Ok, completely reworking this post to ask what I actually wanted to know:
Cold conditioning of ales: do you do it, and if so, how?
I was considering leaving my current ale for a few more days in secondary and then moving it to the fridge at around 5 deg. to encourage the yeast to drop out.
Does anyone do stuff like this, if so, what sort of temperatures do you use, how long do you cold-condition for, etc. And do you need to pitch a new yeast at bottling to get the beer to bottle condition properly?
Cold conditioning ales
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UserDeleted
Commercially we always cold condition our beer, turning the temperature down to the minimum the plant will achieve, then it stays there for a couple of days or so before racking to the bright beer tanks.
My homebrew beer also gets the same treatment, although I use a variation of the Labbatts Patented process as I can get the beer to freeze at home. The Labbatts process involves getting small ice crystals to form in the beer, which they do around nucleation sites (protiens and yeast cells). Labbats then filter the beer, and add back sterile distilled water equivialnt to the amount of ice removed (therefore avoiding the accusation of distillation). I don't filter but find that after a week at -2C on warming up the beer it has dropped totally clear . . . and another positive side effect is that it is also chill proofed as well.
So to answer your questions Yes, -2C, One Week. If I was to bottle then yes I would repitch with a small amount of Lager yeast to condition.
My homebrew beer also gets the same treatment, although I use a variation of the Labbatts Patented process as I can get the beer to freeze at home. The Labbatts process involves getting small ice crystals to form in the beer, which they do around nucleation sites (protiens and yeast cells). Labbats then filter the beer, and add back sterile distilled water equivialnt to the amount of ice removed (therefore avoiding the accusation of distillation). I don't filter but find that after a week at -2C on warming up the beer it has dropped totally clear . . . and another positive side effect is that it is also chill proofed as well.
So to answer your questions Yes, -2C, One Week. If I was to bottle then yes I would repitch with a small amount of Lager yeast to condition.
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mysterio
Sounds interesting... Can you explain how you do this at home?UserDeleted wrote: My homebrew beer also gets the same treatment, although I use a variation of the Labbatts Patented process as I can get the beer to freeze at home. The Labbatts process involves getting small ice crystals to form in the beer, which they do around nucleation sites (protiens and yeast cells). Labbats then filter the beer, and add back sterile distilled water equivialnt to the amount of ice removed (therefore avoiding the accusation of distillation). I don't filter but find that after a week at -2C on warming up the beer it has dropped totally clear . . . and another positive side effect is that it is also chill proofed as well.
To answer Barry's question, I tend to stick my ales once kegged into the serving fridge around 10C... I find they drop clear within two weeks or so, depending on the yeast.
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delboy
I didn't realise freezing your beer could be regarded as disillation, is that to prevent the concentration of alcohol say for instance like apple jack.
I have 5 cornys in the shed which just sit at ambient temperature and fend for themselvels, these only get chilled when i switch on the flash chiller.
I also have one of norms coverted kegs with tap fitted siting in a spare fridge more so as to have instant chilled beer on tap, of course this cold conditions it and removes any chill haze after a week or two. Whether this actually improves it beyond cosmetic removal of hazes etc i couldn't really tell you.
Edit: apparently it is illegal to freeze an alcoholic beverage of any kind and then to remove the ice crytals
(something that might get you close to 15-20% if you were lucky yet you can quite happily put in order into H&G for a yeast that will turn a couple of bags of tate and lyle into 21% alcohol 
the law really is an ass.
I have 5 cornys in the shed which just sit at ambient temperature and fend for themselvels, these only get chilled when i switch on the flash chiller.
I also have one of norms coverted kegs with tap fitted siting in a spare fridge more so as to have instant chilled beer on tap, of course this cold conditions it and removes any chill haze after a week or two. Whether this actually improves it beyond cosmetic removal of hazes etc i couldn't really tell you.
Edit: apparently it is illegal to freeze an alcoholic beverage of any kind and then to remove the ice crytals
(something that might get you close to 15-20% if you were lucky yet you can quite happily put in order into H&G for a yeast that will turn a couple of bags of tate and lyle into 21% alcohol the law really is an ass.
