Cold crash questions

[Spartan300man]

I put my dry hops in my 5 gallon bucket, my IPA is looking good. I have 1/2 oz leaf, and 1 oz pellets in a hops bag with about 7 sanitized glass marbles. The bag is about 3/4 underwater, like an ice berg. Will the leaf hops absorb the beer and eventually sink?
I will give it 7-8 days, and then bottle. I had a lot of pellet hops in the boil, and at flameout. I expect the trub to be pretty thick. I don't have a large enough refrigerator space for cold crashing. I do have a plastic tub, it is a large picnic ice bucket with rope handles, that the fermenter bucket can fit in, with a couple inches of space all around the fermenter, and it goes up about 2/3 of the height of the fermenter bucket. I could fill it with ice and cold water for a couple of days. However when I used it during the initial fermentation, the plastic fermenter bucket seemed like a good insulator and the ice water bath only lowered the temp a few degrees under the room temp.
Another option, my friend has a restaurant and would let me put the bucket in his walk-in refrigerator overnight, about 24-32 hours. It is a 5 minute drive. I could then drive it home, or rack into into my glass carboy, then bring home and bottle. Is it worth doing that?

 

[C-Rider]

I put my dry hops in my 5 gallon bucket, my IPA is looking good. I have 1/2 oz leaf, and 1 oz pellets in a hops bag with about 7 sanitized glass marbles. The bag is about 3/4 underwater, like an ice berg. Will the leaf hops absorb the beer and eventually sink?
I will give it 7-8 days, and then bottle. I had a lot of pellet hops in the boil, and at flameout. I expect the trub to be pretty thick. I don't have a large enough refrigerator space for cold crashing. I do have a plastic tub, it is a large picnic ice bucket with rope handles, that the fermenter bucket can fit in, with a couple inches of space all around the fermenter, and it goes up about 2/3 of the height of the fermenter bucket. I could fill it with ice and cold water for a couple of days. However when I used it during the initial fermentation, the plastic fermenter bucket seemed like a good insulator and the ice water bath only lowered the temp a few degrees under the room temp.
Another option, my friend has a restaurant and would let me put the bucket in his walk-in refrigerator overnight, about 24-32 hours. It is a 5 minute drive. I could then drive it home, or rack into into my glass carboy, then bring home and bottle. Is it worth doing that?

TRANSPORTING the glass scares me.

 

[Spartan300man]

If I was to rack it in the restaurant in the glass carboy, I could transport if home in the large plastic basket wrapped with a blanket, and a solid rubber cork bung.

 

[Jwin]

Unless you are really worried about a clear beer, Don't worry about it. Any transfer would risk oxidation at least. Just rack the beer and bottle in a few days. It will taste the same, just a bit cloudy.
Any benefit of cold crashing would be offset by moving the contents around that much and racking post fermentation would oxidize.

 

[RM-MN]

Sorry, no comment.

 

[Spartan300man]

When I rack it into my bottling bucket, would it help (or cause more oxidation) if the end of the outlet tube was in my hops bag? Wondering if that would capture some of the sediment. I also have a funnel with a screen but I would assume that would cause too much splashing.

 

[Jwin]

Some do that, but if you just cover the bucket and allow it to rest for 10-15 minutes, a lot will settle down
Just don't try to get that last beer out of the fermenter.
I have tried to "filter" with a hop bag and also put a 5 gallon paint strainer bag in my bottling bucket before transfer
Neither did a whole lot aside from increase the chances of oxidation and infection
If you still have a lot of hops floating about, put your sanitized hop bag on the end of the siphon with sanitized hands and secure with a sanitized plastic bread tie or zip tie

 

[Spartan300man]

I dunked the hops bag several times, and it was 3/4 underwater, as the hops were soaking up wort. But several days later, it still has not sunk! I peaked inside, and it is bobbing, even with 7 marbles in it. I think the leaf hops soaked up liquid and became like a bobbing cork. All I can do is bottle this weekend and hope I got some dry hop impact from it. Although I am tempted to empty the bag out and let the leaf hops swim, and filter out at bottling.

 

[Moose_MI]

If you decide to take your fermenter to a restaurant i suggest you invite swmbo to dinner.....your survival could depend on it.

 

[Brew_G]

I ferment and cold crash in a rope-handled tub. I fill with water to just under the wort line in the carboy and insert a temperature probe into the water to monitor temps.

