Crash cooling

Get advice on making beer from raw ingredients (malt, hops, water and yeast)
Post Reply
User avatar
yashicamat
Under the Table
Posts: 1014
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2008 8:04 pm
Location: Stockport

Crash cooling

Post by yashicamat » Tue Nov 05, 2019 10:14 am

Morning all,

Dragged my brewery out over the weekend for the first time in 2 years - got a nice red ale with centennial hops bubbling away now. I've now got the luxury of a spare 'fridge and given I'm using a famously "muddy" yeast (US-05), I'm thinking about attempting to crash cool the FV once it's fermented out. The beer is destined for a Corny and will be force carbonated (slightly!) and the beer style will benefit from drinking fresh, so anything to hasten the readiness will be good.

So, my thoughts are to throw the FV into the 'fridge for about 5 days (?) then rack directly into the Corny from there. Thoughts? Is 5 days enough? I guess I'll probably just wait for it to drop bright(ish).

Cheers & it's good to be back 8)
Rob

POTTER BREWERY (mothballed 2020)

Fermenting: nowt (sadly). Drinking: still a few bottles of my imperial stout knocking about . . . it's rather good now

User avatar
Meatymc
Drunk as a Skunk
Posts: 836
Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2014 8:36 pm
Location: Northallerton, North Yorkshire

Re: Crash cooling

Post by Meatymc » Tue Nov 05, 2019 12:46 pm

Hi Rob

I bottle so others will better advise but my regime now is to drop (in the fridge) to 8C, add finings (gelatine) and then drop to 2C for at least 3 days. Does depend on what I'm brewing as to whether that's long enough - the hoppier the more likely it's not so a week - if you can wait that long, sounds better.

User avatar
yashicamat
Under the Table
Posts: 1014
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2008 8:04 pm
Location: Stockport

Re: Crash cooling

Post by yashicamat » Tue Nov 05, 2019 1:52 pm

Cheers for the reply. I'll probably give it a week and see how it goes - not sure I've got much control over temperature really though, it'll be whatever the thermostat sends it to!
Rob

POTTER BREWERY (mothballed 2020)

Fermenting: nowt (sadly). Drinking: still a few bottles of my imperial stout knocking about . . . it's rather good now

Kingfisher4
Hollow Legs
Posts: 387
Joined: Tue Jun 27, 2017 11:03 pm
Location: Derbyshire, UK

Re: Crash cooling

Post by Kingfisher4 » Tue Nov 05, 2019 6:12 pm

Meatymc wrote:
Tue Nov 05, 2019 12:46 pm
Hi Rob

I bottle so others will better advise but my regime now is to drop (in the fridge) to 8C, add finings (gelatine) and then drop to 2C for at least 3 days. Does depend on what I'm brewing as to whether that's long enough - the hoppier the more likely it's not so a week - if you can wait that long, sounds better.
I also bottle and have only recently acquired any ability to crash cool, although it may be limited down to 6°C.
It may sound a naive question, when trying to make the bottled beer as clear as possible, but is there still sufficient yeast in suspension to bottle prime with sugar solution of choice after your chilling and fining process?
I presume it leaves almost no yeast sediment in the bottles with your process?

D215Aquitania
Sober
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2019 12:52 pm

Re: Crash cooling

Post by D215Aquitania » Wed Nov 06, 2019 12:35 am

[quote=Kingfisher4 post_id=846465 time=1572973940 user_id=17366]
...
I also bottle and have only recently acquired any ability to crash cool, although it may be limited down to 6°C.
It may sound a naive question, when trying to make the bottled beer as clear as possible, but is there still sufficient yeast in suspension to bottle prime with sugar solution of choice after your chilling and fining process?
I presume it leaves almost no yeast sediment in the bottles with your process?
[/quote]

I'm also bottling. My fridge will only go down to about 4°C so I'll drop it to 4 but for a much shorter time - typically I'll drop the Inkbird temp setting on Friday for Sunday bottling. Any dry hops will be contained in a bag so not much debris from them which may help. Carbs up OK (batch prime @ ~4g/l) after a fortnight. Sediment in the bottles has been considerably reduced since I've been doing this.

User avatar
Kev888
So far gone I'm on the way back again!
Posts: 7701
Joined: Fri Mar 19, 2010 6:22 pm
Location: Derbyshire, UK

Re: Crash cooling

Post by Kev888 » Wed Nov 06, 2019 10:07 am

Chilling after fermentation certainly helps to speed up the rate at which fine stuff drops out, the closer you can get to 0c the better as those last few degrees really make a difference in the rate. The temperature also makes the cold break form and settle out more easily. How long it actually takes depends on the state of the beer and how tall the vessel is; it might just need one or two days but can be more.

Though whilst it speeds up clearing it also sets back the yeast doing their post-fermentation work. They must recover from the rather sudden chilling and of course there are far fewer left in the beer afterwards. So chilling soon after fermentation isn't always the fastest way to bring beer to the glass, it depends if cloudiness (rather than maturation) is the main limiting factor.

