To cold crash or not to cols crash, that is the question!

Doing my first beer (ipa) in a primary for 3 weeks and I want to get clear beer. I heard that cold crashing for a couple days helps the dead yeast settle to the bottom and really helps clear the beer. What is your thought of cold crashing? Is it worth the effort or should I just forget about it?

I have had good results cod crashing. Just put 5gal of a Zombie Dust clone in to crash today. Helps with Large hop pices.

I think it's totally worth doing, and other than my porters/stouts and wheat beers, I cold-crash every batch.

But "two days" might be optimistic. If I'm crashing a single 5g carboy from ~65°F down to 34°F in one of my 17cf fridges, it takes a full day just to reach that temperature - and two of them takes all of two days to get there.

By the time the beer hits terminal temperature, all of the dry hop pellet mush has hit the bottom, and then it typically takes a good 2-3 days to really brighten.

As I keg, and use "set and forget" carbing at dispensing temperature, there will be at least two weeks of cold conditioning before I'll tap a keg, which will leave "regular" ales "read through" bright after the first pour.

But when a keg kicks there's barely a tablespoon of yeasty/trubby bits left, so nearly all of the real clearing is being done during crashing...

Cheers!

If you have a temp controller and can crash by just touching a few buttons, it's kind of a no-brainier. I usually do mine 3-5 days at 36-38*F.

Definitely cold crash if you have a means to do so.

SmittyisLEGEND said:

I heard that cold crashing for a couple days helps the dead yeast settle to the bottom and really helps clear the beer.

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FYI, most of the yeast are not dead.

So even after cold crashing there is always going to be yeast in it right? How does that affect bottling?

Yes there will still be lots of yeast in there to eat the priming sugar. I have noticed that my clearer/coldcrashed beers take a bit longer to carb up nice though (another week or two).

Okay sweet, I do have a temperature controller and everything to set it up. So just to clear it up for me since I'm new.. I should put the carboy that I'm currently fermenting in straight to te freezer, set the temperature for 40 degrees and leave in for 2-4 days. And right after the cold crash when I transfer to the keg should I let the corny keg sit in the keezer for awhile before I put the co2 in it to carbonate or should I hit it with some co2 right away? Or does it affect the carbonation?

Meant 34-36 drgrees*

SmittyisLEGEND said:

[...]I should put the carboy that I'm currently fermenting in straight to te freezer, set the temperature for [fixed: 34-36°F] degrees and leave in for 2-4 days.

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Yes.

And right after the cold crash when I transfer to the keg should I let the corny keg sit in the keezer for awhile before I put the co2 in it to carbonate or should I hit it with some co2 right away? Or does it affect the carbonation?

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No need to let the keg sit, it will be plenty cold after racking from the chilled carboy. You can put it on gas straight away...

Cheers!

I cold crashed my first beer (IPA) in a 5.0cf chest freezer for 36 hours at 35*. Turned out very clear and no floaties anywhere that I could detect.

day_trippr said:

No need to let the keg sit, it will be plenty cold after racking from the chilled carboy. You can put it on gas straight away...

Cheers!

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That is a nice side benefit of cold crashing the fermenter. If you keg, the beer is already chilled to the right temp to start carbonating it.