Cold Crashing w/o Fridge

[megadave5000]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share something that I did with my last beer that really worked for me and I hope it may work for others. I don't have a fridge that I can use for cold crashing, but in my basement I do have a pretty good sized sink. I can easily get a 5 gallon glass carboy in there - the sides of the sink go up to about the 4 gallon level, if that makes sense. Yes, my sink is pretty deep, but a lot of basement sinks are deep.

Next, I plugged up the drain and bought three 10 lb bags of ice, dumped them into the sink with the carboy in it, and filled it up with water. I let this sit overnight. When I got up, the ice was almost all melted into water (it was still 39 degrees), so I dropped in some ice packs and some 1 gallon milk jugs that I froze overnight (sans the milk, ice only ha!). Later that day on my way home from work, I bought two more 10 lb bags of ice, switched out the jugs and ice packs for the ice. I repeated this process and bottled after a total of 48 hours. The water temp got as low as 32 on my digital thermometer and never was above 45.

The beer is still carbing up right now, but when I was transferring it from carboy to bottling bucket I took a sample to do a final F.G. You could just about read through it! I mean this stuff was CLEAR and I didn't use Irish moss or Whirlfloc. If you don't have a fridge that can hold a carboy like me, I highly recommend using this method of ice water bath cold crashing. If you start saving your empty milk jugs I doubt you'll even need to buy any ice! Just keep switching them out time after time, in the morning, home from work, and again before bed. Easy as pie.

One final piece of advice, my sink started dropping a lot of condensation - so you may want to plan for this and put down a towel to avoid ruining the floor or whatever is underneath the sink. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.

Anyway, just thought I'd share - hope you can use this technique!

Dave

 

[najel]

Cool idea. That also means that you can rack it into the bottling bucket straight from the carboy without having to move it out of the fridge.

 

[weirdboy]

I do a similar thing using an igloo cooler, which is how I control fermentation temps normally. I just stick a bunch of frozen water bottles in there and then keep swapping them out 2-3 times per day until it gets down to the 30's, which is usually a couple of swaps. Once at those temps it will maintain them with only a few bottles being swapped out a couple times a day.

 

[RM-MN]

I'm cheap and lazy. I just leave the beer sit in the fermenter and drop out the yeast. It takes longer but my beer turns out clear.

 

[megadave5000]

Cool idea. That also means that you can rack it into the bottling bucket straight from the carboy without having to move it out of the fridge.

Yes, that's exactly right. I just drained the water and racked from the carboy sitting right in the sink to the bottling bucket on the floor. Just about as still as can be.

 

[megadave5000]

I do a similar thing using an igloo cooler, which is how I control fermentation temps normally. I just stick a bunch of frozen water bottles in there and then keep swapping them out 2-3 times per day until it gets down to the 30's, which is usually a couple of swaps. Once at those temps it will maintain them with only a few bottles being swapped out a couple times a day.

In the few months I've been brewing, I can definitely taste the difference between ale fermented in the high 60's vs. the low 60's - so this technique definitely helps out during the primary too just like you indicate!

 

[Captain Damage]

I do something similar. I have a big plastic tub (<$10 at Wal-Mart), carboy goes in, fill the space with ice.

 

[megadave5000]

I do something similar. I have a big plastic tub (<$10 at Wal-Mart), carboy goes in, fill the space with ice.

Just curious, how long do you keep the secondary cold in your tub? Mine was in the sink for a couple days and it seems to be fine.

Dave

 

[Captain Damage]

Just curious, how long do you keep the secondary cold in your tub? Mine was in the sink for a couple days and it seems to be fine.

(Not that it matters, but I rarely secondary, so it's the primary I'm putting in the tub.) A couple or three days. Doesn't take long. I'll add more ice usually once during that time. I don't always cold crash, just when the beer looks like it's got some protein haze and needs some help clearing up, so I cold crash in conjunction with gelatin.

 

[megadave5000]

(Not that it matters, but I rarely secondary, so it's the primary I'm putting in the tub.) A couple or three days. Doesn't take long. I'll add more ice usually once during that time. I don't always cold crash, just when the beer looks like it's got some protein haze and needs some help clearing up, so I cold crash in conjunction with gelatin.

I gotcha, so my 48 hour crash was just about the same as what you're doing, give or take. Thanks!

-Dave