Cold Crashing Secondary

Just looking for some advice on my first cold crashing.

I still have to dry hop so I was thinking moving to the secondary and dry hopping. Then cold crashing and warming back up for bottling.

My questions are what temp and how long should I cold crash? Also can I use gelatin in the secondary?

 

I assume your goal in cold crashing is to clear your brew. When you cold crash the yeast will also fall out of suspension and could affect carbonation. You will have to save some yeast from the primary or ad some new yeast at bottleing time to be safe.

I cold crash down to about 34 and do so for 11+ days. After 11 days everything that would have dropped out does so you are not gaining much.

You can skip the cold crash if you don't want to deal with adding yeast, which is a much smaller volume than you would ad for primary fermentation, and just bottle knowing that you can cold crash in the bottle after it has been conditioned.

Hope this helps.

 

actually you can do it just like you said it. dry hop first, cold crash for a couple days. as close to freezing as you can. low thirtys. after only a few days, you'll still have plenty of yeast to carbonate.

 

Agree with both if the above... One small tip.. If you are going to regularly cold crash beers (I do all the time), I would recommend a "double bubble" air lock instead of a three-peice. The three pieces will "suck back" water into your wort. The double bubbles won't

 

+1. sound advice. i only buy the s shaped airlocks for this reason

 

Good thoughts about the "S" airlocks.

After I crash the temps, I take a iodophore soaked paper towel and put on top of my air lock hole - leave for 24 hours.

After that, put on the 3 piece air lock (I never had the "S" airlocks, but did know about the suck down when chilling.)

Some of our brew club members put vodka in the airlock - just up to the line. Would rather have 1/4 vodka in the beer than iodophore.