Cold conditioning Kolsch in bottles

[greatschmaltez]

I am pretty excited to make a Kolsch but currently only have bottling capability. I have read that cold conditioning will help flocculate and clean up the beer so I want to do that. My question is where in the process should I do the cold conditioning? Should it be in the secondary fermentor or in the bottles after the priming sugar has been digested and the bottles are carbed?

 

[Joemama474]

After the beer has carbed up.

 

[mlg5039]

I respectfully disagree.

You should cold condition in a secondary vessel to clear things up and clean up the flavor.

Then after a few weeks, allow the secondary to rise to room temp and bottle as usual. It make take longer for it to Carb up, but there will still be enough yeast for the job.

 

[Joemama474]

Uh... For what it's worth, I misread the question. mlg5039 is right, although I omit secondary.

 

[jpoder]

IMHO, both will work. Mlg and joemama are right, the correct way is cold condition in secondary then bottle, but you can bottle, allow to carbonate then cold condition in the bottle too.

I did just that with a kolsch this last winter/spring. I had planned to cold condition in secondary in my cold garage, but the spring weather got too warm so I bottled and let bottles condition for 4-6 weeks in the fridge before drinking. Results were good.

This may not be the best way to do it, but if you want to brew this style and lack a lagering fridge, it will work for you.