Does cold crashing effect priming sugar amounts?

[BoomersBrews]

I'm cold crashing my DIPA as we speak bc after 7 days of dry hopping, an excessive amount of protein globs have built up. It's working and the protein is settling nicely, but it just occurred to me that I might need to account for this when using the priming sugar calculator. Primary fermentation and secondary dry hop were both consistently bw 67-71 degrees for a total of 3 weeks. I'm cold crashing for 24 hours. Do I need to adjust the temperature I enter into my priming sugar calculator or am I safe to stick with the 69 degrees I planned on entering? Also, I'm using about half of a sachet of CBC-1 for priming if that makes any difference. Thanks for any help and advice!

 

[Qhrumphf]

Yes, it will reduce the needed priming sugar, but as far as I'm aware exactly how much is one of those debatable things. When you cold crash, some CO2 in the headspace would reabsorb into solution, and would reduce the priming sugar needed. But it's questionable how much would actually dissolve back into solution.

http://www.brewersfriend.com/beer-priming-calculator/

Briefly discussed here.

 

[BoomersBrews]

Thanks for posting that. It helps a little but also complicates things a little. So have you ever cold crashed before bottling? What kinds of precautions did you take? I'd like to avoid overcarbing if possible. I don't have room in my apartment for a big mess.

 

[Qhrumphf]

I don't have a fridge for cold crashing, and doing it in a swamp cooler is a challenge, so I don't do it. I just let it sit in primary a little longer, and never have a problem. On the rare occasions when I "lager" in a swamp cooler (for my Kölsch, Alt, Cream Ale, and Cal Common) I hold it at about 40, but I always let it sit on the counter overnight to settle before bottling, so it always ends up back around 65-67 anyway.

 

[BoomersBrews]

I should have searched the forums more extensively. After reading more about this I have determined that cold crashing can't possibly absorb enough CO2 to make a difference. If I put a flat, opened, can of soda back in the fridge I would be a fool to think it would magically carb up again. So I'm going to stick with the highest temp it reached after primary finished which is about 70-71 degrees. If any of my bottles explode I'll get back on to let you know I was wrong. Cheers!

 

[Qhrumphf]

Difference between a flat opened can of soda and your fermenter is that the fermenter is closed, and if you haven't been opening it religiously (unlike a soda that's been drunk out of), there's still a bed of CO2 in there. And it's not going to carbonate when cold crashing. But it may have 1.2 residual volumes instead of 0.9 residual volumes (just tossing numbers out). Enough to make the carbonation more than you want, put probably not enough to cause bottle bombs unless you're already going for very high carbonation.

 

[BowAholic]

I almost always cold crash because I can...I still use approximately 3/4oz of cane sugar per gallon for about 2.4 vol. CO2...

 

[BoomersBrews]

I definitely agree with you, but I actually have opened it pretty often: 3 times during the second week of primary to test gravity, 1 more time to transfer to my Carboy for dry hopping, 1 time during dry hopping, and another time today to remove the hop bag before cold crashing. I'm not a scientist by any means but I'm not one who is afraid of oxygenated beer based on my experience. I've never had problems with cardboard flavors or anything else resulting from oxygen so It's my uneducated opinion that it takes significant amounts of oxygen to ruin a good beer (or I've just been lucky). That being said, I'm thinking there wasn't very much CO2 left to be reabsorbed. We shall see.