Early crashing

In what circumstances would you do this?


I know my answer to this but I am looking for others input so I can put things into better words.

Nightshade said:

In what circumstances would you do this?

I know my answer to this but I am looking for others input so I can put things into better words.

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What exactly do you mean by early crashing? Most people crash their beer prior to packaging to force clear the beer.

If you are asking about crashing before FG then it's a less than ideal practice

duboman said:

What exactly do you mean by early crashing? Most people crash their beer prior to packaging to force clear the beer.

If you are asking about crashing before FG then it's a less than ideal practice

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Yes before FG is what I mean by that question.

If you keg or otherwise aren't worried about bottle bombs, I'd call it attenuation control. Actually, that is what I call it. If I have a beer, say a stout, that I know was mashed a little low (152 instead of 154, for example) and I'm using an attuetive yeast like S-05, I'll keg and crash the beer when it gets to a certain gravity- maybe 1.016. That essentially stops fermentation as long as I keep the keg cold enough. As I typically don't crash for very long and keg slightly cloudy beer I do get a notable amount of yeast trub in the keg. I'm working on that, though. Kyle

Nightshade said:

Yes before FG is what I mean by that question.

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For what purpose? If you think by doing so you will halt any further fermentation, you will as the yeast will drop and go dormant but as soon as the temperature rises enough the yeast will just get busy fermenting again until there are no sugars left to consume.

duboman said:

For what purpose? If you think by doing so you will halt any further fermentation, you will as the yeast will drop and go dormant but as soon as the temperature rises enough the yeast will just get busy fermenting again until there are no sugars left to consume.

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It is just an open ended question you can answer as you see fit.

Without getting too specific the gist of it is that someone at a production level situation is being asked to crash beer at say 1.025 instead of allowing full attenuation (avg 1.010) for the sake of a sweeter beer. The person doing the asking has been informed that a sweeter beer can be had through recipe adjustments and use of a less attenuative yeast, but that idea has been shot down multiple times.

Nightshade said:

It is just an open ended question you can answer as you see fit.

Without getting too specific the gist of it is that someone at a production level situation is being asked to crash beer at say 1.025 instead of allowing full attenuation (avg 1.010) for the sake of a sweeter beer. The person doing the asking has been informed that a sweeter beer can be had through recipe adjustments and use of a less attenuative yeast, but that idea has been shot down multiple times.

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Got it, as well as using a different yeast the said production person could also mash at a higher temperature or add more specialty grain to achieve a different level of attenuation as well using the same yeast