cold crashing

i have recently started cold crashing all of my ales to try to clear them up. my understanding is that you can get the chill haze inducing protiens to form and after a while they will settle to the bottom leaving a clear brew. my question is, can i just take the carboy out of the fridge and bottle cold or should i let it warm back up to room temp. i am afraid that if i do the proteins that form the chill haze will show back up. thanks in advance.

When you cold crash you should do so in your conditioning phase or secondary fermentation. So this would be appropriate only after you have reached your correct FG. Once you have cold conditioned you would then rack into your sanitized bottling bucket and let the beer warm up to room temperature or normal bottling temperature. Add your carbing suguar and then bottle and store at cellar temperature to ensure proper carbonation.

You don't have to let it warm up. You can bottle it still cold if you want. It doesn't matter. It probably won't be all that cold when you bottle it, though.

I usually take the beer out of the fridge, then set it on the counter and let it resettle from the movement. While I go collect all of my stuff. I gather all the bottles, sanitize all my items, and then I rack it to the bottling bucket. It's usually pretty much nearing room temperature by the time I bottle it, just because it takes a while for all of that to happen.

Bowtiebrewery said:

When you cold crash you should do so in your conditioning phase or secondary fermentation. So this would be appropriate only after you have reached your correct FG. Once you have cold conditioned you would then rack into your sanitized bottling bucket and let the beer warm up to room temperature or normal bottling temperature. Add your carbing suguar and then bottle and store at cellar temperature to ensure proper carbonation.

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Ehh.....

I'm a NAZI about proper carb levels in my bottles. Here's what I've learned...

You DO NOT have to let your beer come to room temp to bottle. You enter the temperature that your beer finished fermenting at when you calculate priming sugar additions. That temperature determines how much residual CO2 is left, the warmest temp your beer was after fermentation.

You also do not have to rack to secondary to cold crash. I do it all the time and there's hardly a dusting of yeast in the bottles, most of which doesn't even come off the bottom when I pour.

"the warmest temp your beer was after fermentation."

I didn't think AFTER-fermentation temperature was relevant to carbonation? I was under the impression that carbonation calculations are based on the warmest temperature DURING fermentation, no?

so in beersmith, you are entering the highest temperature that the beer reaches, not the temperature at bottling?

Once you have cold conditioned you would then rack into your sanitized bottling bucket and let the beer warm up to room temperature or normal bottling temperature.

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No, don't do that! That defeats the purpose if you are trying to remove the proteins that cause chill haze. They drop out because of the cold. If you let it warm up again, they will return to solution and be EVEN HARDER to drop out again.

thelastdandy said:

so in beersmith, you are entering the highest temperature that the beer reaches, not the temperature at bottling?

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That's what I do. I usually bump my temp up a few degrees as it finishes, say 70F. It's sits @ 70F until it's ready to bottle. Then I cold crash to 45F. The temp I enter in beersmith is 70 though, one can assume that the beer was saturated with CO2 because of fermentation. The beer won't dissolve anymore CO2 if it's done fermenting and just sitting in a carboy. The dissolved CO2 content will not change appreciably if the temperature goes down from that point, it will only lose CO2 if it goes up.

joel6615 said:

"the warmest temp your beer was after fermentation."

I didn't think AFTER-fermentation temperature was relevant to carbonation? I was under the impression that carbonation calculations are based on the warmest temperature DURING fermentation, no?

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smizak said:

That's what I do. I usually bump my temp up a few degrees as it finishes, say 70F. It's sits @ 70F until it's ready to bottle. Then I cold crash to 45F. The temp I enter in beersmith is 70 though, one can assume that the beer was saturated with CO2 because of fermentation. The beer won't dissolve anymore CO2 if it's done fermenting and just sitting in a carboy. The dissolved CO2 content will not change appreciably if the temperature goes down from that point, it will only lose CO2 if it goes up.

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Well, the "during" temperatures aren't really that critical for figuring residual co2 in the beer. Here's why- say you ferment it at 64. Then, after fermentation, you let it sit at 70 degrees. Since the beer isn't producing co2 any longer, and the warmer temperature encourages it to come out of solution, you'd use 70 degrees for the "beer temperature". Not necessarily with lagers (I'd do it a bit differently) but that works great for ales.

As Smizak says, you can't get MORE co2 after fermentation is over, but you could get less as it disipates at higher temperatures.

Really, though, unless you're making a lager, using a simple 4 ounces per five gallons of beer is a simple "good for nearly every beer style" way to do it. You could do 5 ounces for a hefeweizen or Belgian, and be safe with that.

wow. i have been doing this wrong for about 2 years. thanks for the new info everyone. now i'm off to bottle some brews.