Cold Crashing????

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Stoopidwon

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Hey guys! I've looked through a dozen search results for cold crashing and still dont feel entirely comfortable enough to do it. Please someone answer a few questions.

1. How long before bottling do I cool it?
2. Do I warm it back up Prior to racking to bottling bucket?
3. Whats a good temp to cool it to?

Thank you in advance for any answers

:mug:
 
Bottle at room temperature. There is no need to crash it prior to bottling, because you don't want the yeast to drop out of suspension.
 
Cool it for at least 2 days before bottling. Don't warm it back up before bottling. Get is as cold as possible, without freezing.
 
Um, cold crashing before bottling is fine. The whole point of it is to get as much yeast out of suspension before you bottle, as to make a clearer beer. You could cold crash a beer 5x over and there would still be enough yeast to carbonate your beer within 3 weeks.

Cold crashing is especially useful if you don't use secondary fermentors or are using a yeast with low flocculation that you want looking very clear. When I do this, I will drop the temp in my ferment tank down to around 40 and leave the beer in there for at least 18 hours. Though watch your airlock for suckback.
 
Um, cold crashing before bottling is fine. The whole point of it is to get as much yeast out of suspension before you bottle, as to make a clearer beer. You could cold crash a beer 5x over and there would still be enough yeast to carbonate your beer within 3 weeks.

Cold crashing is especially useful if you don't use secondary fermentors or are using a yeast with low flocculation that you want looking very clear. When I do this, I will drop the temp in my ferment tank down to around 40 and leave the beer in there for at least 18 hours. Though watch your airlock for suckback.

+1 on those thoughts....

And if you don't get it carbonated up you can always add a little more yeast at bottling time without effecting clarity.
 
I've never cold crashed before either, but I'm planning to do so with both of the current batches that I have fermenting.... I don't have room in my fridge for a carboy, so I'm thinking about using a large cooler full of ice water to do the crash? I figure about 20 pounds of ice topped off with cold water should do the trick? Anyone done it this way? Also, since my beer is in a Better Bottle, would it be better for me to remove the airlock and simply cover it with aluminum foil? I've heard that the B.B. walls can suck in during the cooling process.
 
Is it a good idea to use finings when cold crashing before racking to a bottling bucket? Or will that cause there to be not enough yeast to carbonate?
 
Hey Bierhaus when you say watch for suckback..... I am noticing suckback everytime i cold crash i come back to see that the airlock has been emptied into my carboy, i use a starsan filled airlock so i am not worried but it is however then not an air-locked carboy anymore, can you elaborate on some remedies for this?
 
drawdy10 said:
Hey Bierhaus when you say watch for suckback..... I am noticing suckback everytime i cold crash i come back to see that the airlock has been emptied into my carboy, i use a starsan filled airlock so i am not worried but it is however then not an air-locked carboy anymore, can you elaborate on some remedies for this?

I didn't see an answer to this question. Can someone help?

Also, once the beer is bottled is it then ok to condition at room temp for two weeks or should the beer now stay cold while conditioning?
 
I didn't see an answer to this question. Can someone help?

Also, once the beer is bottled is it then ok to condition at room temp for two weeks or should the beer now stay cold while conditioning?

What happens is the chilling of the beer pulls a vacuum, "sucking" in the fluid in the airlock. The easy fix is to remove the airlock and bung, and replace it with sanitized foil and a rubber band around the foil to hold it in place. Once the beer is cold, and the same temperature as its surroundings, you can replace the bung and airlock if you want (but there isn't a need to).

For bottle conditioning, you'll need to keep the bottles someplace warm until they carbonate. Around 70 degrees is a good temperature for that. After about three weeks, they should be pretty well carbed and you can store them at a lower temperature if you choose.
 
Ok, so after much investigation on this forum my plans for my blonde ale this weekend are to:

- heat one cup of water with a tablespoon of unflavored gelatin. Do not boil, let sit and slightly cool.
- transfer primary to bottling bucket
- add jello mixture to bucket and stir slightly
- put lid on bottling bucket cover with foil. No airlock
- cold crash brew for 48 hrs
- add priming sugar and then bottle
- let bottles condition at room temp for several weeks

First time with cold crashing and gelatin so please let me know if anything is off.