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delboy
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tim
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oblivious
That’s not quite the same, Eisbock I thing only reduces by around 20%, freeze distillation you will try to get a much of the water as possible. If done wrong as with standard distillation it can be a health hazard, remember the term blind drunk!mysterio wrote:Hmm, strange. I had an Eisbock planned for later this year too...
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mysterio
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UserDeleted
Sorry to start such a discussion, I've only got a few minutes to type this so I can't go into my method, but I will say that any form of distillation is frowned on by HMCE. And that includes removal of ice from a frozen alcoholic beverage!! Even to the point of Eisbocks!
Yes you can use a super Z strain of yeast to produce incredibly high alcoholic beverages, but thats allowed.
Samiclaus is a swiss beer that is around 16% or possibly higher. I know that Marc Seddam isolated the yeast from Samiclaus (it is bottle conditioned), and made it available to Chris White, who releases it as a Platinum strain around December IIRC
Totally hypothetically of course, if one wanted to make a Eisbock the freezing is really critical, as you need really small ice crystals to form (The larger ones will remove alcohol as well which you don't need), then of course you syphon off the beer leaving behind the ice crystals. Again the problem with large ice crystals is that they trap beer between them, and you want to minimise beer loss but maximise ice removal. Its an interesting challenge
Yes you can use a super Z strain of yeast to produce incredibly high alcoholic beverages, but thats allowed.
Samiclaus is a swiss beer that is around 16% or possibly higher. I know that Marc Seddam isolated the yeast from Samiclaus (it is bottle conditioned), and made it available to Chris White, who releases it as a Platinum strain around December IIRC
Totally hypothetically of course, if one wanted to make a Eisbock the freezing is really critical, as you need really small ice crystals to form (The larger ones will remove alcohol as well which you don't need), then of course you syphon off the beer leaving behind the ice crystals. Again the problem with large ice crystals is that they trap beer between them, and you want to minimise beer loss but maximise ice removal. Its an interesting challenge
If I have space in the spare fridge I will cold condition. I have cold conditioned for a couple of weeks before on a 5.0% ABV beer and still had enough yeast to carbonate. My temp is 45F (7 or 8C). Typically it is a couple of days.
The only thing I see it accomplishing is speeding up the dropping of yeast.
The only thing I see it accomplishing is speeding up the dropping of yeast.
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RabMaxwell
I crash cool my beer after fermentation has almost stopped. Then transfer to my conditioning tank & store at 5oc until needed or have spare cornies sometimes a few months.Then store at 10oc when kegged in my chest freezer. I would imagine that one big advantage of cold storage is preventing yeast autolysis & helps yeast to drop out.
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delboy
Yeah ive often thought of that, you get out what you put in, if there is methanol in the beer then you will most likely get it out the other end, but does anyone here actually think they are producing large or even small sub lethal quantities of methanol in their homebrew and if they are why after 10 pints aren't i blind.mysterio wrote:Surely it's only methanol that can damage your eyesight? How can you create it from freeze 'distillation'?
The process of distillation doesn't actually produce the alcohol or convert it into something else like methanol thats going to make you go blind its merely the collection of the alcohol that was made during the fermentation process.
Personally i think the whole blind thing comes from the days when anything went and moonshine would have been cut with any old rubbish that they could lay their hands on, such as meths, and other industrial rubbing alcohols. I don't think the HMCE are in any hurry to dispel any such myths.
I mean when you actually think about the process of distillition it will actually clean up what is a very complex cocktail of compounds produced by the yeasties, any methanol can actually be got ridden off by discarding the fraction where its leaves the beer. The same goes for higher order alcohols or fusels can also be discarded in later fractions or be redistilled.
As i type im actually drinking a bushmills pot distilled whiskey (none of that scotch rubbish
). Bushmills pride themselves in being one of the few distilleries that still use pot distilling for their better whiskeys, basically its the simplest method but not very conducive to industrialisation so not economical, but crucially it does bring with it not only the ethanol but also quite a few of the flavour and aroma compounds that are formed in the orginal wash/unhopped beer. Im pretty sure this whiskey isn't going to turn me blind.Most over industrial style distillations rob the spirit of all but the ethanol and thats why it has to sit in an oak sherry or bourbon cask for 8-10 years just to put some flavour back into it again.
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mysterio
