Cold Crashing in a Keg

My first batch is BierMuncher's Centennial Blond, and I was planning to transfer it to a keg today and put it in the fridge to cold crash for a week. It's been in the fermenter for 14 days, and I have gotten consistent FG readings. I've read where you can just leave it in the primary to cold crash, but I wanted to free up my fermenter.

Should I pressurize the keg while I'm cold crashing? If so, how much pressure? What is a good temp for cold crashing? Can it be force-carbed at the same time as cold crash, or is that a separate action?

As always, I appreciate your assistance and apologize that I haven't found these answers in my searching.

I don't see anything wrong with what you propose but remember it will take a little longer to age at refrigerator temps.

Yes, I would pressurize the keg to serving pressure and try to wait 2 weeks.

Sure, you can cold crash in keg at the same time you force carb. Looking at the recipe, it seem as though two weeks from brew to keg is normal for this beer. Seems a little short to me but if that's what he recommends then I'd go ahead and give it a shot. As for time and pressure in the keg, at 40F under 15# of pressure for a week should yield 2.7 volumes. If you go colder, you're going to want to reduce the pressure or the beer will overcarb. I serve my beers at 5# but this may vary depending on your epuipment.

Thanks for the advice, guys. This is a slightly different question to follow up, but let's say I wanted to use the keg as a secondary and leave it out at room temp, which in my room would be 72 degrees. What would need to be done in terms of hooking up the gas and then disconnecting. I'm assuming that I would need to add some Co2.

well, the nice thing about using it as a secondary is that you could add a little gas to it and immediately purge to push out the O2.

Your going to need to monitor the gas in the keg to ensure there is always pressure on the seals. The warmer the beer in the keg is, the less gas it'll absorb though so you'll only need to top it off to ten pounds or so once a week to keep the seal. Once a week, check the relief valve to make sure there is still pressure in the keg then hook it up to the gas with the regulator set to ten pounds to top it off.

Personally, I always use a secondary for clearing.

When I rack to the carboy I want it as clear as possible going in.

Thanks for the advice, guys. I wasn't able to rack to the keg yesterday, and I will probably give that batch another week in the primary, but I'm going to study more about using the keg as a secondary and for conditioning/storage. I made a pretty nice CL score and will be coming into four more carboys. So if I don't get all out of control I should have plenty carboys for use as secondaries.

memphomaniac said:

. . . I was planning to transfer it to a keg today and put it in the fridge to cold crash for a week . . .

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Isn't that just called kegging? I was under the impression that the purpose of cold crashing was to clear the beer before kegging or bottling.

I suppose it is. I don't have my terms straight yet. I wanted to move the batch out of the fermenter so I could start another batch, and the keg is all I have at the moment to move it to. I wasn't sure if I would need to rack to another keg after cold crashing.

memphomaniac said:

I suppose it is. I don't have my terms straight yet.

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Not so sure myself. I guess that if you chilled your keg to 37 degrees for a few days and brought the temperature to 45 for serving it would be using the term "cold crash" correctly?

Cold crashing for me is bringing the current container and beer to 35F or so, and that makes the yeast settle to the bottom and stick, so when I rack to keg it is crystal clear.
Now, I do at times rack to a keg as the secondary/conditioning vessel, presurize, let it age, then crash cool that and rack to second keg. I'm doing that right now with a mead and an Apfelwein. Sometimes I crash cool both twice if I want a very clear drink.
I know it's a little anal, but hey if you care enough you go to extremes right?

You can cold crash in a keg, but then I'd consider that keg to be a secondary vessel. If you really wanted to serve out of it, you'd be better off trimming or bending the dip tube just a bit and making sure you don't move it during it's time in serving position. There will be significantly more sediment in there than if you cold crashed prior to racking in.

I cold crash before kegging... I think that the term "cold crashing" refers to crashing the temp BEFORE bottling or kegging to keep the yeast and any precipitating protiens out of the serving vessel.

Thanks for the discussion. Initially I was thinking in terms of the keg just being a secondary, but then I got it muddled by asking about the carbing. I ended up kegging the Centennial Blond. I have it hooked up to 12lbs of gas at 40 degrees, so I suppose I have skipped the cold crashing and will have some sediment to deal with.

Do you guys always cold crash?

I always do, it is just easy to toss the fermentor in the kegerator for a couple days.

would it be ok to cold crash for a week in the secondary, and the keg and store at a warmer temperature for conditioning? Maybe garage temps of 50 or so, or will this cause problems?

badgerbrewer1 said:

would it be ok to cold crash for a week in the secondary, and the keg and store at a warmer temperature for conditioning? Maybe garage temps of 50 or so, or will this cause problems?

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I'm interested in this as well. I was always under the thinking that once you put a beer in the fridge it had to stay there until you consume it.

Think about it - commercial beer doesn't stay in the fridge until consumed

I am curious how the pressure would change going form cold to warm and vice versa though. Also when you cold crash in a carboy it creates a vacuum in the secondary - what happens with the keg?

I thought I've read about people using the keg as a secondary and just blowing out the yeast sediment on the first pour. I can't see anything wrong with this?

I know it's advantageous to chill your beer prior to force carbing because it absorbs it faster.