Crashing yeast out of secondary.

I attempted a bit of an experiment with a recent brew of mine and am curious if anybody else practices this or if I'm wasting my time. I had a batch in secondary in my fermenting fridge that had spent two weeks at 65 deg F. I dropped the temp on the controller down to 35 degrees for a couple more days, in order to see if this aids the clarity and the flavor of the beer.

It's a 10 gallon batch of a SNPA clone and it will be force carbed and kegged so carbing naturally is not an issue. When I took the gravity reading, it was exceptionally clear for a 3 week old ale, no irish moss in the boil. I gave it a few shots of the gas and will let it age in the keg for a few more weeks.

Has anyone else tried this? I remember reading in the BYO 150 Dogfish Head 90 minute IPA article that it was suggested for the last step after secondary to drop the temp to 32 or so, I can only assume for this purpose. Any insight? I will post pics at pour time!

I've tried it and to me it seems to work, as far as I can tell. I get really clear beer if I secondary in the 35 degree fridge, and I only need to leave it there a few days. If I secondary in the room temperature it can take at least a week to clear out, usually longer. As for taste, I'm not sure if it really does make a difference or not.

Never tried it myself.
Fermentation temp control is not that precise. I would think as long as it has had a good 2-3 weeks above 60deg to clean up after fermentation, then crash cooling before kegging would only result in a clearer beer.

Should be awesome!

Hadn't thought of that, but I'll definitely try it.

I guess this'd only really benefit you if you keg and force-carb. I bottle. So I need those yeasties to carbonate my bottles. I made a wheat doppelbock that I aged in carboy for a long time, like 2 months. Didn't "crash" it, but I was pretty sure that the yeast had fallen out. But I just bottled anyway. 2.5 months in bottle, and it's still not carb'd. Blagh! So now, if I keep anything in secondary for over 3 weeks, I add a few pinches of rehydrated dry yeast to the cooled priming solution. This has solved my problem. I recently cold-conditioned a porter at 36f for about 2 months. Added rehydrated dry yeast to the priming solution, and had carbo in a week.

So, if I were to try the "crashing" thing, I'd have to add yeast back in at bottling, which defeats the purpose of clarification. Plus, I think that there's alot more to clarifying beer than getting the yeast out. There's proteins and all sorts of other junk that clouds up a brew. If I'm really concerned about it (which i probably will be when I bottle my pils), I'll drop some superkleer KC finings in it a few days before I bottle. Bliggety blam!

But, along your same lines, I do highly recommend cold-conditioning ales at lagering temps. My smoked porter is simply delicious stuff. With the cold conditioning, you get a much more succinct, delineated, layered palate profile. I just can't stress this enough. I may do it with the stout I just made. We'll see. Gotta get that pils outta the lagerator first.

Evan,

I have a stout that's about to go into secondary and I was considering this as well. How long did you cold condition for, and at what temps?

I look at this experiment as potentially beneficial for me since I do force carb, but I think it's important that it be done once all of the natural cleaning up and clearing that should take place in secondary is completed. If nothing else, perhaps the ale will be a little less yeasty tasting and it will be easier to clean the keg after use!

i always cold crash everything