Primary fermentation "clean up"and when to cold-crash

I have a high gravity brew (Belgian tripel) that I brewed 17 days ago. I started fermentation at 64F and raised it slowly over 9 days to 78F. After 9 days, it had reached it's FG. The next day I dropped the temp to 44F and it's been sitting there for a week.

OG range: 1.075-1.085, actual 1.082
FG range: 1.010-1.016, actual 1.012
Recipe: http://www.beertools.com/html/recipe.php?view=3251

I know most people advocate longer primaries for high gravity brews, but is that inclusive of time spent cold crashing? Another way to say it is does cold-crashing prevent the yeast from cleaning up off-flavors?

I just kegged a tripel this morning that was on the yeast cake *stopping to calculate* 34 days. So the yeast should have had time to "clean up" (whatever the hell that is supposed to mean) and are now getting crashed to 33.

I probably would have gone a bit longer on the cake if your goal was to let the yeast "clean up", but your beer will be fine. My guess is there isn't a person in the world who could tell whether your beer was on the yeast cake for nine days vs. seventeen days.

Good job on the temperature management. I bet your tripel will be great!

osagedr said:

Good job on the temperature management. I bet your tripel will be great!

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Thanks!

I don't know how I got by before I stumbled upon the ebay aquarium build thread. It's my new pride and joy; I show it to everyone who comes to my house.

I would like to know the source of the "yeast cleaning up off flavors" urban legend. Yeast are good guys; I realize that, but I don't think they have any magic powers. Perhaps it does happen, but I'm rather skeptical of the claim.