Crash cooling, hydro sample and kegging question

First:
I recently brewed a honey nut brown ale. I pitched wyeast 1056 on the wort with an OG of 1040. I took a sample today and the gravity read 1008, however, there is still a good amount of yeast in the suspension. Will this affect my gravity reading with a hydrometer?

Second:
If this reading is correct, I would like to get this beer in the keg and carbonated ASAP (before christmas). Would crash cooling (setting the fermenter in the garage) drop the suspended yeast fast enough and effectively enough to keg this beer in a couple days?

Thanks in advance!

P.S. This is also and experiment for how fast I can make a beer. I choose to make a honey brown specifically because I thought the style would take well to being rushed. On that note, the beer has only been in the primary for 6 days, but fermentation has seemingly subsided.

No

Yes, if it's in the low to mid 30's in your garage.

1. You have 80% attenuation so the beer is most likely done fermenting. I don't believe the yeast affects the density of the water so you should be ok here.

2. I wouldn't worry too much about crash cooling it because a)It is a brown ale and 2) The yeast will settle to the bottom of the corney when you put it on tap. If you don't have the bottom half inch or so cut off of your dip tube then you can just throw the first pint out which will have a lot of the yeast in it. Also if you keep the racking cane suspended about an inch or so off of the bottom of the fermenter you will leave most of the yeast behind

I'd wait a bit so that some of the yeast drops out more, but it can be down at room temperature. Then I'd keg it.

I'd wait about a week and leave it right where it is, then just keg it and stick it in the kegerator. That way, you can carb it up while it's cold crashing. The excess yeast will still just drop to the bottom, and then you're not moving it around to stir it up. The beer can probably use the week or so, just in case there is any diacetyl or any other products from fermentation to be cleaned up, and then kegging it and carbing it up would be next.

There really isn't any right or wrong way to do it- that's just what I'd do.

Cool! I've never had a beer attenuate so quickly. And the surprising thing is that I didn't use starter as I usually do - just a fresh activator pack.

Again, I am stunned that I can make a beer this quickly.