Thanks
 
Never heard of gelatin before I assume u are using that as a fining but yeah that looks like a pretty rock solid plan!
 
Will setting a carboy out overnight (low of 35 F) be enough to make a difference? I don't have a temp controlled fermentation space so this is a close as I can get.
 
I have had good results with a standard air lock, only filling it slightly less than would be necessary. By standard I mean the S-shaped ones that aren't fancy but seem to be pretty common. I don't even use star-san after I sanitize. That seems like overkill to me and who wants a large amount of that in your beer, foam is OK though.
 
Yea I am starting to think that those s shaped ones are better for that reason they don't et sucked back in so easily .
 
Um, cold crashing before bottling is fine. The whole point of it is to get as much yeast out of suspension before you bottle, as to make a clearer beer. You could cold crash a beer 5x over and there would still be enough yeast to carbonate your beer within 3 weeks.

Cold crashing is especially useful if you don't use secondary fermentors or are using a yeast with low flocculation that you want looking very clear. When I do this, I will drop the temp in my ferment tank down to around 40 and leave the beer in there for at least 18 hours. Though watch your airlock for suckback.

It is nice to see somebody else say this. I was feeling like I was all alone out there in my thoughts about this exact subject.:mug:
 
Just had a bad suck back, dang it. The three piece had been on there for the three week ferment and I thought before the crash that I needed to replace the vodka as all the alcohol would be long gone, but I forgot of course and this morning all the liquid from the air lock was gone, gone. I put some more vodka in it, but I don't feel good about it. :(
 
How do you do that when the beer is already bottled? Are you saying to rebottle it?

He was assuming your beer was still in the secondary or cold crashing. I do think some guys have taken the risk of putting a little sugar in and recapping if they had zero carbonation for some reason, but its pretty unusual.
 
I have had good results with a standard air lock, only filling it slightly less than would be necessary. By standard I mean the S-shaped ones that aren't fancy but seem to be pretty common. I don't even use star-san after I sanitize. That seems like overkill to me and who wants a large amount of that in your beer, foam is OK though.

+1 for S Air Locks. I cold crash at 5 degrees a day in my Fermenting Chamber from 65 F to 40 F over 5 days. Then I let it sit for a day or 2 at 40 F before I keg it. If you cold crash slowly like this you have less chance of waking up to an empty air lock over night.

And besides, even if you do get a little in your beer its not too likely that it will be contaminated. Theres already alcohol in the beer and your cold crashing it to a temperature that most yeasts do not agree with.

If your super anal about it, you could even connect an air filter to the top of the S Lock using some tubing to get out anything that may be in the air before it hits the Lock.
 
+ another for the S-airlocks. If you fill them no higher than the "fill here" line, then all the liquid will fit in either of the two bulbs. That means that if you get suckback, the air pocket will reach the bottom of the inner bulb before it sucks any liquid back and a bubble of air is all that will suck back. Basically, properly filled, they work in both directions.

You will get air in there, but short of a pressure-controlled fermenter with a sterile air source, there's just no getting around that. Better air than water, starsan, or vodka, IMO.
 
Isn't a bottle in the fridge the same thing? You are going to have sediment at the bottom anyway. So cold crashing just gives you a little less sediment or is the beer really clearer because you've essentially cold crashed twice?
 
I've not experimented, but I think it mostly just reduces the amount of sediment. If you cold crash for the same total time in the two scenarios---i.e., you extend the cold conditioning time for the bottles by the amount you'd have crashed in the fermentor---you will probably have equally clear beers.

However, on the last couple beers I've made I have done a week or more of crashing, and there is virtually no bottle trub. Leaving it behind means you don't have to worry about kicking it up if you don't handle your bottle gently before pouring.
 
