Cold crash

I come and go to this site (based on my brewing activity), first time since spring. I see cold crashing coming up alot. This may also be why I've seen threads about what to put in your airlock, in case it gets sucked back in.

I've never cold crashed, always put plain water in my airlock (it always bubbles out, never sucks in). I only make ales, due to refrigeration issues, and am very satisfied with my results.

Best I can tell, cold crashing drops out the haze causers, creating clear beer. Any other reason? This being the beginner forum, I would like to clarify (no pun intended) what needs to be done, and what is done to further refine the process. I see too many beginners overwhelmed by unnecessary details while learning a relatively easy process.

Cold crashing definitely helps the yeast drop clear (ale yeast especially) since it puts the yeast in a dormant state. I've cold crashed meads to get the yeast to drop out quickly. Cold crashing is mostly a clarity thing, but you can use it to slow down (maybe stop) a fermentation depending on the specific situation of your batch.

So now you've created more questions. How does this affect bottle conditioning? Do I want to put my yeast in a dormant state? Will it be revived to carbonate my bottles? Why would I want to stop the fermentation of a batch?

There will still be enough active yeast to carbonate after cold crashing. I cold crash every batch and carb in bottles with no problems.

Carbing in the bottle shouldn't be an issue. Well there are a couple of reasons to stop the fermentation of something I guess. For example, I wanted a mead of mine to finish somewhat sweet, so I cold crashed to slow down the fermentation enough that I could stabilize the mead with potassium sorbate. Worked like a charm.