trained as microelectronics engineer ... but my job has me as a working to in more of a process control mode. The college degree is totally useless for what I do ... but I couldn't have nabbed the job w/o it. ...Regardless of what I do if I drink more than 40oz or so there is no chance of me getting out of bed on time in the morning.

Also, I just found out that I can get fresh pressed cider nearly year round in my area so I am off to get a 6.5 gal carboy and fresh pressed (real cider) next week. I am very excited about this.

Hi Opzo - Boiling the cider will set the pectin and you'll never get it to clear. It will also affect the flavor. I'd recommend skipping the sulfites, or if the juice isnt very tart, add half the recommended dose. Otherwise you will be waiting a long time for it to mellow out enough to drink (or else drinking it rough).

That's great that you can still get fresh pressed juice. All the presses I know of in central VA have stopped until next season. As far as what to do with it: what Nick said! I made 29 keg batches this year and still have 13 left, which should get me through to next fall if I slow down a little bit. I doubt I could drink 40oz without passing out, but I've never had any problem finding help to empty a keg.

I'm an EE also. Mostly writing firmware for embedded systems, with a small bit of circuit design now and then.

By cold crashing and/or fining, yeast and other sediment drops to the bottom, correct?

How does this effect carbonation? Will there still be enough residual yeast leftover at bottle time to ferment the priming sugar and naturally carbonate the cider, or will it have to be carbonated through other means?

You will have to carbonate by other means - you dont want to have any residual yeast left or else the fermentation could pick back up.

I do think that it may be possible to bottle condition a sweet cider by starving the yeast of nutrients, but this would take some trial and error. Check out the thread on making a JK Scrumpy clone.

After learning a little more about the role of nitrogen in fermentation, I suspect that not adding extra nutrients and multiple rackings are at least partially responsible for the success I've had with cold crashing

This is great information but will the sweetness be affected by secondary fermentation?

If you do the cold crash successfully, there wont be any secondary fermentation

Ahh... gotcha. Sort of like the moscato style wines? Ferment has been stopped so it retains the sweetness but has a light spritz?

It will be still. If you want to carbonate it, you'll need to use a keg to force carbonate.

In theory it ought to be possible to bottle condition by nutrient reduction, so that the cider runs out of nitrogen before it runs out of sugar. This is what some of the traditional cider houses do. But working out just the right of nitrogen to have at bottling time is tricky. Using a keg is a lot easier

Hey CK, earlier in this thread, albeit in 2007, you said you no longer cold crash larger batches because of the pain of hauling 'em around. I assume that's not true, anymore? Or have you just devised a way to crash without moving your carboys?

Yeah, for a while I was just racking the cider to stop the ferment. That usually works OK but is not as reliable so I just went back to cold crashing - I also switched my primary fermenters over to better bottles, which are a lot easier to handle

I live in Northern NY where it has currently been in the 30s and 40s. Would it be possible, do you think, to run the primary fermentation down to the desired sweetness, then rack directly into bottles and cold crash in them? The intention being to let them carbonate in the bottle slightly before everything goes dormant and then just storing the bottles chilled till they are consumed. Or does this seem too dangerous?

It seems a little risky to me, but people have done it successfully. Some yeast will continue to work at cold temps - just more slowly. You may want to consider pasteurizing after the bottle carb - that has been reported with good results as well. Personally, I'd advise checking Craigslist and/or ebay for a used kegging setup

Thanks for that. I'll check.

Thanks for this post...I searched for this for a while. Thanks for posting it, valuable information!

thanks for the info gents!!

CvilleKevin said:

That's mighty dry. Well, does it taste like good lemonade? A lot of people like it dry. If you want it sweeter, you might want to add some more or the original juice. You could try adding a little bit and see if fermentation starts back up. If so, I would add enough to take it up to 1.015 or so and then let it ferment back down to taste. Or if you got all the yeast out when you racked it, just add juice to taste. It shouldnt take much, maybe a quart or two in 5 gal. I just checked out my WLP300 batch with no sugar and it still has a ways to go at 1.024. It tastes very good though. I crashed a few others that I started at the same time (11/15) and were further along in fermentation WLP302 at 1.004, Nottingham at 1.010 and Safale S04 at 1.010. Of the six yeasts I tested in this last round the WLP300 took the longest to start.

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So does this mean after you cold crash you can store in bottles at RT or will you have to keep it in the fridge?

When you place the carboy in the fridge do you put a stopper that has a hole in it on the top or can I put the cap back on the 1 gallon bottle I bought at the store and not worry about an explosion?

Once it cold crashes can I leave it in the 1 gallon carboy and add malic acid etc. then enjoy?

And should I keep the carboy in the fridge or can I put it back in the closet?

