mini cold crash before bottling ?

i want to bottle my irish stout this weekend. i know at night the temps outside will get into the low 40's. is there any reason not to cold crash the carboy a little before i bottle in the morning ?

You need the yeast if your going to bottle it. If you cold crash now you may not have enough yeast to carbonate.

I did a stout 6 weeks ago , cold crashed for 4 days at 37 F. Bottled 2 weeks ago.It carbed up just fine.

OK this is a bad idea for a lot of reasons.

As little as 5 degrees of temperature change can shock certain yeast. If you shock the yeast it will not carb properly.

If you cold crash the yeast will drop out of suspension and the beer you try and bottle will not have enough healthy yeast to carb properly.

You could make sure you suck up some of the yeast cake but then what was the point of cold crashing. The point of cold crashing is to clear out the yeast for those who keg. Or if your going to pitch new yeast.

There is nothing worse than a bunch of flat beers. It's a pain to fix that kind of mistake and a lot of people just end up dumping it.

So cold crashing is never a good idea if you're going to bottle?

i was also referring to a "mini" crash. a short time at temps which are 10-20 degrees colder than fermentation just to encourage some extra clearing. i thought there was always enough yeast around for a little bottle conditioning.

Personally I wouldn't worry about having a clear stout.
I don't know if one would be able to tell.

If your bottling DON'T cold crash. If you drop the temp 10 degrees you will get less yeast activity so the yeast won't be doing any cleaning up. The only thing that might happen is dropping them out of susupension or shocking them. If you were going to condition for an extended amount of time (for a big beer) and pitch new yeast at bottling i would say go for it. But a mini crash for a little while.....not worth it man. Don't do it you'r rolling the dice.

I don't agree that it's bad to do this- I've made many lagers, and even with 6 weeks at 34 degrees, the beer carbed up fine. There will still be plenty of yeast in suspension to carbonate your beer. I've done it many times, and so have others.

I probably wouldn't do it in this case, though. Here's why- cold beer holds co2 in solution better, and when you bottle a lager, you can look at a priming calcuator and actually reduce the priming sugar. Also, cold crashing is for clarity- in a stout, it seems like it would not matter. Lastly, temperature control. Most people who do this have a way to set a controller to keep the temperature stable. Sticking it outside might work- or, it might get unexpectedly cold and the beer could freeze and break the carboy. Or, the temp might drop so slowly that the beer temperature only drops a couple of degrees anyway.

I always look at risk vs benefits before I do anything.

What's the risk here? Well, a minute chance it won't carb up, the possibility that the carboy will break (again, pretty remote), the possibility of being a bit overcarbed for a stout (more likely), etc.

What's the benefit? A clearer stout?

Unless you have a ton of hazy stuff, I wouldn't bother.

YooperBrew said:

Here's why- cold beer holds co2 in solution better, and when you bottle a lager, you can look at a priming calcuator and actually reduce the priming sugar.

Click to expand...

Interesting. That would explain my experience when I tried this a few times. I left the carboy outside on a cool night then bottled in the morning. What I found was that the beers would take longer to carb up (3-5 weeks instead of 1 or 2) but that eventually (after a couple months) they would be over-carbonated. Once I realized this was happening only on beers I left outside I stopped doing it.

YooperBrew said:

Here's why- cold beer holds co2 in solution better, and when you bottle a lager, you can look at a priming calcuator and actually reduce the priming sugar.

Click to expand...

I've also cold crashed for weeks and had not problem carbonating. However, and sorry if this is a mini hijack, I have let the beer come to room temp for a day, used 5 oz priming sugar and conditioned at room temp. When bottling it from say 37 degrees and the smaller amount of priming sugar, do the bottles have to go back in the fridge or can they carb at say 70 even though the smaller amoun was used?

VTBrewer said:

I've also cold crashed for weeks and had not problem carbonating. However, and sorry if this is a mini hijack, I have let the beer come to room temp for a day, used 5 oz priming sugar and conditioned at room temp. When bottling it from say 37 degrees and the smaller amount of priming sugar, do the bottles have to go back in the fridge or can they carb at say 70 even though the smaller amoun was used?

Click to expand...

No, if you have the beer at 37 degrees, and use the lessor amount of priming sugar, you can still carb it at the higher temperature. In fact, you should- because it won't ever carb up at such a low temperature!

So I've been wasting a day and a few ounces of sugar for a year. lol.

ok. thanks for the input ! i was considering taking all my equipment and carboys ect down to the basement because i want to ferment at cooler temps and it is getting warmer out. that would mean two brews i have going would be suddenly stored 10-12 degrees cooler.......then that got me wondering if moving them in the garage/outside might actually help.

ill just leave them alone.

Resurrecting a old thread. I have a Belgian and after discussing aging will bottle. I do care about clarity and was going to cold crash. Was reading through to make sure I will have enough yeast. Looks like I will since I will age for 6 more months. I will do an overnight cold crash just in case.