Cooling Beer at end of Primary

In some reading ive done ive heard about "cold crashing" the beer and I have some questions about this.

If I have my beer in primary for lets say 3 weeks, and then put it into my cold wine cellar 50F for 5-7 days will this help my beer?

I bottle my beer and need to add sugar for carbonation, will I shock and loose most of my yeast?

Thanks.

have you been having a problem with your beer in the past that would require a cold crash? i would say if it isn't broken then don't fix it.

Lots of info in these forums on this issue...search and read young grasshopper then you must make up your own mind!

Basically, you will precipitate out a lot of sediment resulting in a clearer, cleaner beer. You will still have plenty of yeast to bottle condition though it may take longer to carb up. It will also compact the yeast cake making it easier to siphon off the beer. I would leave it in the primary for a minimum of 3 wks, 4-5 even better, then cold crash.

FINALLY, the answer to the next obvious question took me on a quest into the darkest, ugliest, scariest corners of this forum...the science threads :cross:

What temperature do you use to calculate the amount of priming sugar? Temp at bottling? Temp during fermentation? The answer, after much bleeding of the eyes and frontal cortex, is that one should calculate the amount of priming sugar based on the HIGHEST temperature reached during fermentation, even if your beer is just coming out of the fridge at near freezing temperatures.