I live in California so it's really never too cold but can get hot here in the summer.

Thank you

After cold crashing, does the cider have to be stored in a refrigerator or can it be stored at room temperature?

Must be refrigerated if there is any unfermented sugar in it. Otherwise the yeasts will wake up again and start having lunch.

Do you have it bottled yet, or are you not? If not, how are you serving out of a carboy? What do I not understand?

After cold crashing, does the cider have to be stored in a refrigerator or can it be stored at room temperature?

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If you cold crash successfully, you can store the cider at room temperature afterwards. I have a fair number of kegs and dozens of bottles from previous seasons that have been stored in my basement for 1+ years at ambient temperature.

However cold crashing successfully is not easy to pull off the first time. You need to start with low nutrient juice - ie old standard trees that havent been fertilized in a while, or juice from an organic orchard. You need to use a strain of yeast that flocs at low temps, be careful when you rack, and keep an eye on the carboy after you rack in case it starts back up. Then, once you have cold crashed successfully and removed essentially all of the yeast, you will need to force carbonate (ie kegs and CO2) if you want carbonation. Its doable, but for someone starting out, you are likely to get better results with the pasteurization method in the sticky, or keep the cider in the fridge afterwards if you want a sweet or semi sweet carbonated cider.

CvilleKevin said:

If you cold crash successfully, you can store the cider at room temperature afterwards. I have a fair number of kegs and dozens of bottles from previous seasons that have been stored in my basement for 1+ years at ambient temperature.

However cold crashing successfully is not easy to pull off the first time. You need to start with low nutrient juice - ie old standard trees that havent been fertilized in a while, or juice from an organic orchard. You need to use a strain of yeast that flocs at low temps, be careful when you rack, and keep an eye on the carboy after you rack in case it starts back up. Then, once you have cold crashed successfully and removed essentially all of the yeast, you will need to force carbonate (ie kegs and CO2) if you want carbonation. Its doable, but for someone starting out, you are likely to get better results with the pasteurization method in the sticky, or keep the cider in the fridge afterwards if you want a sweet or semi sweet carbonated cider.

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Wonderful explanation CvilleKevin. Do you have any recommendations for FG or other ways to measure when a cider is semi-dry or semi-sweet (dry with a bit of sweetness in it)?

Cider isn't going to carb too much at all in the fridge. You will get a little hint of a fffft when you open the cap, but nothing more.

The reason for cold crashing is to force your yeast to flocculate before it's ready to do so on it's own.

The reason why I cold crash is because I generally make cider with a champagne yeast that takes a week to flocculate on it's own and I want to drink some cider when fermentation is finished instead of waiting for a week. I don't typically cold crash the entire batch, rather about 6 liters into the fridge in PET bottles and then airlock the remainder into smaller secondary jugs and let it clear on it's own.

You can also cold crash before fermentation is finished if you want to preserve some sweetness. If you warm the stuff up again and it's in a container without pressure relief, it will either carbonate or explode.

Do you have any recommendations for FG or other ways to measure when a cider is semi-dry or semi-sweet (dry with a bit of sweetness in it)?

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Its mostly a matter of personal taste as to how much residual apple sugar balances the acid in the apples, also somewhat the yeast. I usually like about 1.008 to 1.010 for a British Ale yeast. Some of my friends like it a little drier, OTOH - I just crashed a Wy3068 batch at 1.022 for my girlfriend and that was just barely sweet enough. When the cider is fermenting, it tastes a little more acidic than it will when you've knocked the yeast out, so if you wait until its just a bit drier tasting than what you want, you will usually have a nice balance after the crash.

Good to know, thanks!

Hi, any idea what temp range would be good for cold crashing? I've got next to no fridge space but it can get pretty cold here in the north, also after cold crashing for a week or so would it be fine to rack it off to a demijohn to see if I got all the yeast then repeat crashing if not?

I'm sorry if this is a dumb question or has already been answered elsewhere, I would just like to reiterate what I've gathered to make sure I'm understanding correctly:

I have a 5g batch of cider. It has been fermenting for 2 weeks. It is just juice and EC-1113. It will stay in the carboy until it is fermented dry. Now this is where I stand since I've never crashed before... I'm going to remove shelves in the fridge and make the wife angry, put the carboy in for a day. Rack into bottling bucket the next day, prime and bottle?

any idea what temp range would be good for cold crashing?

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Its best if you can shoot for 31 to 35 degrees. Dont go below 31 or the cider will freeze

I've got next to no fridge space but it can get pretty cold here in the north, also after cold crashing for a week or so would it be fine to rack it off to a demijohn to see if I got all the yeast then repeat crashing if not?