However, on the last couple beers I've made I have done a week or more of crashing, and there is virtually no bottle trub. Leaving it behind means you don't have to worry about kicking it up if you don't handle your bottle gently before pouring.

If it's noticeably less trub in the bottle than I would definitely consider doing a cold crash on the secondary.
 
Gameface said:
If you have the ability to cold crash I would do it every time.

Question. I heard it mentioned that cold crashing is more beneficial with yeast that has low flocculation. I am currently fermenting a brown ale with wyeast 1335 that supposedly has high flocculation. I was thinking of cold crashing it after fermentation finishes instead of secondary fermentation. Would I still achieve similar benefit in terms of clarity?
Sorry to hijack a thread but it seems to be right on topic!
Thanks,
Pat.
 
Question. I heard it mentioned that cold crashing is more beneficial with yeast that has low flocculation. I am currently fermenting a brown ale with wyeast 1335 that supposedly has high flocculation. I was thinking of cold crashing it after fermentation finishes instead of secondary fermentation. Would I still achieve similar benefit in terms of clarity?
Sorry to hijack a thread but it seems to be right on topic!
Thanks,
Pat.

It is. Your particular beer should still be clear of visible yeast particles without cold crashing, assuming 2-4 weeks in the primary. As long as you avoid agitating the trub in the fermenter, the gains you would get from cold crashing would be minimal at best. And a Secondary is not necessary for a standard brown ale.
 
bobbrews said:
It is. Your particular beer should still be clear of visible yeast particles without cold crashing, assuming 2-4 weeks in the primary. As long as you avoid agitating the trub in the fermenter, the gains you would get from cold crashing would be minimal at best. And a Secondary is not necessary for a standard brown ale.

OK, thanks much. I'll leave it in the fermenter at least 2 weeks then.
 
PatDunkel said:
OK, thanks much. I'll leave it in the fermenter at least 2 weeks then.

Just to expand on the topic a little more, pros and cons. Your typical beer that benefits from some age like anything on the malty side would be fine in the fermenter for a couple extra weeks to clear but if you follow this same method for Anything hoppy you will be hard pressed to come out with anything with a big popping hop aroma like the commercial beers. For hoppy beers especially I am a huge proponent of cold crashing. I actually just did a Rye IPA where I dry hopped two ounces in the primary on day 4, the beer was at 1.015 and it finished at 1.011 so it was close to done. Then on day 8 I cold crashed for 8 hours, all the pellet hops pack to the bottle and I racked on to another 2 oz dry hops in a CO2 flushed vessel. 4 days later toss that in the fridge in the morning and rack to keg that night. I don't use hop bags and I dry hop with pellets and this would be damn near impossible to pull off with out cold crashing. It was the savior when I discovered it, I used to get so much hop crap in my package. Do it.


Brew it, keg it, drink it, repeat.
 
anything on the malty side would be fine in the fermenter for a couple extra weeks to clear but if you follow this same method for Anything hoppy you will be hard pressed to come out with anything with a big popping hop aroma like the commercial beers.

Disagreed. There are plenty of amazing IPAs that employ a 2-4 week total fermentation & conditioning time, followed by a 1-2 week dryhop. Yeast cleanup is important. Just because your beer is at target FG does not always mean it is complete flavorwise. Any issues you find with lack of hop aroma or flavor is probably due to a bad recipe or not using enough of the right hops at the right times.
 
My understanding was that you could primary as long as you want, just add the dry hops a certain time before the END of your time. That is, work backward from the end of your timeline. Just don't add dry hops as soon as fermentation is complete or during an extended primary you will lose your aroma.
 
This is exactly why this forum frustrates me. Too many people that think they know it all, there is not one way to do it. Screw off if you think you have all the answers cuz you don't
 
freisste said:
My understanding was that you could primary as long as you want, just add the dry hops a certain time before the END of your time. That is, work backward from the end of your timeline. Just don't add dry hops as soon as fermentation is complete or during an extended primary you will lose your aroma.

This should work too but hops and bitterness fades with time so to maximize I like to make the process as quick as possible usually drink with in 14 days
 
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