Is 28 F too cold to use for overnight 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.

msa8967

mickaweapon
HBT Supporter
Joined
May 13, 2009
Messages
2,894
Reaction score
113
Location
North Liberty, Iowa
I have tomorrow off from work in the morning and want to bottle 8 gallons of an Irish Red Ale. My fermentation fridge is occupied with a large flightless bird. Thus, I am thinking of setting my fermentors outside to cold crash overnight. The low is forcast to be 28 F. Is this too cold for the beer? I could set it in my attched garage that is around 45 F.
 
I'm not an expert by any means, but I wouldn't put it out for fear of freezing. I set my cider out a couple nights ago, it's about 45 in my area, and it cleared ok.
 
Overnight? Oh yeah, you'll be fine. I'll bet it would take 3 days for the whole carboy to freeze. You might have a thin layer of ice after 24 hours but no way will you have more than that. It takes a little over 24 hours in my freezer to freeze a gallon of water.
 
Overnight? Oh yeah, you'll be fine. I'll bet it would take 3 days for the whole carboy to freeze. You might have a thin layer of ice after 24 hours but no way will you have more than that. It takes a little over 24 hours in my freezer to freeze a gallon of water.

Sorry I forgot to mention that the beer is still in a bucket not a carboy. Would that make much of a difference?
 
I put mine out in slightly colder overnight temps and beer (mild) was fine. Oh, btw, mine was in a bucket too.
 
msa8967 said:
Sorry I forgot to mention that the beer is still in a bucket not a carboy. Would that make much of a difference?

A bucket will make it hold its current temp longer, since it's thicker and plastic is a better insulator
 
Check weather.com and click for details and you can access the overnight temperature profile. It will probably only hit 28 degrees for a short while so if the beer is warm now I would say there is little chance it would freeze. You could also put it in a bucket of water at the same temperature and it would have to cool much more before it froze.
 
well now, I just put a carboy of pumking clone in the deep freeze yesterday - way below 28 degrees. it was a well packed slush today. its been thawing out on my counter all day.

be careful.
 
runningweird said:
well now, I just put a carboy of pumking clone in the deep freeze yesterday - way below 28 degrees. it was a well packed slush today. its been thawing out on my counter all day.

be careful.

That's probably at 4-6 degrees f though (colder even?). The beer might not even freeze at all at 28 degrees. It depends on the abv%
 
Back
Top