Cold crashing at 31-33 F versus 45-48 F.

I want to bottle 30 gallons of beer tomorrow and would like to cold crash prior to bottling. My attached garage has an ambient temp around 45-48 F and the projected low outdoor temperature overnight will be 31-33 F. Should I leave this in the garage overnight or set it outdoors overnight? I am just not sure about having the beer so close to freezing temps overnight.

msa8967 said:

I want to bottle 30 gallons of beer tomorrow and would like to cold crash prior to bottling. My attached garage has an ambient temp around 45-48 F and the projected low outdoor temperature overnight will be 31-33 F. Should I leave this in the garage overnight or set it outdoors overnight? I am just not sure about having the beer so close to freezing temps overnight.

Click to expand...

Yeah i have the same question.

You should be fine outside unless your ABV < 3%

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/table-freezing-points-alcohol-solutions-192138/

The beers are all 4.5% ABV or higher.

Should be fine. Hard freezing the beer might prove deadly to the yeast though. This may or may not be a concern depending on how you plan to carbonate.

aiptasia said:

Should be fine. Hard freezing the beer might prove deadly to the yeast though. This may or may not be a concern depending on how you plan to carbonate.

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Since I am bottling with corn sugar I think your comment about the yeast is key so I will just leave it in the 45 F range. I also plan to wash the yeast to reuse so I don't want any damage to occur.

With that volume of beer even if the temperature dips below freezing the core will likely not be frozen.

I actually did a blog post on this today with a 10 gallon model.
http://woodlandbrew.blogspot.com/2012/11/lagering-outside.html

you should be safe outside, here is a table from another thread thanks Ray.

There was a question in another thread about freezing points
of beer, so I thought I'd post this info for reference. I wrote
a program to spit out the numbers.

%Alc Temp (F)
by
vol

3.0 30.2
3.1 30.2
3.2 30.1
3.3 30.0
3.4 30.0
3.5 29.9
3.6 29.8
3.7 29.8
3.8 29.7
3.9 29.7
4.0 29.6
4.1 29.5
4.2 29.5
4.3 29.4
4.4 29.3
4.5 29.3
4.6 29.2
4.7 29.2
4.8 29.1
4.9 29.0
5.0 29.0
5.1 28.9
5.2 28.8
5.3 28.8
5.4 28.7
5.5 28.7
5.6 28.6
5.7 28.5
5.8 28.5
5.9 28.4
6.0 28.3
6.1 28.3
6.2 28.2
6.3 28.1
6.4 28.1
6.5 28.0
6.6 27.9
6.7 27.9
6.8 27.8
6.9 27.8
7.0 27.7
7.1 27.6
7.2 27.6
7.3 27.5
7.4 27.4
7.5 27.4
7.6 27.3
7.7 27.2
7.8 27.2
7.9 27.1
8.0 27.0
8.1 27.0
8.2 26.9
8.3 26.8
8.4 26.8
8.5 26.7
8.6 26.6
8.7 26.6
8.8 26.5
8.9 26.4
9.0 26.4
9.1 26.3
9.2 26.2
9.3 26.2
9.4 26.1
9.5 26.0
9.6 26.0
9.7 25.9
9.8 25.8
9.9 25.7
10.0 25.7
10.1 25.6
10.2 25.5
10.3 25.5
10.4 25.4
10.5 25.3
10.6 25.3
10.7 25.2
10.8 25.1
10.9 25.1
11.0 25.0
11.1 24.9
11.2 24.8
11.3 24.8
11.4 24.7
11.5 24.6
11.6 24.6
11.7 24.5
11.8 24.4
11.9 24.4
12.0 24.3

I am cold crashing outside now, and lagering as well...I love fall for this reason.....You should be just fine.....

bad67z said:

you should be safe outside, here is a table from another thread thanks Ray.

There was a question in another thread about freezing points
of beer, so I thought I'd post this info for reference. I wrote
a program to spit out the numbers.

%Alc Temp (F)
by
vol

Click to expand...

Thanks for this table. Was it difficult to come up with the equation relating the abv to the freezing point?

msa8967 said:

Thanks for this table. Was it difficult to come up with the equation relating the abv to the freezing point?

Click to expand...

Your welcome and I did not make the chart, as stated I took it from another thread.