Does Filtering Make Cold Conditioning Unneccesary

[jsherlock22]

Hey Guys and Gals. Read dozens of threads but cant seem to find one getting at my exact question. I primary for 2-3 weeks, check FG and check for green beer off flavors. If FG checks out ok and there are no off flavors, does filtering save me weeks of cold conditioning time? Someday when I have the time for a pipeline I wont be so impatient, but for now with 3 little ones under 6, brew time is infrequent so i long to go from kettle to glass ASAP. I hear many say that a week or two of cold crashing the keg and they are pouring clear beer after the first 1 or 2 pints. I havent found that to be the case. I may not be using the proper series of finings in the kettle, carboy, or keg but the few times I have cold crashed for 24 hours and filtered have produced clear crisp non-yeasty beer. I have no problems spending an hour filtering if it can speed up what it takes mother nature weeks to do. If the yeast is done doing its clean up work, is cold conditioning simply a mechanical process of particulates dropping out or does it truly improve beer flavor to a noticable level not achieved by filtering? If so, why? Thanks so much.

 

[hercher]

For the most part, you are correct: filtering essentially is forced aging. So you don't need to cold condition your beer.

 

[erikpete18]

Filtering it might not get rid of the proteins that could form chill haze though as they'd still be in suspension at the room temps you're filtering at. I believe that to get rid of chill haze (if you have any), you'd have to filter cold or use finings on the cold beer after the proteins have fallen out of solution. That being said, I've only had one batch where my IC broke down that had chill haze and I didn't notice any bad flavors, but it was an IPA that probably could have covered up a lot.

If its just yeast (or renegade trub/hop particles) that you're trying to get rid of, filtering should get you where you want to be. I suppose the yeast still around during the cold crash might be helping the beer out somewhat, but at the temps the yeast is at at I wouldn't worry about whatever small level of improvement that would give you.

 

[jsherlock22]

Thanks guys. Very helpful. I do crash it for 24 hours or so before filtering so hopefully that will help with the possible chill haze problem.

 

[hercher]

I may not be using the proper series of finings in the kettle, carboy, or keg but the few times I have cold crashed for 24 hours and filtered have produced clear crisp non-yeasty beer.

He is cold filtering.

Obviously, how clear you get your beer is dependent on how fine you are filtering. But I think the bottom line is that filtering will speed up the process of getting beer from kettle to glass. Just keep in mind, as I suspect you already know, you don't want to filter carbonated beer, so you still need to cold condition it awhile.