Cold crashing before adding juice and dry hops?

[jivy26]

So I have an IPA and DIPA fermenting, my first 2 brews ever, and my plan is to cold crash them both once the gravity stabilizes in both. So the questions I have are:

How many days do you typically cold crash? I have read anywhere from 2 days up to 10 at around 40 degrees.

Secondly I have read a lot about the unnecessary step of transferring to a secondary. So I am going to add the OJ to my dipa along with hops for 7 days. Should I expect the yeast to be reactivated even after cold crashing once I introduce the sugars?

And lastly, with adding http://www.orchidislandjuice.com/juices/orange/ after I cold crash. How would you account for these sugars after the 7 days and before bottling and carbing?

Thanks so much!

 

[chudsonvt]

I dry hop toward the end of my secondary and then cold crash after it has been in there for about 4 days. That way it helps everything settle out, including the hops. Then you can rack from above the sediment, leaving behind as much of the sediment as possible. I think the colder the better (as long as it doesn't freeze). Cold helps proteins and such clump together and fall to the bottom. And you should cold crash however long it takes for the beer to clear up which could be 2 to 10 days. I have never added juice so I can't speak to that though.

 

[Yooper]

Cold crashing does stop the action of the yeast, so if you add juice you may have an issue. The yeast may get stressed, trying to ferment the sugars in the juice but are too cold, so you may get some off-flavors.

I'd add the juice let it ferment out (so you don't have bottle bombs), then dryhop for 3-5 days and then cold crash for 2 days and bottle.

 

[jivy26]

Cold crashing does stop the action of the yeast, so if you add juice you may have an issue. The yeast may get stressed, trying to ferment the sugars in the juice but are too cold, so you may get some off-flavors.

I'd add the juice let it ferment out (so you don't have bottle bombs), then dryhop for 3-5 days and then cold crash for 2 days and bottle.

So by adding juice during my primary I will still get some of the juice flavors I am looking for? Also since I already have that yeast working on top maybe wait until it starts or fall before adding the OJ or that doesn't matter?

Thanks for the quick response!

 

[jivy26]

I dry hop toward the end of my secondary and then cold crash after it has been in there for about 4 days. That way it helps everything settle out, including the hops. Then you can rack from above the sediment, leaving behind as much of the sediment as possible. I think the colder the better (as long as it doesn't freeze). Cold helps proteins and such clump together and fall to the bottom. And you should cold crash however long it takes for the beer to clear up which could be 2 to 10 days. I have never added juice so I can't speak to that though.

Yeah I have read dry hopping after cold crashing is better then prior to cold crashing. Have you done both and do you notice a difference?

 

[TurnipGreen]

I have not cold crashed before dry hopping but I have dry hopped then cold crashed plenty of times. I cold crash more to settle all the hop chunks out, so you may find you need to cold crash again or make sure you dry hop with cones in a sack so you don't get a bunch of floaters.

If you are shooting for an OJ flavor you may find fermenting the juice dissipates a lot of the orange goodness. I've only ever added apple cider and apple juice. You may find that you need to back sweeten with a pile of unfermentable sugar to bring that juice flavor out. Or you could make a tincture with vodka and a ridiculous amount of orange peel to it. I used the peel of two cara cara oranges in a 5 gal batch of wheat beer this year and it is super orangey. Too orangey for what I wanted but it might work for you.

 

[jivy26]

I have not cold crashed before dry hopping but I have dry hopped then cold crashed plenty of times. I cold crash more to settle all the hop chunks out, so you may find you need to cold crash again or make sure you dry hop with cones in a sack so you don't get a bunch of floaters.

If you are shooting for an OJ flavor you may find fermenting the juice dissipates a lot of the orange goodness. I've only ever added apple cider and apple juice. You may find that you need to back sweeten with a pile of unfermentable sugar to bring that juice flavor out. Or you could make a tincture with vodka and a ridiculous amount of orange peel to it. I used the peel of two cara cara oranges in a 5 gal batch of wheat beer this year and it is super orangey. Too orangey for what I wanted but it might work for you.

Would their be a way to account for the OJ sugars in carbing? I prefer not to ferment the OJ, but I also would rather not have a bottle bomb lol!

What if I treated it like a cider and used the OJ sugars to carb? Although I think the issue would be that I am only using 20 oz of OJ in a 3 gal batch so will still need to add sugars to carb.

 

[IslandLizard]

The sugars from the OJ will ferment, depending on the temperature and the yeast's activity, this could take days to weeks. After the sugars are gone, the acid from the OJ is still in your beer and can leave a sour taste. As @TurnipGreen said, the goodness of the OJ flavor gets lost. Actually what's left over tastes pretty vile.

 

[jivy26]

So answer me this, when I see breweries adding pasteurized juices to their IPAs how are they doing it? At boil?

 

[chudsonvt]

Yeah I have read dry hopping after cold crashing is better then prior to cold crashing. Have you done both and do you notice a difference?

I have not tried this. Did you read about what makes it better?

 

[jivy26]

I have not tried this. Did you read about what makes it better?

http://brulosophy.com/2016/01/18/dry-hop-temperature-warm-vs-cool-exbeeriment-results/

Nothing as far as science in that read, but a blind panel taste tested and more preferred the IPA that was dry hopped but not cold crashed vice the one that was cold crashed then dry hopped.

