Halting fermentation early

[DonT]

I'm fermenting out a hazy made with Voss and it's pretty much done. According to BeerSmith, I'm at 77.9% attenuation. OG 1.076, current FG is 1.016. The Voss beers I've done in the past usually end up at 80%+
I would like it to keep it where it is now as I don't want it to get any drier (thinner)... So my question is can I soft crash now to stop/slow fermentation and dry hop as planned? I've never attempted this before, always just let it go until it's stabilized. I don't think it will do any harm or cause off-flavors and in 3-4 days it'll be in a keg. I ferment in a Flex+ so I can't drop the yeast...

Thanks

 

[lumpher]

Cold-crashing won't stop fermentation. At best it will stop it temporarily or slow it down. If you want to stop it cold crash it and throw in some crushed Campden tablets.

 

[day_trippr]

And the problem with the continuing fermentation would be the potential for diacetyl to enter the chat...

Cheers!

 

[DonT]

One more data point = 82F ferm temp

The plan is to soft crash to 50F for 24h, dry hop for 24h, then drop to 38F for 48h

So far no diacetyl...

 

[hotbeer]

If you stop the fermentation early, then how will you keep it stopped if there are fermentable sugars available? Yeast still live even when they aren't doing anything.

I suppose if you keg and keep it cold, it might not be so much of an issue. But bottles and stored for a while might be a issue. Even if you keep them at refrigerator temps.

If you want a beer that isn't so dry, you need to change up the temps at which you mash so you get different ratios of fermentable and unfermentable sugars. Or maybe change your type of yeast. If this is a extract brew, I've no idea what you do for that.

Perhaps you could pasteurize it, but that really takes some special equipment not to destroy the taste of the beer. Or so I've been told. But perhaps heating your beer to 170°F and holding it at that temp awhile might destroy the yeast and not hurt your beer too much.