Cold crashing?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

MazdaMatt

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 7, 2011
Messages
274
Reaction score
12
Location
St. Thomas
TL;DR version: Will cold crashing compact the trub?

I did my first AG brew a few weeks ago. A chocolate oatmeal stout. I made plenty of mistakes, one of which was not separating the trub from the boil so it didn't enter the fermenter. It is a small batch in a 3gal carboy but there's a solid 4 inches of crap on the bottom AND a permenent layer of white on top.

I checked the gravity today and I'm at the target FG (despite missing target OG by a longshot) and it tastes delicious at 4%abv.

SO, the question is... will a cold crash:
a) compact the sediment so I can get more beer from the carboy
b) make that seemingly permanent layer of white fall down?

Did I mention this beer is delicious?


... I need to wire up the thermostat/relay/plug that I've got for my freezer.
 
A cold crash will bring the yeast out of suspension and cause it to fall, but the sediment should already be at the bottom. Not quite sure what kind of permanent white layer you are talking about unless its yeast that is still fermenting the wort, but after two week that shouldn't be the case on a regular ABV beer.
 
Thanks.

I realize that the cold crash will cause more sediment to fall, i'm just wondering if it will compact the sediment any further so I can more beer off the top and feel less wasteful. Is there any way to filter beer out of the top inch or so of sediment? I'm just desperate to keep as much of this delicious chocolate stout as i can.

If I had to guess I'd say that due to the oatmeal and my dumb mistake of not mashing long enough (only 30 minutes due to a misread :() that this beer has a lot of starch and that's what the top layer is comprised of - starch that was mixed with the kraussen and as the kraussen fell the starch congeled on top? That's really a secondary worry... i just want as much beer as possible out of this. i was stupid to dump the entire boil (except a couple cups of trub) into the fermenter.
 
Back
Top