Cold crash? Procedure?

Sorry guys, I hate to post about something that has probably been covered a billion times, but the search seems to be down and I'm bottling this weekend...

Cold crashing... from what I've read so far is that it is a process by which one cools their beer prior to transfer out of the primary so that all suspended solids/yeast drop out of the beer. This results in a clearer brew?

So here's the question... how? Can I just stick my primary outside? It's going to be a low of 16F tonight so is freezing a concern?

And then, do I siphon into my bottling bucket and allow to reach room temp. before bottling?

What if I don't get to my bottling tomorrow, will it hurt for it to remain that cold for a couple of days?

Seems like that's awfully cold to risk freezing, and your carboy exploding (if it's glass..).

I cold crash by putting my carboy into a refrigerator (with sanitized aluminium foil instead of a air lock) for several days. Then bottle/keg as normal. 16 degrees is too cold. You want cold....not freezing. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/lost-my-first-carboys-but-not-dropping-162341/

Hammy71 said:

I cold crash by putting my carboy into a refrigerator (with sanitized aluminium foil instead of a air lock) for several days. Then bottle/keg as normal. 16 degrees is too cold. You want cold....not freezing. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/lost-my-first-carboys-but-not-dropping-162341/

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I'm going to try seeing if there is enough room in my fridge to put my bucket in.

Since I'm using a bucket I guess what I'll do is leave the airlock in the lid and drain it, take out the top piece and cover that with aluminum foil.

The only question that I still have is, when bottling, do I siphon into my bottling bucket and then allow the beer to warm up before bottling? I remember reading somewhere that if you bottle cold you have to compensate with more or less priming sugar.

You can bottle it while it is still cold. You don't have to worry about adjusting the priming sugar. If the beer is fermented at, say 65 degrees, then you use 65 degrees for the calculation. Cold crashing or not doesn't impact that.

YooperBrew said:

You can bottle it while it is still cold. You don't have to worry about adjusting the priming sugar. If the beer is fermented at, say 65 degrees, then you use 65 degrees for the calculation. Cold crashing or not doesn't impact that.

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Great. I'm not sure where I read that at...

It might be moot point though, as I just checked and my bucket don't fit in the fridge.

I would like to cold crash my current batch when I'm ready to bottle but there is now way I'm getting this into our fridge. I control my fermentation temp by keeping the carboy in an Igloo cooler with water & ice bombs. I could probably drop the temp down to 50° or so. How cold do I really need to go to get some benefit?

I've heard to cold crash around 33 to 34f,
even at 32f your beer would'nt freeze because of the alcohol that's in the beer, I'm not sure that I would go much colder than that.

I've also heard to leave it at this tempature for at least a week or 2, to help clarify the beer.

stevemwazup said:

I've heard to cold crash around 33 to 34f,
even at 32f your beer would'nt freeze because of the alcohol that's in the beer, I'm not sure that I would go much colder than that.

I've also heard to leave it at this tempature for at least a week or 2, to help clarify the beer.

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Probably not going to do that with my cooler

Thanks for the info