Cold Crash Temps

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Drebin138

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I’m about to put gelatin in my beer to fine and I wanted to cold crash for a few days as well. The best place for me to crash is in the garage where the temp is usually around 30-40 maybe 45 degrees during the cold winter months. Is that too cold? Seems like I mostly see temps from 45-55 for cold crashing.

Edit: so my original plan was to get my gravity reading, add gelatin, cold crash for a few days then bring the temp back up to around 70 and add my dry hops.

When I popped the lid the color and clarity was pretty much exactly where I wanted it so I’m not going to add gelatin. Is there any benefit of cold crashing still?
 
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You might be confusing laggering with cold crashing. While they are similar in principle, there are big differences between the two.

Cold crashing should be done to help clarify the finished product. Usually we will add polyclar or gelatin to the beer once it’s been transferred to another vessel such as a keg. The temp should be held consistent for about a week at as close to 32 as possible. (Unfortunately my brite tank with my current glycol system only goes to 35 before my coils freeze up, so 35 works well for us). The purpose of this is to put a polish on your finished beer similar to filtering, but without stripping character from your finished product. The proteins which cause chill haze will drop to the bottom of your vessel and coagulate in your gelatin allowing you to pour a clean clear beer. You don’t want to cold crash then raise the temp again. Cold crashing is the last step in your process and a lot of people will do it in the keg in their kegerator since the kegerator is set about 32 anyway. You really don’t want fluctuation in temp at all during your brewing process, but especially during your cold crash.

Laggering is done after fermentation is complete and the beer is transferred. Lager is a German word for to store. It should be done about 35-40 after a diacytal rest of 65-70 for 24 hours. We raise our temp because lagers ferment at 50 degrees, and the yeast often times are too cold and sluggish to blow off off flavors such as diacytal and acedalaldyde. Raising the temp to 70 will warm the yeast enough to blow off byproducts of fermentation.

Laggering will create a crisp clean clear product as well, but is normally held for much longer than a cold crash.

Hope that clarifies things a bit
 
You might be confusing laggering with cold crashing. While they are similar in principle, there are big differences between the two.

Cold crashing should be done to help clarify the finished product. Usually we will add polyclar or gelatin to the beer once it’s been transferred to another vessel such as a keg. The temp should be held consistent for about a week at as close to 32 as possible. (Unfortunately my brite tank with my current glycol system only goes to 35 before my coils freeze up, so 35 works well for us). The purpose of this is to put a polish on your finished beer similar to filtering, but without stripping character from your finished product. The proteins which cause chill haze will drop to the bottom of your vessel and coagulate in your gelatin allowing you to pour a clean clear beer. You don’t want to cold crash then raise the temp again. Cold crashing is the last step in your process and a lot of people will do it in the keg in their kegerator since the kegerator is set about 32 anyway. You really don’t want fluctuation in temp at all during your brewing process, but especially during your cold crash.

Laggering is done after fermentation is complete and the beer is transferred. Lager is a German word for to store. It should be done about 35-40 after a diacytal rest of 65-70 for 24 hours. We raise our temp because lagers ferment at 50 degrees, and the yeast often times are too cold and sluggish to blow off off flavors such as diacytal and acedalaldyde. Raising the temp to 70 will warm the yeast enough to blow off byproducts of fermentation.

Laggering will create a crisp clean clear product as well, but is normally held for much longer than a cold crash.

Hope that clarifies things a bit
Thank you that did clear things up for me. The reason I originally thought it would be a good idea use gelatin, cold crash and then dry hop was because I read a 10 year old thread where a few people said the flavor and aroma could be stripped by the gelatin. I can’t seem to find that thread anymore so I may have just hallucinated it and further research I’ve done seems to completely contradict that.
 
Cold crash near freezing for a couple days and THEN add gelatin leaving it a few days more before racking and kegging/or botting. Its works like a charm.
You can also cold crash, transfer to keg then add gelatin as stated above.

If I am making an IPA with dry hops then the beer is served cloudy, no Gelatin.
 
Cold crash near freezing for a couple days and THEN add gelatin leaving it a few days more before racking and kegging/or botting. Its works like a charm.
You can also cold crash, transfer to keg then add gelatin as stated above.

If I am making an IPA with dry hops then the beer is served cloudy, no Gelatin.

I decided not to use the gelatin for this batch and if I’m being honest I reayonlu bought the gelatin because I just wanted to buy another homebrew toy. I’m about to dry hop tonight, would you use a muslin bag or just toss the hops right in the beer?
 
I don't use a bag for dry hops... others do
I went no bag.... I was expecting them to drop but I guess they won’t until I cold crash? And will the pellets break apart or do they stay whole? Most stuff I read says dry hop 3-5 days. Is that typical for you?
 
They turn into a sludge and stay on top until you cold crash for a couple days (or leave it a long time) I dry hop a week usually per the schedule I mentioned above. This may change depending on type of hop etc...
 
They turn into a sludge and stay on top until you cold crash for a couple days (or leave it a long time) I dry hop a week usually per the schedule I mentioned above. This may change depending on type of hop etc...

That leads me to one more question... I’m using a bucket for fermentation, dry hopping etc. currently so how long is generally acceptable to leave the beer in the bucket?
 
That leads me to one more question... I’m using a bucket for fermentation, dry hopping etc. currently so how long is generally acceptable to leave the beer in the bucket?

That’s more about autolayse which is the death of the yeast and the release of off flavors from the dead yeast. That fear is what actually started the whole use of a secondary fermentor in the beginning of homebrewing years ago.

You should have no issues leaving the beer on the yeast cake for the duration. That said yeast death can start around 6 weeks. So Big beers you want to age should be racked off the yeast. Beers you want to barrel age or add fruit to should also be racked off the yeast cake.

Simple ipa’s pale ales and such are fine to leave in the bucket for the entire process. Don’t forget that oxygen is not your friend after fermentation begins. So be careful with opening the lid. Only do what is necessary and be gentle with the beer.
 
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