 

[TurnipGreen]

So answer me this, when I see breweries adding pasteurized juices to their IPAs how are they doing it? At boil?

You can totally use juice as a ferment able sugar. And you can use it to prime your bottles. When I do it I add it after the boil. Many juices will create pectin if they are boiled or boil off flavor if you add them during the boil. But they all ferment, and that process strips all the sugar, so the flavors are completely different than the juice you start with.

That said as, I understood it that you are shooting to get some orangey goodness in your beer. If that's what you after I think you'll be let down using OJ as a fermentable sugar. If you just want to throw some OJ in there to see what happens and what it taste like.....go for it. This hobby is all about trying stuff.

 

[jivy26]

You can totally use juice as a ferment able sugar. And you can use it to prime your bottles. When I do it I add it after the boil. Many juices will create pectin if they are boiled or boil off flavor if you add them during the boil. But they all ferment, and that process strips all the sugar, so the flavors are completely different than the juice you start with.

That said as, I understood it that you are shooting to get some orangey goodness in your beer. If that's what you after I think you'll be let down using OJ as a fermentable sugar. If you just want to throw some OJ in there to see what happens and what it taste like.....go for it. This hobby is all about trying stuff.

Yeah I've decided after reading pretty much anything I could find on juices that I'm going to throw completely organic pasteurized OJ into my bottling bucket and subtract the grams of sugar from the amount of grams I needed to carb.

 

[Superchop728]

I cold crash at 38F. I've read that particle size is maximized at that them. I have dry hopped in a cold crash environment but found hop flavor and aroma are best extracted at room temp. The added element of adding orange juice adds a twist. If you cold crash for an extended period, let's say a week you'll have the ale yeast go dormant and fall out of suspension. Adding OJ will leave you with a noticeable residual sweetness. Adding before you cold crash will start another fermentation and you'll lose much of the character you were looking for and add citric acid. Depending on how much OJ you add you could get a undesirable acid bite. I would suggest adding orange extract. I would get some aroma. I would then consider using cascade, citra, amarillo, or galaxy to get some citrus flavor.

 

[jivy26]

I cold crash at 38F. I've read that particle size is maximized at that them. I have dry hopped in a cold crash environment but found hop flavor and aroma are best extracted at room temp. The added element of adding orange juice adds a twist. If you cold crash for an extended period, let's say a week you'll have the ale yeast go dormant and fall out of suspension. Adding OJ will leave you with a noticeable residual sweetness. Adding before you cold crash will start another fermentation and you'll lose much of the character you were looking for and add citric acid. Depending on how much OJ you add you could get a undesirable acid bite. I would suggest adding orange extract. I would get some aroma. I would then consider using cascade, citra, amarillo, or galaxy to get some citrus flavor.

So what I've come up with is I'll cold crash for 2 days then dry hop for 7 and bottle. During the bottling going to add completely organic to my bottling bucket and since I'll know the grams of sugar I'm adding I'll just subtract that from my required amount of sugars needed to carb. This way I don't ferment the sugars ay primary and I'll be able to exactly account for the sugars going from bottle to bucket.

Will report back after I have success or failure lol.

 

[jivy26]

We are talking about 10 oz oj in 192 oz of brew. So we will see

 

[Yooper]

We are talking about 10 oz oj in 192 oz of brew. So we will see

Just a thought- have you ever left OJ out on the counter overnight and tasted the result? It's not good. Orange wines are done, but they are very very hard to get right.

What I would do, if this was my beer, is NOT add OJ. I would zest some oranges (or simply buy the sweet zest already packaged) and sanitize in a little vodka for a day or so and then add THAT to the beer. That would give you a great citrus flavor, would not ferment out, and not taste foul in the beer.

Zest is a great way to get what you want without adding juice. The juice will ferment- and the results probably won't be good.

 

[crane]

If you are hell bent on adding juice, I would consider splitting into two batches at bottling time. Half the batch gets juice in the bottling bucket and the other half a tincture of zest. Then you can report back and let us know what worked better. The other benefit is that you will only ruin half your batch with the juice.

 

[jivy26]

Yea this is the plan going to bottle half then clean my bucket and siphon remainder and bottle juice with minimal sugar priming

 

[Jim311]

This all sounds like the recipe for an acidic bottle bomb or uncarbonated IPAs.

 

[jivy26]

This all sounds like the recipe for an acidic bottle bomb or uncarbonated IPAs.

Plan is to bottle the beer and when I have about 4 bottles of beer left in carboy going to cap off carboy clean and disinfect the bottling bucket and then add oj as my primer and put remaining beer on top and stir then bottle. Worst case I have 4 bottle bombs and not 12.

 

[mattdee1]

By all means experiment, but I really think the yeast will wake up in the bottle, eat all of the sugar provided by the OJ, and leave behind a flavor that tastes more like burped up stomach acid than the desired citrus fruit.

Full disclosure, I personally don’t believe in adding fruit to beer; not because of any objection to it in principle, but because I’ve never once tasted a beer that used fruit where I truly felt the beer was better for having used fruit.

One possible exception, my buddy brewed a pale ale that had a lot of orange zest in it, and that beer was great. I think the beer would probably have been just as great without the orange zest, but who knows.