chilling primary for 24 hours and bottling..

I'd like to cold clear my primary and bottle. I bottle condition... will I have enough active yeast?

timgman,
yes, you'll have enough yeast. As clear as the beer appears, there are still millions of yeast cells in solution. However, you will need the beer to be in the 70f. range when you rack to the bottles for at least a week or two so that the yeast will go after the new bottling sugar.
mark
Beer Diary...

There will be enough it may take a little longer though. You can add 1/4 pack of dry yeast when you bottle. I'd let it warm back up first.

I'm curious about this too. John Palmer's book says many microbreweries and brewpubs lager their beer right before bottling for the sake of clarity. I assume if you cooled the beer for 24-48 hours before bottling, then stored the bottles at normal ale fermentation temps for about 2 weeks, that should work fine. Warming it up just before bottling doesn't really make a lot of sense to me - seems like it could get some of those precipitated solids back into solution.

Comments?

Thanks.

I am curious about this too.

BrauKaiser said:

Because the yeast has been inactive for such a long time and only little yeast is in suspension anyway, it is recommended to add fresh yeast at bottling time to ensure consistent carbonation in a reasonable time frame. The fresh yeast can come from either dry yeast (1/4 pack should be enough), yeast sediment from the primary fermenter of another batch or Kraeusen. The type of yeast doesn't matter much since the flavor has already been defined during the fermentation and lagering process. Any clean well flocculating ale or lager yeast will do.

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Adding lager yeast may be a good idea now in the cold months. I suggested warming it up to add more yeast so as to not shock them with such low pitching temp. I don't think anything will go back up when the beer is finished unless it was shook up.

ssabin said:

I'm curious about this too. John Palmer's book says many microbreweries and brewpubs lager their beer right before bottling for the sake of clarity. I assume if you cooled the beer for 24-48 hours before bottling, then stored the bottles at normal ale fermentation temps for about 2 weeks, that should work fine. Warming it up just before bottling doesn't really make a lot of sense to me - seems like it could get some of those precipitated solids back into solution.

Comments?

Thanks.

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The reason for the warm up is simple- cold fluids "hold" more co2. When you take a sample of the beer for an SG reading, if it's in the 30s, it's almost like it's already carbonated. Looking at a carbonation chart, you would even decrease the amount of priming sugar, since the beer is already semi-carbed up. If you bottle that directly, you can do that if you decrease the primary sugar according to the chart. If you just bottle it with the traditional amount of priming sugar while the beer is cold, and let it warm up to carbonate, you would have overcarbonated beer (at best) or bottle bombs at worst.

There you go!

Thanks Yooper!

p.s. How's the weather up there? My folks in Kincheloe said it got down to -20 last night, but I suspect tonight will be even colder.

ssabin said:

p.s. How's the weather up there? My folks in Kincheloe said it got down to -20 last night, but I suspect tonight will be even colder.

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Small world... I was born In Kincheloe...

OK... so let me see if i can summarize this. At first I thought you could crash cool in the low 30s and go straight to bottling bucket and bottling conditioning with a decrease in priming sugar. But should you add more yeast if you do this?

or

Another option... crash cool in the 30s for 2-3 days, then allow the brew to warm back up to 60-68. Bottle and add the standard 5 oz of priming sugar and let it carb. You don't need to add yeast buy this method?

One other question is their an effect on taste after crash cooling and then warming up the brew? I always heard growing up this was a reason for skunky beer?

Thanks just wanted to clear that up.

Just don't crash cool it the day it stops fermenting. Give the yeast a few days to clean up after itself before you crash it.

YooperBrew said:

The reason for the warm up is simple- cold fluids "hold" more co2. When you take a sample of the beer for an SG reading, if it's in the 30s, it's almost like it's already carbonated. Looking at a carbonation chart, you would even decrease the amount of priming sugar, since the beer is already semi-carbed up. If you bottle that directly, you can do that if you decrease the primary sugar according to the chart. If you just bottle it with the traditional amount of priming sugar while the beer is cold, and let it warm up to carbonate, you would have overcarbonated beer (at best) or bottle bombs at worst.

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I have to disagree, lowering the temp after final gravity will not increase the CO2. Raising the temp will decrease it slowly. The fermentation temp is what matters most with residual CO2.

BYO said:

"Keep in mind that, if your beer warms up after fermentation, it will lose CO2. This will not happen instantaneously, though. However, lowering your beer’s temperature will not increase the level of CO2, unless a source of CO2 is present. (Continuing fermentation or CO2 from an outside source — like CO2 cylinder — are the two most likely possibilities.)"

