Cold Crashing Method

I usually bottle my beer following the 1-2-3 aging guidelines. I just recently got into kegging, and have been reading a lot about cold crashing, and I am trying to decide which method to employ. Which seems better:

A. Leaving my beer in secondary for 5 weeks, to allow the yeast to "clean up" the off flavors and age the beer, then cold crashing the carboy for a week or so, then racking to keg and carbonating...

OR

B. Leaving beer for 2 weeks in secondary, racking to keg and aging for 3, then cold crashing, and serving off the sediment.

OR

C. Secondary for 2 weeks, cold crash, keg for three....


I want to go with plan A, since I feel that the more yeast present will help age it better, and then after cold crashing, I will leave behind the sediment and it will never enter my keg. Plan C seems ok too, but I fear that after the cold crash, I will reduce the ability for my beer to age well, or quickly. With plan A, I also am afraid of leaving it in secondary for 5 weeks, as I would hate to get off flavors of the yeast breaking down.

I just want clear, fresh, well-aged beer...

Any thoughts?

-Zythe84

My thoughts- Ferment in primary until complete. That may will most likely be 7-10days for ales. Then rack to keg and cold condition for 2 weeks under co2 pressure. The beer should be pretty clear after a couple of pints have been drawn. Enjoy. If you are brewing lagers then follow the above procedure but leave the beer in cold conditions for at least 6 weeks.
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Aging varries a bit based on style of beer. For basic to intermediate ales I usually primary for 10 days to 2 weeks. Secondary for 5-7 days. Then cold crash the secondary for 2 days (gelatin will help here if you are really set on a clear beer) Then rack to keg and age on gas for 1-2 weeks.

So your closest choice to how I would do it is C

Many brewers don't secondary at all unless they are adding fruit or dry hopping. My fermentor pipeline is set up for secondary aging as I only have 2 primaries, so I secondary. It adds an extra step, and a small increase in chance to contaminate, but not that big a deal to me as it works for my setup.

If you opt out of secondary - which I recommend - you can do the following for most standard beers:

-Ferment in primary for 10 days to 3 weeks. I leave mine in for 3 weeks, it works fine.

-Cold crash the primary to 34 F. Leave at cold temps for a week or so. Beer will clear.

-Transfer to keg, if lagering, do so at this time. If an ale, put on the gas to carbonate.

-I carbonate at 12-15psi at around 40F and let it sit like that for a week. After a week it's about ready.

Most of my beers require another week to "calm down" and mellow out to taste really good. That's 6 weeks total for most normal ales. I have made some that tasted great at 5 weeks (edworts Kolsch), but most still taste young at 5 weeks.

Here's how I get my cleanest looking and tasting ales:

Primary at 64-66F until krausen is almost gone, then raise temp to 70 and hold for 3-5 days, depending on activity. Once all activity is finished and beer looks much clearer, I cold crash to 40 in the primary for several days. This compacts the sediment and yeast, so when racking to a keg, I pick up almost no yeast.

I then push the beer into a chilled keg purged with co2, avoiding any oxygen exposure by attaching a line to the keg rather than opening the lid and dropping in a hose. I do this step without moving or disturbing the primary fermenter in my cooler. My cooler is a tall lean-in thing that allows me to have carboys on the top shelf and kegs on the bottom, so all racking is done in place. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/getting-ready-keg-first-time-125817/#post1405237

I'd imagine you can tweak those temps and use 2 different temp steps rather than 3. I just like the cooler fermentation temp that ramps up at the end, to keep fermentation nice and slow.

Cheers and good luck!

Will the beer continue to age after cold crashing? I was under the impression that the beer aged as a result of the yeast tidying up the off flavors, and since cold crashing will eliminate a large majority of the yeast, should I wait to cold crash after at least 5 weeks?

5 weeks is a long time. That would be taking a "better safe than sorry" approach or a means to control a problem tasted in a sample. 5 weeks won't hurt anything I guess, but healthy yeast pitched correctly shouldn't take near that long to finish and taste great.