During fermentation, I use an aquarium heater or frozen water bottles to maintain temps (depending on what temp I want to ferment at). I cover the whole setup with an old North Face sleeping bag to help maintain temperature. Ambient temps in my basement are 58-63F (seasonally dependent), so I have a good starting point.

For cold crashing, I simply add multiple frozen water bottles to the water in the bucket - I eventually reach 40F in 24-36 hours if I replace the bottles every eight hours or so. I maintain those temps for a few days by replacing bottles every 12 hours after that, then fine with gelatin. I rack to the bottling bucket a couple days later.

Maintaining good fermentation and cold crash temps is certainly doable without a fridge/freezer and temp control setup - it just takes a little effort to do it!

 

[aprichman]

I dunked the hops bag several times, and it was 3/4 underwater, as the hops were soaking up wort. But several days later, it still has not sunk! I peaked inside, and it is bobbing, even with 7 marbles in it. I think the leaf hops soaked up liquid and became like a bobbing cork. All I can do is bottle this weekend and hope I got some dry hop impact from it. Although I am tempted to empty the bag out and let the leaf hops swim, and filter out at bottling.

I'm not sure why this happens, but when you dry hop CO2 bubbles tend to stick to the hops. When I dry hop it appears to "reactivate" the beer a bit. My personal theory is that there are tiny pockets of air that are probably great micro environments for the yeast to start reproducing in. At the point when most of us homebrewers add dry hops the fermentation is coming to an end and the yeast are starved for oxygen. Since a small amount of activity is taking place in the hops much of the gas created is trapped in or sticks to the hops. This basically turns the hops into tiny rafts.

This is just my theory, but dry hops in my experience tend to stir up a bit of activity and definitely exhibit raft like behavior.

 

[Jwin]

It's just off gassing. Co2 being released that was clinging to yeast/protiens/container that got disrupted.

I tried to dry hop 5oz in a near full 5g better bottle once. Bad idea. I put a blow off on it for a day.

 

[Spartan300man]

Should I dump out the hops bag? I guess I will have to somehow strain the batch when I bottle on Sunday. I'll skim the surface hops off and then rack it into the bottling bucket, let it sit for a while and hopefully settle any debris and then bottle.
I don't think putting my bottling bucket in an ice bath really has a quick cold-crashing effect, it seems like the plastic is a good insulator.

 

[Jwin]

Just let it be or throw some more pellets in if you really don't think you are getting enough aroma

 

[conan71]

The wisdom on cold crashing seems to be 32 to 34F for 24-48 hours. I don’t see any way you can approach that in a water bath. I also agree that moving it around is only going to stir up more trub and dead yeast.

You could simply do a longer secondary of an extra week or two after removing your hop bag and let gravity do its thing. That’s all cold crashing does in the first place, is help agglomerate the yeast into larger particles so it will fall out faster.

When you chill your bottles, it will clear some more, but there’s that dreaded sediment most people don’t care for in a beer. I think it makes it a little more rustic.

Also keep in mind, many micro brew IPAs are not overly clear beers so it’s not a party foul if it’s not crystal clear. That’s more a worry for other styles like pilsners.

 

[Brew_G]

The wisdom on cold crashing seems to be 32 to 34F for 24-48 hours. I don’t see any way you can approach that in a water bath. I also agree that moving it around is only going to stir up more trub and dead yeast.

You could simply do a longer secondary of an extra week or two after removing your hop bag and let gravity do its thing. That’s all cold crashing does in the first place, is help agglomerate the yeast into larger particles so it will fall out faster.

When you chill your bottles, it will clear some more, but there’s that dreaded sediment most people don’t care for in a beer. I think it makes it a little more rustic.

Also keep in mind, many micro brew IPAs are not overly clear beers so it’s not a party foul if it’s not crystal clear. That’s more a worry for other styles like pilsners.

Crashing is definitely doable, though getting down to 32-34F is nigh on impossible. My beers clear pretty well by using a water bath and getting it down as far as 36F, though it's mostly right around 39-40F. Fining with gelatin only helps to promote even more clearing.

 

[Brew_G]

Crashing is definitely doable, though getting down to 32-34F is nigh on impossible. My beers clear pretty well by using a water bath and getting it down as far as 36F, though it's mostly right around 39-40F. Fining with gelatin only helps to promote even more clearing.

Reply to self...

I tried a slightly different setup with this most recent batch, and last night it was time to add gelatin to my blonde/pale ale. I popped the frozen bottles into my tub and went about my business for the evening. Checked the temp of the water 12 hours later - it's sitting at 33F and the bottles are mostly frozen.

Gotta say...that's pretty damn impressive.