Personally I've rather gone off it, preferring cool/cellar-like storage temperatures later on if available. But I appreciate that may not suit everyone's process (e.g. if bottling, or if kegs need to be transported or moved around).
Kev

Sorcerer
Tippler
Posts: 29
Joined: Wed Apr 20, 2016 8:15 am

Re: Crash cooling

Post by Sorcerer » Wed Nov 06, 2019 10:17 am

Be careful not to "suck" the contents of the air lock back into the fermenter when you crash cool, particularly if you've used a blow off tube into a larger bottle/airlock, a pint of starsan mightened be the best addition to your brew

Sent from my VOG-L09 using Tapatalk


User avatar
Meatymc
Drunk as a Skunk
Posts: 836
Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2014 8:36 pm
Location: Northallerton, North Yorkshire

Re: Crash cooling

Post by Meatymc » Wed Nov 06, 2019 1:35 pm

I'm finding 60g dextrose to a 5 gallon batch using my regime mentioned above is more or less spot on even allowing for the much reduced yeast presense. Having said that, as on my recent thread Flat Beer, something went seriously wrong with that particular brew resulting in no carb but still a nice pint. Retro carbed but still no carb so must be total lack of yeast.

Although said regime is very constant there are significantl variations in clarity of the finished beers. Basically another week 'clearing up' would be great but I'm still trying to build up stock which was wiped out in late Summer - now not helped by having eldest daughter and son-in-law staying (3 months so far!!!!!) whilst purchasing a house hence having a solitary pint no longer applies and I simply can't brew fast enough!

User avatar
yashicamat
Under the Table
Posts: 1014
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2008 8:04 pm
Location: Stockport

Re: Crash cooling

Post by yashicamat » Wed Nov 06, 2019 3:58 pm

Sorcerer wrote:
Wed Nov 06, 2019 10:17 am
Be careful not to "suck" the contents of the air lock back into the fermenter when you crash cool, particularly if you've used a blow off tube into a larger bottle/airlock, a pint of starsan mightened be the best addition to your brew

Sent from my VOG-L09 using Tapatalk
Good point - I have a bubbler airlock but still not ideal. I'll loosen the lid I think for that intial half hour. It should still be slowly evolving CO2 enough to re-flood the FV pretty quickly and a layer of CO2 will still be sitting on top of the beer.
Rob

POTTER BREWERY (mothballed 2020)

Fermenting: nowt (sadly). Drinking: still a few bottles of my imperial stout knocking about . . . it's rather good now

Kingfisher4
Hollow Legs
Posts: 387
Joined: Tue Jun 27, 2017 11:03 pm
Location: Derbyshire, UK

Re: Crash cooling

Post by Kingfisher4 » Wed Nov 06, 2019 8:56 pm

yashicamat wrote:
Wed Nov 06, 2019 3:58 pm
Sorcerer wrote:
Wed Nov 06, 2019 10:17 am
Be careful not to "suck" the contents of the air lock back into the fermenter when you crash cool, particularly if you've used a blow off tube into a larger bottle/airlock, a pint of starsan mightened be the best addition to your brew

Sent from my VOG-L09 using Tapatalk
Good point - I have a bubbler airlock but still not ideal. I'll loosen the lid I think for that intial half hour. It should still be slowly evolving CO2 enough to re-flood the FV pretty quickly and a layer of CO2 will still be sitting on top of the beer.
The denser than air layer of CO2 should certainly be there as a significant protectant effect against oxidation, but calculations read elsewhere (can't find the original reference I'm afraid) suggest that the volume of CO2 produced at the end of fermentation as temperature also drops rapidly to potentially "stun" the yeast is likely to be negligible.

tourer
Hollow Legs
Posts: 479
Joined: Sun Oct 11, 2009 9:09 pm
Location: spitting distance of the Beacon hotel, home of Ruby red

Re: Crash cooling

Post by tourer » Fri Nov 08, 2019 9:09 pm

I ferment for a week, secondary for week with dry hops then drop the temperature down to 0.5c with gelatine. When i bottle i use 5.63g approx of white sugar a teaspoon of sugar is 5.63g x 23L. My beer when i bottle is so clear i can read a newspaper through it and carbons up no problem. Dont know if that's of any use.

McMullan

Re: Crash cooling

Post by McMullan » Sun Nov 10, 2019 12:19 pm

With a basic home-brew set up, the key to successful cooling is patience. Cool the beer gradually (slowly) over a few days. The residual yeast activity is sufficient to prevent a vacuum being created in the FV. I'd do this in a secondary, if possible, when the beer looks and tastes good - when it's actually ready for packaging. In many cases a secondary can actually speed things up. Most professionals use a secondary before packaging beer. You can wing it as a home brewer with some yeast strains, but generally it's good practice to use a secondary.

Post Reply