Cold Crashing in Kegs?

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Javaslinger

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Just wondering what everyone's process is for this? The issue I see is that my serving temp in my keezer is ~42F. Cold crashing needs closer to 32F. Can I drop the keezer down to cold crashing temps for a few days and then bring it back up to serving temps?

Without having a seperate fermentation chamber or fridge, is there a better way to accomplish this?

Thanks!
 
Just wondering what everyone's process is for this? The issue I see is that my serving temp in my keezer is ~42F. Cold crashing needs closer to 32F. Can I drop the keezer down to cold crashing temps for a few days and then bring it back up to serving temps?

Without having a seperate fermentation chamber or fridge, is there a better way to accomplish this?

Thanks!

Depends what your goal is, but cold crashing does not have an absolute temp requirement. If you’re trying to drop hop particulate, I’ve had good luck as high as 50F before.

Just takes a little more time the warmer you are. Plus side, is there is almost no (perceivable) suck back at that temp.
 
You can do that, but you're also going to drop the serving temp of any beer in the keezer to 32 as well. There's no free lunch.

And once you set it back to a higher temp, it'll likely take a couple days for the temps to rise in those kegs. How fast something cools (or warms) is a function of the amount--how much beer--and the difference between ambient temp and the temp of the material. So the beer already in the keezer will keep the inside environment "chilled" for a period of time, and thus the speed of warming will be slow.

One reason for cold crashing is to allow particulate matter in the beer to settle out. If you're crashing in the keg, you're dropping that particulate matter to the bottom of the keg where it will get sucked into the dip tube--and into the glass of beer you're pouring. Maybe that clears within a pint or two, maybe not.

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FWIW, there's at least one other reason to cold crash. I have a conical fermenter I can seal toward the end of fermentation so it self-carbs similarly to how bottle conditioning and carbing occurs. That's at 64-71 degrees, usually. But I can't completely carb the beer that way as the fermenter has a limit of 15 psi internal pressure. But beer absorbs CO2 more readily the colder it is, so by crashing as cold as I can get, I get as much of that CO2 in there as possible. I typically end up with about 7psi in that beer, meaning it's not a lot more to finish carbing it.
 
I cold crash my kegs to around 33F. But I make a lot of lagers I like to serve at that temperature also. Usually I like to let them sit at this temp for a couple weeks before I serve for ales, twice that time for lagers, so it really has a chance to settle and clear up. Slightly shortened or bent dip tube goes a long way toward leaving the sediments on the bottom of the keg.

Agree it is a lot easier to force carbonate at low temps.
 
As others have said, no problem dropping the temp and letting it rise back up and cold crashing is a function of time and temp. Even my hefes which don't get cold crashed and get served at 40 degrees drop crystal clear in a few weeks time.
 
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