Cold crashing

[jknapp12105]

How long should I cold crash this Apricot Ale? It is coming up on a full 24 hrs. I read that helps with clarity? Is this true?

 

[BargainFittings]

Cold crashing will drop out suspended yeast and proteins. 24 hours is usually enough if you are using gelatin or other clarifier. More time will help.

Each beer is different. Is this in a carboy?

 

[jknapp12105]

Cold crashing will drop out suspended yeast and proteins. 24 hours is usually enough if you are using gelatin or other clarifier. More time will help.

Each beer is different. Is this in a carboy?

Yes it is in a carboy. I am not using any type of gelatin or clarifier.

 

[BargainFittings]

How does it look? It will look darker the clearer it gets as light will not be reflecting off the suspended solids.

As it clears you can often see a clear line of change.

 

[Dan]

I usually cold crash a week because I do brew stuff on weekends so the timing works. I'm sure it's done after a day or two though. I'd recommend two days.

 

[jknapp12105]

How does it look? It will look darker the clearer it gets as light will not be reflecting off the suspended solids.

As it clears you can often see a clear line of change.

It does look dark!

 

[BrotherFreeman]

How does cold crashing affect carbonation with regards to bottling?

 

[poislb]

How does cold crashing affect carbonation with regards to bottling?

Never had an issue with mine..

 

[daksin]

As long as the cold crash is short (A week would be fine) you should have plenty of yeast left in suspension. 1 million cells per mL of liquid is perfectly clear. That means you could have as many as 19 billion cells in 5 gallons of perfectly clear beer.

 

[bcgpete]

Never had an issue with mine..

Same here. I've always cold crashed for 3-5 days, beers always carbed right up in the bottles without any extra yeast.

 

[jchudon]

3-5 days with gelatin
7 days without
Add one day if using glass or plastic instead of a keg.

You'll never have a carbonation problem that way. Even if the beer seems clear, it'll always have anough yeast in suspension to carb some bottles. Unless you sterile filter it but that's a different story

 

[theonlysurfnbeer]

Dumb question I know but I am about to bottle my first beer. What is cold crashing? I thought that was when you cooled the wort. Lol

 

[sweetcell]

Dumb question I know but I am about to bottle my first beer. What is cold crashing? I thought that was when you cooled the wort. Lol

cooling the wort is typically referred to as "chilling".

cold-crashing is something you do to your beer just before bottling. by cooling your bucket/carboy/etc it makes the sediment in the beer drop out into the trub, resulting in a clearer beer. typical way of doing this is to put the fermenter in a fridge or freezer for a few days. you want to bring the beer down as close as possible to freezing, but any drop in temperature will help.

i don't have the luxury of a dedicated fridge/freezer so i don't cold-crash, i "cool-crash": i put my carboys in a bucket with some water and ice (or ice packs) and replace the ice as often as i can. not quite as effective as a colder & more stable crash but it definitely helps.

if you don't care about clarity then there is no reason to cold-crash.

 

[theonlysurfnbeer]

Cool thanks. Guess I will try the ice thing. I don't have a lot of cold real estate. Thanks for the reply and sorry for hijacking the thread.

 

[ryan09266]

Will cold crashing affect the ability to reuse yeast?

 

[slow_boat]

Cold crashing will not hurt your yeast. I regularly cold crash, recover the yeast and immediately repitch with excellent results.

 

[jerryteague]

Will cold crashing affect the ability to reuse yeast?

If the cold crash is less than a week, then no. The cold basically puts the yeast to sleep, and most settle to the bottom of the fermenter. That's how it's stored when harvested (mostly), so you're fine re-using yeast after a cold crash.

 

[Coachlight]

Cold crashing is a new concept to me. I understand what it is and what it does. Question, I thought you were supposed to let the beer Bottle condition in a room temp environment. Does cold crashing and then storing warm do anything to the beer?

 

[cbehr]

Does cold crashing still make a big difference if you are using irish moss?

 

[day_trippr]

Does cold crashing still make a big difference if you are using irish moss?

Imo, big enough to be worth it, yes. Irish Moss will drop a lot of trub early in the brewing process (like at the end of the boil and early in the primary fermentation) but it doesn't do much after that. A solid cold-crash at the end of fermentation will result in a pretty thick layer of yeast on the bottom of the fermenter that you can then leave behind...

Cheers!

 

[Lennie]

If you chill your beer and see chill haze, then you would probably benefit from cold crashing (and using gelatin for that matter).

After you cold crash you can warm the beer (within reason of course), and later when you chill again it won't get hazy.

 

[jwalker1140]

I've never done this, and as I just recently bought a mini fridge and temp controller, I've never really been able to. My bottle conditioned beers almost always develop chill haze so if I cold crash should I just hold it there until the chill haze is gone? Is that a reasonable measure for when it's done or should I stick to a rigid time frame, like 24 hrs regardless of appearance?

 

[Lennie]

My experience is taht chill haze doesn't drop in 24 hours. Maybe in a week. But adding gelatin and cold crashing prior to bottling would be more effective.

 

[LandoLincoln]

Adding gelatin and cold crashing for at least two days results in some really clear beer. Just cold crashing works well too.

 

[ryan09266]

If the cold crash is less than a week, then no. The cold basically puts the yeast to sleep, and most settle to the bottom of the fermenter. That's how it's stored when harvested (mostly), so you're fine re-using yeast after a cold crash.

Thanks guys, I'm making a golden strong and making the same recipe right after because I have the ingredients on hand. I'm hoping I can use the same cake. I'll let you know how it goes!

 

[BetterSense]

I'm another 'cool-crasher'. I don't have a fridge, just an ice-powered SOFC, and the lowest I can get my beer is about 50F. I typically ferment at around 65F and then take the beer out of the SOFC after fermentation is mostly finished to free up the SOFC for another batch. But before bottling, I chuck the beer back in the SOFC and crank it down as long as it can go. Even chilling from 75F to 50F for a day or two makes a big difference in clarity before bottling. I haven't been able to correlate this with chill haze or post-bottle clarity.