pursuit0fhoppiness
GTA Brews club member, pharma technologist
Hi all. I’ve been brewing for 4.5 years now, but have never cold crashed a beer. I bottle condition, and a few weeks in the fermenter and occasionally clarity ferm have been all I need. EXCEPT with dry hopped beers, and I’m planning to do a hazy IPA soon so I want to finally try. I have a mini fridge that I can clear out and fit a fermenter in, I just have a couple questions about the process:
- I don’t wish to use a CO2 balloon or similar device, and I don’t have any pressure fermentation equipment. Am I able to just hard bung the fermenter, rather than keep the airlock on to avoid starsan suck back? Or will hard bunging create a vacuum as the air in the fermenter cools? Not sure what my best option is for bunging/airlocking.
- Can I just take my fermenter from ~18C right into the 5C fridge? I don’t have an inkbird for the mini fridge so not really able to slowly crash it.
- How many days is typical for cold crashing a heavily dry hopped IPA?