Cold Crashing.... How Cold?

Hey All,

I finally have my Lagering setup all ready to go. I have an upright fridge with a temp controller. I'm cold crashing both a batch of Edworts Haus Pale and my Altbier recipe and was wondering what temperature should i set the controller for? I've heard of some people conditioning at near freezing temperatures, and others saying don't go below 50 degrees for an ale. It changes the flavor profile...

What do you all do?

I like to go as cold as possible without freezing. 36-40f works well.

As for "changing the flavor profile" of ales, what it really does is "clean up" the beer. I cold-conditioned a porter, and it really left it nice and clean...but still retained the "ale"-ish characteristics that you'd expect.

I just do it in my kegerator, that I keep around 42. I dont think it should change the profile any more than keeping your bottles in the fridge??

Evan! said:

I like to go as cold as possible without freezing. 36-40f works well.

As for "changing the flavor profile" of ales, what it really does is "clean up" the beer. I cold-conditioned a porter, and it really left it nice and clean...but still retained the "ale"-ish characteristics that you'd expect.

Click to expand...

After how much time do you crash ales? Do they require secondary if you crash them?

I've had the best results with one week in secondary "warm" then one week cold. I don't want to crash the yeast out too quickly. If we're talking about a big beer, 1.060 and higher, obviously you'd want to lengthen the warm aging even further. Beers get incredibly clear being cold and it doesn't take all that long. BM's gelatin technique pushes it even faster if you're in a big hurry.

I suppose if you lengthen your primary for a week after active fermentation, you can rack to secondary and immediately chill it. I've tried crashing the primary after 2 weeks and then going right to keg but the racking process kicked a lot of sediment out and I ended up with at least 4 pints of cloudy beer before it started clearing. I'm confident enough in my racking and sanitation technique that I have no reason to skip secondary anymore. I even have a spare CO2 bottle in the basement to do quick secondary purges (watch craigslist like a hawk and snipe it).

I'm with bobby. I leave it in secondary at room temp for at least a week or two for conditioning, then put it in the lagerator. There's no set amount of time for this, either: it's more a product of whether I have space free in the lagerator, and when I feel like getting around to bottling it.

I'm gonna try this since my Sanyo will be empty soon. I'll crash it after one week primary and about 10 days secondary...

I have all but quit using a clearing tank. I let the beer sit 4-6 weeks in primary then move it to a 40f kegerator for at least 1 week. Keg and enjoy!