Amount of Priming Sugar for Cold Crashed Beer?

[aprichman]

Going to bottle my first cold crashed batch tonight and want to make sure I'm getting the amount of priming sugar right.

I'm holding my 2.5 gallons of beer at ~34F. It's been there ~4 days and got hit with gelatin ~24 hours ago. When I enter my values into tastybrew's priming calculator it tells me I need to use ~1.1oz of 75% DME (I use Breiss Pilsner DME to prime) to get to 2.1 volumes CO2.

I'm used to bottling around 70F so this works out to about 1/3rd of the DME I'm used to using. Does anyone have any experience bottling after cold crashing? If so, do the TastyBrew numbers sound accurate? I'm sending some of these brews out so I want to make sure they're carbed properly.

 

[Sailingeric]

Use what ever you have been using before. There will still be yeast floating around to eat the sugar and carb up the beer. It might take a little bit longer to carb up but if you have a pipeline going, it should not be a problem.

 

[Brew_G]

The temperature you use to determine the amount of priming sugar should be the highest temperature of your beer after fermentation is complete. So...for example, if your primary fermentation was at 68F, then you ramped up to 72F to finish before cold crashing, then you should go with 72F as your "priming sugar temperature."

Basically, if you cold crash, it doesn't matter what the temp of the beer is at bottling - it should be the warmest temp of the beer after fermentation is complete.

 

[Jphillips13]

The temperature the calculators are asking for is the highest temp the beer reached after fermentation. If you let it rise to 70 to finish up, then use 70 as your temp for the calculator. That should get you an amount closer to what you're used to using.

 

[aprichman]

Thanks - that makes way more sense!

 

[daksin]

Heads up, though, unless you're going for a fairly lightly carbed beer, you'll want to go for 2.5 volumes. I used the calculator for my first batch, and it said that ESB should be carbonated to 2.1 volumes "for the style" but I found out that really, you want a bottle conditioned beer to be at 2.5. For cask, or even some draft beers, lower carb is ok, but really you want to hit 2.5 for your bottles.

 

[Brew_G]

Heads up, though, unless you're going for a fairly lightly carbed beer, you'll want to go for 2.5 volumes. I used the calculator for my first batch, and it said that ESB should be carbonated to 2.1 volumes "for the style" but I found out that really, you want a bottle conditioned beer to be at 2.5. For cask, or even some draft beers, lower carb is ok, but really you want to hit 2.5 for your bottles.

I find that 2.2-2.4 works for me. It's a personal preference!

 

[C-Rider]

Unless I'm doing something wrong, when I use Beer Smith2 the amount of priming sugar goes down the colder the beer is at bottling time.

 

[dustinboyd]

Why is it that the Northern Brewer priming calculator asks for the *current* beer temperature, if the above posts say that priming is supposed to be based off of the highest temp the beer had reached?
http://www.northernbrewer.com/learn/resources/priming-sugar-calculator/

 

[AnOldUR]

A lot of the calculators were developed before cold crashing became common practice and need to be corrected to reflect the science behind CO2 retention.

 

[GHBWNY]

Although I have primed when the beer was both warm and cold, doesn't it make sense, since your beer is going to warm up to room temp as it conditions/carbs, to calibrate the vols CO2 according to what the ferm temp was for that style?

 

[AnOldUR]

Although I have primed when the beer was both warm and cold, doesn't it make sense, since your beer is going to warm up to room temp as it conditions/carbs, to calibrate the vols CO2 according to what the ferm temp was for that style?

No. Actually it's the highest temperature that the beer sat at after fermentation was complete and no more CO2 was being introduced. During this time it will reach equilibrium for that temperature and since no new CO2 is being produced, lowering the temperature will not change the amount of CO2 in suspension. Existing CO2 in suspension is what determines how much priming sugar you'll need to reach your desired volumes.

 

[dustinboyd]

Makes sense, thanks for the explanation.

 

[BigFloyd]

A lot of the calculators were developed before cold crashing became common practice and need to be corrected to reflect the science behind CO2 retention.

No. Actually it's the highest temperature that the beer sat at after fermentation was complete and no more CO2 was being introduced. During this time it will reach equilibrium for that temperature and since no new CO2 is being produced, lowering the temperature will not change the amount of CO2 in suspension. Existing CO2 in suspension is what determines how much priming sugar you'll need to reach your desired volumes.

This ^^^^^^. Do not change the amount of priming sugar at all because you (wisely) cold crash the batch.