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Conroe said:

I have to disagree, lowering the temp after final gravity will not increase the CO2. Raising the temp will decrease it slowly. The fermentation temp is what matters most with residual CO2.

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That's fine, of course- I'm definitely not the authority. Just make sure that you consult a priming chart before bottling so you don't have bottle bombs.

It was nice to sample my first lager, carbonated and cold.

ok.. so do you warm then bottle or just bottle cold?

add yeast or don't add yeast?

When I cold crash I'm adding yeast in the bottling bucket and pitching it at the yeast's preferred temp. I'm no expert I just want my beer ready as soon a possible.

Wow it's been a few days since i put this out there... i am bottling this weekend so if i cold cresh it'll be this evening... do we have an answer? hehehe
can i cold crash then bottle after it get's up to temp?

Wouldn't it just be easier to let the bottles sit for like 2-3 weeks at room temp and then a few days in the fridge for the same effect?

I don't add fresh yeast- there is enough yeast in there to do the job. I've lagered for 6-8 weeks before without adding more yeast, so a few days at a cold temperature won't harm it. Still, adding a little bit won't hurt if you're worried about it. The easiest way is to boiling up the priming solution, and add 1/4 package of dry yeast to that when it's cooled and in the bottling bucket. Stir well, then rack the beer into it.

I'd put the beer at room temperature and wherever you're going to be racking it the night before, and let it warm a bit. Still, check the temperature of the beer and use the priming calculator to ensure the right amount of priming sugar when you bottle it.

If you haven't cold crashed by now, and you're bottling today or tomorrow, you might as well skip it. It'll take hours to chill, and a day or two to settle out, and overnight to warm back up.

That's exactly what I wanted to know. Lager the carboy for a few days, let everything settle, warm it back up, then bottle. Thanks.

If you cold crash, then let the beer come back to room temp for a day or so before you bottle, you don't NEED to add any more yeast to the beer...any of the yeast that went dormant during the cold crash will wake up again and be plenty active....there's no need to add any more yeast to the process.

As long as you didn't freeze the beer and therefore didn't burst the cell walls of the yeastie beasties they will be fine.

Then if you are using Palmer's nomograph, or Beersmith, you can calculate the amount of priming sugar you need based on the temp of the beer at bottling time (Thanks Remilard for clearing that up for me).

Figure 65- Nomograph for determining more precise amounts of priming sugar. To use the nomograph, draw a line from the temperature of your beer through the Volumes of CO2 that you want, to the scale for sugar. The intersection of your line and the sugar scale gives the weight of either corn or cane sugar in ounces to be added to five gallons of beer to achieve the desired carbonation level. Here is a list of typical volumes of CO2 for various beer styles:
British ales 1.5-2.0
Porter, Stout 1.7-2.3
Belgian ales 1.9-2.4
American ales 2.2-2.7
European lagers 2.2-2.7
Belgian Lambic 2.4-2.8
American wheat 2.7-3.3
German wheat 3.3-4.5

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But adding more yeast for a normal beer that has been cold crashed is for the most part un-necessary.

I crashed my Argentine Amber (four weeks primary 6% ABV) for a few days, put it in a 85F watter bath for a few hours then racked it to the bottling bucket with a priming solution for 2.5 volumes. I stirred in about 1/4 pack of re-hydrated t-58 because I've read that some commercial brewers use it for bottle conditioning. That was Wednesday and last night curiosity got the better of me and I had one. It seemed to me it's at 2.5 volumes already but still has not cleared back up. Yes, I didn't need to add yeast but new yeast really goes to town in the bottle.

Well I was planning on fining my beer with a package of knox gelatin 3-4 days before bottling.... should i do this and crash cool or just crash cool or just do the gelatin?

Any thoughts, any one?

OK, I'm approaching 3 full weeks in the primary, so I'm getting ready to bottle in the next few days. My thought is that it allowing to cool for 24-48 hours before bottling should help it clear abit. I personally doubt I will allow the beer to warm back up, but will use the appropriate amount of priming sugar for the temp of the beer at the time of bottling. As soon as I bottle, I'll store at 63-65 for another two weeks or so. OK, I'll probably pop ONE of them in the fridge after a week because my curiosity will be unbearable!

That's what I've got planned after absorbing all I can on this topic. Has anyone done it the way I'm proposing?

I think that's fine, except you'll probably want to bottle condition for at least 3 weeks.

Thoughts on Dry-Hopping and cold crashing at the same time?