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Cold crashing question
I've read a lot of postings describing ways to better clarify beer in a secondary fermentor prior to bottling, and often hear brewers refer to cold crashing to clarify beer. I can't seem to find a definition of this term, and assume it's not the same a getting a cold break in your wort by chilling it before pitching yeast. Is cold crashing any different from cold lagering in a refrigerator? Can it be done with ales? How is it done?
I also would like to know if cold crashing is something you would do if you're going to bottle condition your beer instead of kegging and carbonating. If cold crashing takes out more of the suspended yeast, wouldn't that reduce the ability of bottle-conditioned beer to achieve good carbonation levels? Thanks to all who reply.
Cold crashing helps to reduce chill haze, though as far as I know it should help to settle some more of the yeast to the bottom. I've never tried it, but I believe you simply put the finished beer in the fridge for a week or two. I'm sure someone else knows more about the finer points of it than I do.
Cold crashing is a couple of weeks in a fridge or cold place, which allows more particulate matter to settle.
Cold lagering is letting a brew sit for months at low temperatures. Think Oktoberfests, usually brewed in March....
And, yeah someone else here knows more than me....next?
You can cold crash a beer that you plan on bottle conditioning. Even if you cold crash it for a week or two, there is still enough active yeast in suspension to carbonate. Depending on how long and how cold it got, it may take longer to carbonate but usually it isn't a problem.
The thing with cold crashing is that when the fermenter with an airlock goes to a cold temperature, it tends to pull in air from outside as the temperature inside the fermenter decreases. There's some physics/chemistry reason for this that's beyond me, but it happens.
I did a cold crash once or twice. I use vodka for airlock liquid, so I feel pretty safe with the sanitary condition of that, but I had to top it off once the beer was cooled down. The beer in the end was not too much more clear. I'll just say that I don't cold crash any more.
It did bottle condition as well as any of my non-cold-crashed beers did, but the worry over the airlock sucking in stuff was too much for me to handle.
My favorite part about cold crashing was that at bottling time, the beer was cold, so the hydrometer sample for FG and tasting was a lot tastier than the usual warm sample.
I've watched the brewmaster where I work crash the tanks several times. Crashing means getting the temperature down to about 35F, and letting it sit there for roughly a week, which stops fermentation, and makes the yeast settle the bottom.
Chill haze has nothing to do with cold crashing. That is from not cooling wort down fast enough which is cold break, and that can cause chill haze. Crashing the tank is done after primary is complete.
As for it not letting beer fully carbonate, it is very hard to remove 100% of the yeast without filtering, so there will still be enough yeast in suspension.
Cold crashing avoids chill haze by causing the chill haze to form in the fermenter, and then settle out, so that when you bottle or keg the chill haze stuff is left behind in the fermenter.
Well, thanks to all of you for this feedback. I think that, as part of my hands-on education in home brewing, I may take this 5 gallons of IPA I've had in a secondary for two weeks now and try cold crashing it for a few days prior to bottling next week, just to see how this goes.
I guess the major question I had, regarding the cessation of fermentation and greater settling of the yeast by cold crashing, isn't a concern. You all indicated that there would still be sufficient yeast in the beer to bottle condition. I had asked about cold crashing originally because I neglected to add isenglass to my secondary, and didn't want really cloudy beer as a result. It just seemed to me that cold crashing, which you described to be the process I thought it was, would really impede the ability to bottle condition, and was only applicable if I was going to keg my beer. Lesson learned!
Mark (aka brewbren)
cubx wrote:
As for it not letting beer fully carbonate, it is very hard to remove 100% of the yeast without filtering, so there will still be enough yeast in suspension.
Agreed.
I would like to add that it may take longer than usual to carb up because there are fewer yeast cells still in suspension. But eventually, it should carb up maybe an extra couple weeks than what someone may be used to.
On a separate note:
Chill haze is best minimized through proper wort processing. As Cubx mentions, proper cold break is the key here through good chilling.
I would only point out that chill haze will settle out given enough time. A keg of beer with chill haze will eventually clear out, as will a secondary fermentor and even bottles. But using the cold to remove chill haze is a long process because the haze proteins don't flocculate well and their mass is very low so it takes time to settle out. But this occurs more through what most would call cold lagering. A cold crash is a quick way to get solids and yeast to settle out.
Addressing chill haze in the kettle is the better option.
How fast is fast enough to chill the wort? I have read "use an immersion chiller", but I already do that... do I need to have a prechiller in ice where I cool down the tap water as cold as possible?
Or is it more in the way that the wort is moved from the kettle to the fermenter? That is, does dumping it though a strainer do a poor job of keeping cold break out of the fermenter?
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