a few Q's about cold crash, & re use cake

[Bronco1500]

Hello All,

This is my plan for next week. Any input is appreciated.

I have 5g of northern brewer Innkeeper w/ us-05 in the fridge fermenting. Im planning to cold crash at 40 degrees on wednesday. On Friday gonna brew up northern brewer barley wine. Ill cool with a chiller to about 70ish (depends on the temperature of the tap water) then I will add top off water that was in the fridge. This will drop the temp some more. Then sit....

Go to the cold crashed brew. Rack to secondary. Possible bottle, but ill prob be ready to stop (aka burnt) at this point and bottle the following day. Then add yeast nutrient to the fresh batch and pour onto the cake. Return to fridge and set controller at 66. The fridge and brew shold slowly warm.

So here come the questions:

1. How long and at what temp should I cold crash, Ive never done it before. On wednesday it will be 18 days in primary.

2. Can you "burn" or hurt the cold crashed yeast by pouring "warm" wort on it? In fear of this, I will drop the wort temp as low as I can....stupid??


Ive never done a "big" brew. I was thinking starting colder would help out the yeast and keep a better over all flavor.This will be brew # 9. Ive read a lot, but sometimes I feel like Im rubbing two sticks together to start a fire, when if I consult you experts you might loan me a zippo.

As always, any responses are greatly apreciated.

CHEERS

 

[imrook]

I used to cold crash when I brewed in my Mr Beer, but can't fit my 5g bucket in my fridge. I would put it in the night before bottling. You can probably get away with less time-I'm not sure how much.

As for re-using the yeast cake, why don't you rack the beer off into the secondary or bottling bucket before you start the barley wine. That'll give the cake a few hours to come up to room temp. Then the heat difference wouldn't be so bad.

 

[kylevester]

Overnight should be good, but the speed depends on how you've got your temperature probe. If it's not measuring the temp of the beer, then it will take longer, but overnight should be sufficient in either case.

For the yeast cake, you don't want a large temperature difference or you'll shock the yeast and potentially get off flavors. Bottle prior to brewing the barleywine, put the yeast cake back in the fridge and let it come back up to the low 60s.

 

[jeffmeh]

I would cold crash at 33F (for a week, but it looks like you are on a tighter schedule). Colder temp will give you a more compact cake. Rack off the cake the day before you want to pitch the barleywine, and let the cake warm up to around pitching temp. Have the wort around the same temp when you pitch.

 

[Bronco1500]

awesome advice guys.

ok the new plan...

cold crash at 35 for a week. bottle the day before brewing. Return cake to fridge and reset temp to 60.... blah blah blah

appreciate the help fellas