Why cold crashing homebrew

The main benefit to cold crashing beer is the improvement of its clarity and appearance. Cold crashed beer will have an almost startling clarity to it, and an appearance that is practically indistinguishable from commercial beers.

This is because most of the particles that would otherwise clog up a siphon or a dip-tube would have already sunk to the bottom out of suspension. There are some drawbacks to cold crashing, notably:. It requires fairly precise temperature control. You will need to get the beer down to near-freezing temperatures quickly, without going lower. This will require a temperature-controlled fridge or a freezer with an external thermostat controller.

It prolongs the time that the beer needs to remain in the chamber. Cold crashing will add at least two to three days to the brewing process. It increases the chances of fluid and oxygen exposure. As the beer cools down, a vacuum will form in the cold crashing vessel. This could expose the beer to fluid and oxygen, which could affect flavor. A carboy or fermentation vessel will do nicely. You only have to ensure that it is sanitary and that there is a reasonably secure seal on it. For this, you could even simply leave your beer in an uninsulated garage or basement during the winter, if you live in a cold enough area.

This solution will cost nothing, and it can be quite effective. Of course, an actual refrigerator will give you more consistent results and will enable you to maintain the proper temperature more easily. If you have the time you can cold crash much longer. Cold crashing a beer in a glass carboy secondary for three weeks will usually result in crystal clear beer. The advantage of the glass carboy is that you can see how clear the beer is.

The longer you can cold crash, the clearer the beer will generally get. Also, keep in mind that some beers especially wheat beers are supposed to be cloudy! Remember that you don't have to have a fridge dedicated just to cold crashing. You can have a kegerator or keezer that can be used for cold crashing AND serving draft beer! Replenishing with fresh ice or packs every 12 hours or so.

Another similar solution is to have a cooler cool box or bag that is big enough to fit the fermenter, take ice packs or a lot of ice and place around the fermenter. Again keep switching ice packs for 3 days and then bottle. I did this with my latest brew, an American Pale Ale, however I wrapped a beach towel around the fermenter rather than placed it in a cooler. What cold crashing does it that it gets the remaining yeast that is left over after fermentation to flocculate or in simple terms, they will clump together and fall out of suspension and settle to the bottom of your fermenter.

This will help reduce the amount of trub and all that stuff that can get into your bottles during bottling. A little separate tip, a lot of people do this here in the office, but if you prop something under the front of your fermenter all the yeast will settle towards the back which will help keep the spigot clear during bottling. You can cold crash any style of beer, does not matter if it is an ale or a true lager fermenter with lager yeast. The cold does not kill your yeast, it just helps it go to sleep.

That is why we always harp on the proper fermentation temperature so your yeast will be the most active. Your cold crashing will not affect your carbonation process.

You will still want to leave your bottles at fermentation temp for carbonation. The store will not work correctly in the case when cookies are disabled. When in doubt, rdwhahb relax, don't wory, have a home brew.

We use this little Anton-Parr density meter that links up with your smartphone, minimizing the amount of beer needed and increasing accuracy. It is definitely worth the investment, in our opinion.

One of those compounds the yeast will clean up is diacetyl, which comes across as a buttery flavor. Beginning the cold crash or transferring the beer too soon would not allow the yeast to aid in the removal of off flavors.

We generally don't go from 69 F straight to 36 F in one motion to put the less amount of strain on our glycol chiller.