does cold crashing hurt carbonation?

I keep reading about people cold crashing before bottling and with the amount I dry hop it sounds interesting. But isn't pulling the yeast out of suspension a bad thing right before bottling? Don't we need the yeast in order to carbonate/bottle condition?

 

Yes, we need the yeast, but there are still plenty of yeast left in suspension after cold crashing to carbonate your beer. Even after lagering for several months, there is still enough yeast to carb up.

 

No worries. There will be plenty of yeast left to carb. Depending on the strain and the beer, it might take a few days longer to carb, but you still turn around the batch faster than if you had just let it sit there at room temp and slowly clear.

 

Thanks guys. Any threads or instructions online regarding cold crashing, ie a how to ?

 

It's pretty simple - just move the ferementer into a refrigerator for a few (3-4) days prior to bottling. For extra clarity, you can dose it with some gelatin after giving it a day or so to chill down first. Here's how you use the gelatin:

• Sprinkle 1 tbsp of gelatin crystals into 250 mL of boiled and cooled water at room temperature.
• Wait 20 minutes for the gelatin to "bloom."
• 10-15 seconds at a time, heat the water/gelatin mixture in the microwave until it reaches 150° F. DO NOT BOIL the mixture. You only want to heat it to 150° F.
• Stir to fully dissolve the gelatin. The water should be clear, maybe with a slight yellow tint and a little distorted when you look through it.
• Pour it into the chilled beer

You mentioned dry hopping, so I'm assuming you're making an IPA. With IPAs, I modify my procedure slightly in order to preserve as much hop aroma as possible, while still ending up with clear beer. The issue is that the gelatin can potentially strip hop oils out of your beer, so I dry hop after undergoing my clarification protocol. Here's what I do with my IPAs:

1. Allow 3 weeks to fully ferment out.
2. Move into refrigerator to cold-crash.
3. 1 day later, add gelatin
4. 4 days later, rack to a 5 gallon carboy, add dry hops, and leave out of refrigertor to allow it to warm up
5. Wait 5-7 more days
6. Cold-crash again in refrigerator, but no gelatin this time
7. Wait 3-4 more days
8. Rack to keg and begin carbonating.

It takes slightly longer, but I end up with very clear beer and a prominent hop aroma.

 

It's so simple, it probably doesn't deserve a name. Just put it someplace cold. That's it. Use an S-shaped airlock so you don't get suckback as the temp drops. Leave it there until the beer clears to your satisfaction. Some yeast drop quickly when exposed to cold. Others linger for a bit before dropping. The colder it is, the faster it will clear (above freezing of course).

Just a note - don't use your cold crash temp when using any of the online priming calculators. Use the temp from your fermentation. (Unless you are cold crashing for weeks and giving the CO2 time to reach equilibrium.)

 

Thank you so much !!! So I have about an inch of bloated dry hop pellets floating on top of my carboy, will cold crashing sink these too?

 

I've never noticed dry hops floating on top of the beer, but when I cold crash an IPA they all sink to the bottom and I get pretty clear beer.

 

This is the second IPA i've made, and all of the dry hops just float on top of the beer. They break down and form like a 1 inch layer of hop mush on top. There was zero krausen, the beer was super clear when I tossed the hops in. That's not normal for them to stay on top like that? Should I be trying to sink them?

 

When I dry hopped my last IPA, the hops stayed at the top until the carboy was disturbed (shook it ever so slightly while moving it to the crawlspace for cold crashing), then they all dropped.

 

I would gently swirl the carboy around and try to get them to fall. If they stay near the top you're going to either lose more beer when you package it or end up with a lot of hop debris in your finished beer.

 

Swirling worked. Still a tiny bit left but most of it sank.

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