Cold crashing and Viable yeast

[Chapster100]

Hi All

I am a new brewer and have had an APA fermenting for the last 7 days.
OG was 1.054 and 7 days in Gravity is 1.010. I have been advised to cold crash it now for 7 days then bottle it. My worry is will i have enough viable yeast for bottle conditioning if I cold crash for that long. Any advise would be appreciated.

 

[JosephN]

Honestly I have the same question. I've had many people tell me that I would have enough yeast left for bottle conditioning, then again I've also had people in my local homebrewing club tell me that the majority of the yeast would drop out and I would have a difficult time carbonating my bottles. Now concerning the amount of time you're talking about, that's a tough one. I do know that I cold crashed mine for about 12 hours, I know that's not a long time but it was at least long enough to have the majority of the sediment drop to the bottom and give me a cleaner beer to transfer to my bottling bucket. I did this mainly because I dry hopped and there were still a lot of hop particles floating around. When I did that I still had plenty of yeast left over to carbonate my bottles and it only took him about 12 days for them to carbonate decently. I'm still waiting for the rest of the carbonation but it seems to work pretty well. I also let my fermenter sit out at room temperature for about 3 to 4 hours, this helped Halal all the beer to gain a little bit warmer temperature and for some of the yeast to start to float back up. Anyways, I hope this helps

 

[Yooper]

Yes, it'll be fine! You can even hold it at 34 degrees for a couple of weeks, and still have plenty of yeast in suspension for carbonation. No worries at all! Bottle it cold, for the clearest beer, and then hold it at room temperature for 21 days or so. It'll carb up just fine.

 

[JosephN]

Yes, it'll be fine! You can even hold it at 34 degrees for a couple of weeks, and still have plenty of yeast in suspension for carbonation. No worries at all! Bottle it cold, for the clearest beer, and then hold it at room temperature for 21 days or so. It'll carb up just fine.

What about a Hefeweizen? I still have some Krausen on the top, a light layer, and I don't really want to clear the beer, mainly because of the style, but I'd like the Krausen to settle so I can bottle it. Its done fermenting also, but that stuff has just been thicker than any other style i've made. Suggestions?

 

[slym2none]

I cold-crash all my beers for 3-4 days, including an 11% barley-wine I brewed, and had plenty of yeast left in suspension to carb up the bottles just fine.

Seriously, you'll be fine. RDWHAHB

 

[hottpeper13]

I think that beer needs to condition for7 to 14 days before bottling and then cold crash , but that's just me.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

I've lagered beers for 10 weeks, including gelatine finings for a week, and still had enough yeast left for carbonation.

JosephN: If you don't want to clear the yeast from a hefeweizen, don't cold crash. If you want it clear, it'd be more like a krystalweizen.

 

[rlmiller10]

Listen to Yooper. If you learn nothing else today it should be to listen to Yooper when it comes to brewing questions.

Yes, you will be fine but as you have only been in primary for 7 days I would recommend you wait another 7 days before cold crashing. Your yeast has gobbled up all the sugars it can eat, but now it is busy cleaning up any by products.

Quick lesson. As yeast consumes sugars, those sugars go through a series of chemical changes before becoming CO2 and alcohol. Some of the chemical that are formed during the intermediate steps leak out of the cell walls. After there is no more sugar to eat the yeast look for something else. Well those intermediate chemicals are edible to yeast so they will bring them back into the cell walls and continue to reduce them to CO2 and alcohol. This is what is happening when you read that "the yeast clean up after themselves".

So give it another week and then cold crash for three days or so, then bottle and after 2 weeks at room temp you will have a carbonated beer. (cool for two days before consuming, three weeks of carb time is better than two, your mileage may vary)

 

[joshesmusica]

Listen to Yooper. If you learn nothing else today it should be to listen to Yooper when it comes to brewing questions.

Yes, you will be fine but as you have only been in primary for 7 days I would recommend you wait another 7 days before cold crashing. Your yeast has gobbled up all the sugars it can eat, but now it is busy cleaning up any by products.

Quick lesson. As yeast consumes sugars, those sugars go through a series of chemical changes before becoming CO2 and alcohol. Some of the chemical that are formed during the intermediate steps leak out of the cell walls. After there is no more sugar to eat the yeast look for something else. Well those intermediate chemicals are edible to yeast so they will bring them back into the cell walls and continue to reduce them to CO2 and alcohol. This is what is happening when you read that "the yeast clean up after themselves".

So give it another week and then cold crash for three days or so, then bottle and after 2 weeks at room temp you will have a carbonated beer. (cool for two days before consuming, three weeks of carb time is better than two, your mileage may vary)

completely agree on most of this, except that i'm not so sure that while cleaning up that they still produce alcohol. i could be wrong though. i think it's just an uptake of nutrients before they decide to retire.

either way you want to wait until at least day 9 or 10 to start cold-crashing. that's at the least.

for the guy with the hefe, part of that style comes from yeast in suspension (it's what the name means yeast-wheat), but some of the haziness likely comes from some of the proteins in suspension. either way, if you're bottling, you'll still have some yeast at the bottom of the bottle, before opening the bottle, you can gently roll the bottle on the table to swirl that back up, and it will be plenty hazy for the style (it's what the germans do). that's even with cold crashing. or you can just pour most of the beer out, then when about 1/4 of it is left, swirl the bottle to get that yeast up. that's what boulevard suggests for their wheat.

 

[JosephN]

Word, I don't think I'm gonna cold crash my Hefe. Might as well keep a good amount of sediment in there. After all this is only 3 gallons and Homebrew. I can't wait to taste it though!!!

 

[joshesmusica]

Word, I don't think I'm gonna cold crash my Hefe. Might as well keep a good amount of sediment in there. After all this is only 3 gallons and Homebrew. I can't wait to taste it though!!!

I think you missed my point:
Commercial breweries are likely filtering and then adding back small amounts of yeast. That little amount of sediment enough to get the cloudy look for the style. Even with cold crashing there will still be plenty of sediment to get the cloudy look.
But it is your beer, so you're free to have tons of yeast in your beer. You'll at least get some clean bowels the day after...

 

[JosephN]

I think you missed my point:
Commercial breweries are likely filtering and then adding back small amounts of yeast. That little amount of sediment enough to get the cloudy look for the style. Even with cold crashing there will still be plenty of sediment to get the cloudy look.
But it is your beer, so you're free to have tons of yeast in your beer. You'll at least get some clean bowels the day after...

[emoji106]🏻[emoji106]🏻 everyone needs a clean system!!! Thanks for the advice and clarification.

 

[Chapster100]

Thanks to all for the responses. So this status is that i bottled my ale on Tuesday night, after 3 days of cold crashing at about 4 degrees celcuis.
so it fermented for only 7 days, and am a little worried about the yeast "cleaning up". I think i should have only cold crashed at day 13. anyway, al good, i will just drink them and do that on the next batch.

 

[joshesmusica]

Thanks to all for the responses. So this status is that i bottled my ale on Tuesday night, after 3 days of cold crashing at about 4 degrees celcuis.

so it fermented for only 7 days, and am a little worried about the yeast "cleaning up". I think i should have only cold crashed at day 13. anyway, al good, i will just drink them and do that on the next batch.

Yeah it needs to get to at least day 9-10 to have finished the clean up phase. I normally wait about two weeks before I cold crash, although there are some styles that can go quicker if need be. I got an ESB in the keg right now that I kegged on day 13, which included 3 days cold crash. Even the first pint pulled was really clear. The pints pulled last night I could read a book through.