Gelatin and Cold Crashing

[Rob2010SS]

I'm looking at the possibility of using gelatin to clear my next batch. I've been doing a lot of reading on it and everything I'm seeing says that it works BEST (<-- Key word) with the beer being cold (<50*F). Can you use gelatin to clear the beer without having the beer cold? I don't have a fermentation chamber yet or any way of dropping the temperature that low so I'm wondering if you can just add it with the beer at room temp and still get a good effect from it.

 

[Rob2010SS]

Since we're on that topic anyway, I know people use the swamp coolers for fermentation but can you also successfully cold crash using those as well or is it too difficult to get down to those temps in the swamp coolers?

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

Gelatin will work on warmer beer but it will take longer and not work as well. Before I had a ferm chamber, I used a swamp cooler and was able to get down into the 50s. You will need a deep tub that will submerge most of your fermenter and it takes a lot of work swapping out ice often to keep the temp down. I used frozen 2L soda bottles or 1/2 gal milk jugs. You will need quite a few of these since they may not have enough time to freeze before you swap out the next ones. Can't hurt to try. Good luck.