Cold Crash, Kegging, and Siphon ?s

[carter840]

Alright so I have a beer that will be dry hopped in secondary and then I was planning on cold crashing before I transfer to the keg. My problem is the only way I can cold crash is by putting this secondary in my keggerator. My concern is that my auto siphon won't work to extract the beer since the keg and the secondary will be at the same elevation. Am I right to assume this? Moving the secondary would be very difficult without really agitating it, based on space constraints I have in my tap area.

Also a lot of the reading I am doing suggests that kegging essentially removes the need to cold crash and that what you end up with is a couple bad first glasses from the tap, but after that it is basically cold crashed via keg.

What are people thoughts on this. It seems like a lot of folks on here cold crash and also keg. This beer is a super cloudy ale and I would really like to clear it up.

 

[TorribleBrew]

If you are in CT, you could cold crash outside and then carefully transfer it to your racking area. I cold crash and rack in my garage.

You are correct, in that you can get away with not cold crashing more so when kegging. However, if your beer is "super cloudy" I would suggest letting the yeast keep working on it, especially if you have not transferred it yet.

How long has the beer been fermenting?

 

[TayWhyte]

I cold crash and keg.

You are right to assume that the siphon won't work if it is on the same level. I have to actually lift the carboy from the fridge to a counter top right next to it so I get the elevation change. (I know some that this may not be feasable for some). What is the drop from the fridge to the floor? It might take more effort to get it going and maintained but any drop will work, just more slowly the shorter the distance.

I don't seem to rouse up much trub/yeast when I do move the carboy. After a day or two of cold temps it all seems to cohere nicely and very little is agitated. Besides, if some is agitated and it goes into the keg then you have only 1/2 a glass that you have to dump as opposed to 2!

 

[carter840]

Today is the 3 week in primary. There is no longer airlock activity, so I was confident that this beer was finished. It is just an amber ale and it really shouldn't need to so long. I think part of my issue is that I didn't will my wort quickly before pitching and therefore didn't get a good cold break.

I might empty my fridge and cold crash in there, who needs food when you have beer right?

I'm also not sure how cloudy the beer really is since it's possible the glass carboy walls are cloudy rather than the beer, but it truly does look hazy in there. I'm going to rack tonight and update you folks on the clarity.

Oh and about outside, I'm in a city so it isn't really plausible for me.

 

[malkore]

Today is the 3 week in primary. There is no longer airlock activity, so I was confident that this beer was finished.

While I agree 3 weeks in primary is probably good...why on Earth are you trying to use the airlock to gauge fermentation being 'done'?

Don't you have a hydrometer? That is the ONLY way to measure things. The airlock is a gas vent. Airlocks bubble when fermentation ended and the yeast is dormant. Airlocks fail to bubble at high krausen.


Use the hydrometer.

 

[carter840]

While I agree 3 weeks in primary is probably good...why on Earth are you trying to use the airlock to gauge fermentation being 'done'?

Don't you have a hydrometer? That is the ONLY way to measure things. The airlock is a gas vent. Airlocks bubble when fermentation ended and the yeast is dormant. Airlocks fail to bubble at high krausen.


Use the hydrometer.

Although I entirely agree with many of your sentiments to dismiss airlock activating entirely is just as naive as to rely on it as the sole indication of fermentation. My personal belief is that knowing temperature history of the primary in conjunction with past and current visual of the vessels contents and it's airlock activity is enough to estimate fermentation. In my case I had an OG of only 1.046 and was confident that 3 weeks was long enough. My philosophy is to minimize messing with the beer if I don't think it needs to be messed with. I'm confident that I was down to my predicted FG even a weeks or so ago, but I wanted to let it sit even longer to be sure.

I measured SG tonight and it was 1.018, which is pretty close to the 1.015 I was expecting (from software) especially considering that my OG was 1.046 rather than the 1.051 the software predicted.


Anyway I racked tonight and had a taste and was blown away, the aroma of hops and many different flavors were already great and I'm sure it will improve with the dry hop.
As for clarity it's not that bad. Overall for my beer it's looking good.