Cold crashing

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Wabby

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Do my Kölsch will be fermented out in a day or so, and I now have the facility to cold crash.

How long should I crash, and at what temp?

What temp to bring ut back up to before bottling?
 
When you say fermented out, how long has it been fermenting for? It isn't wise to crash it as soon as primary fermentation is complete, you want to give the yeast time to clear up any odd flavours. I would wait 12-14 days before I considered cold crashing.

I crash for 2-3 days but you could get away with bit less. I bring the temperature down by cooling the fridge ambient temperature to 4°C and letting the beer drift down to this temperature, rather than measuring the temperature of the beer and letting the fridge go full guns until it has reached that temperature. Regardless of how you get there, it is going to take quite a few hours to get down to your target temperature. I then plan on keeping it at that temperature for at least 24 hours to crash the yeast out of suspension.

I normally bottle when it is cold rather than bringing the beer back up to room temperature.
 
I crash for 24 hours, I'm sure longer would be better but it seems enough to get a lot of the yeast out of suspension and certainly helps my beers clear quickly.
 
Once fermentation is complete I leave for about 36 hours at intermediate temp , about 13°C, then turn the fridge down to 2- 3°C so it cools to that temperature overnight.
It usually takes 24 - 36 hours to crash cool (but that would depend on how clear you starting wort and beer were) until the beer is clear and once it is clear you can raise the temp back up or leave it as cool as possible.
Crash cooling will sediment out proteins that cause chill haze and once out at lowest temp they should not come back even if you raise the temp a few degrees before serving
 
When you're bottling use the brewers friend calculator and for temperature put in the fermentation temp, not the temperature it is at bottling or it'll end up under carbed.
 
I would lager s kolshe. Cold crash for 3 days then bottle. Put it in the warm for 2 weeks and then larger at 1-3c for min of 4 weeks
 
strange-steve said:
When you're bottling use the brewers friend calculator and for temperature put in the fermentation temp, not the temperature it is at bottling or it'll end up under carbed.
Click to expand...

NOooooooo, I bottled an IPA the other night and I putted the cold crash temp (first time I've done it) and was told 70g sugar which I thought was a little less than my usual 123g for 21l. Looks like I'll have 38 bottles of flat IPA.

Any advice? Steak and ale pie anyone.
 
Aaron Rennie said:
NOooooooo, I bottled an IPA the other night and I putted the cold crash temp (first time I've done it) and was told 70g sugar which I thought was a little less than my usual 123g for 21l. Looks like I'll have 38 bottles of flat IPA.

Any advice? Steak and ale pie anyone.
Click to expand...
Based on the nomograph in Palmer (chapter 11 if you want to play along at home ;)) reckon that'll give you about 1.5 vols which is the low end for British ales - I reckon you'll be fine (plus, it's still beer athumb..)

Also, read MyQul's comments here to put your mind at rest :cheers3:
 
Great news, either way it's going to be drank as the father in law thinks I'm a wizard, and will drink any thing I brew.
 
BeerCat said:
I cold crash at 0c for a week and add finings after 3 days. The beer generally looks clear by then but just to be sure. You don't need to warm it up to bottle. Faster in the bottles in any case.
Click to expand...

Which finings do you use please Beercat?
 
BeerCat said:
I use beer brite. I have tried gelatin in the past but was never sure if I was preparing it correctly.
Click to expand...

Thanks Cat, I use beer brite.
The last half dozen packs I bought were like dried biscuits... Were ok I suppose after rehydration but not like the powder I bought a while back.
They are well within date but I am sure they may have got damp before I received them.
Anyway, they usually seem to do the trick for me without cold crashing.
I have 2 separate partial mash brews in the fermenters at the moment and am going to try a 2 or 3 day cold crash as I have never taken this step and am interested to try this at ambient garage temp which I think is due to get colder if the forecasters are right.
Thankyou.
 

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