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Yes, that usually works. If you have a CO2 tank, its a good idea to fill the new demijohn with CO2 before you rack to keep oxidation to a minimum.

It is just juice and EC-1113. It will stay in the carboy until it is fermented dry.

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Did you mean EC-1118? If you are fermenting to dry, then you dont really need to cold crash unless you want to accelerate the clearing, which will happen on its own if you give it enough time. For purposes of cider, the main reason to cold crash is to shut down the fermentation, but you need to use an ale yeast for that. EC-1118 will not shut down if you crash it, but it will usually clear the cider up quite a bit.

Why are you "cold crashing"? What are you hoping to gain from that action? If your cider is not clearing fst enough for you you can always add bentonite (clay) to help the fruit particles precipitate out and /or you can add pectic enzyme to help break up the fruit pectins. If you are cold crashing to remove tartaric acid I am not sure that reducing the acidity of your cider makes it taste better. If you are "cold crashing" to remove the yeast then it may be that you want to allow the cider to age a little longer. Wine yeasts flocculate and drop out of suspension when the CO2 has dissipated and that simply takes time.
If you really feel you must "cold crash". You live in Buffalo. The temperature outside must be close to freezing. Can you leave your cider outside for a few hours and let it get close to freezing then bring it back in again.. If you live in a single family home as opposed to an apt. then you perhaps have some area (a garage ?) that may be above freezing but still cold enough to "crash". That way you can "cold crash" without annoying your spouse.
Cider makers who come from a wine making background as opposed to being brewers don't cold crash anything (except perhaps to remove trataric acid crystals)...

Cold crashing helps stall the fermentation and clear the cider when you're using yeasts like Nottingham. Why? Because you might not be fermenting to dry, and yeasts like Notty will drop out as you cold crash. It gives you greater control over the fermentation and resulting flavor as well, meaning after enough practice, you can control it to the point to get the flavors you want without needing to backsweeten.

CvilleKevin said:

Did you mean EC-1118? If you are fermenting to dry, then you dont really need to cold crash unless you want to accelerate the clearing, which will happen on its own if you give it enough time. For purposes of cider, the main reason to cold crash is to shut down the fermentation, but you need to use an ale yeast for that. EC-1118 will not shut down if you crash it, but it will usually clear the cider up quite a bit.

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Yes I apologize. I used EC-1118, I was working from memory here. So I am correct in just leaving it in the carboy until it ferments clear then?

bernardsmith said:

Why are you "cold crashing"? What are you hoping to gain from that action? If you really feel you must "cold crash". You live in Buffalo. The temperature outside must be close to freezing. Can you leave your cider outside for a few hours and let it get close to freezing then bring it back in again..

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I was cold crashing because I thought I had to, but maybe I am doing it at the wrong point. Once it ferments clear, I will not crash it then...but instead go straight to bottle. I do plan on (per the recipe used) adding a can of Frozen AJ Concentrate as a primer. Is this where I should cold crash...or am I completely confused?

Also to answer your question, I guess I could leave it outside for sure. I just worry about it actually freezing but if all I have to do is drop the temp for a bit I can definitely do that. Thanks for the info guys.

TheCADJockey said:

I was cold crashing because I thought I had to, but maybe I am doing it at the wrong point. Once it ferments clear, I will not crash it then...but instead go straight to bottle. I do plan on (per the recipe used) adding a can of Frozen AJ Concentrate as a primer. Is this where I should cold crash...or am I completely confused?

Also to answer your question, I guess I could leave it outside for sure. I just worry about it actually freezing but if all I have to do is drop the temp for a bit I can definitely do that. Thanks for the info guys.

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If your trying to follow phug's recipe then there is no need to cold crash. Just let it ferment all the way down to 1.000. He said it took 4 weeks. You can let it go longer to clear if you want. The can of FAJC is just to carb the bottles. Pout the thawed can in the bottle bucket and then sophin the cider into the bucket then bottle and cap and store in room temp for a few days.
He said it shouldnt blow up since you are using just enough sugar to carb. But I would use 1 or 2 soda bottles as test to see if they over carb. If they do you can pasteurize if they dont you can just enjoy chill and enjoy them.

Thanks man... I think that is what was worrying me. Reading about crashing and pasteurizing. Its my first cider so I'm used to just bottling my beer and throwing it in the fridge until its ready.

bernardsmith said:

Cider makers who come from a wine making background as opposed to being brewers don't cold crash anything (except perhaps to remove trataric acid crystals)...

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I come from neither and don't crash. I ferment dry in my basement. I start in the fall when temps are perfect in the 60's. Then rack and age over the winter when temps are in the 50's. It clears wonderfully. Then bottle before summer. Old school!