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I give fermentation 4-5 days at 63°F, then bump up the temp to 70-72°F for maybe another 3 days. Then I crash to 33°F for 3-5 days until the beer clears.
7
I am not sure exactly what you are defining as efficient, so I am going to answer this assuming time efficiency is your primary goal.
Denny's advice is good advice for a general approach without having to faff around checking things, and will ferment all but the largest brews to FG.
I would suggest you take daily samples and gravity readings. As soon as ...
7
What you're doing is lagering the beer, so it would have the same benefits it has for a lager beer. Beer deteriorates much more slowly at cold temperatures.
The only possible problem I know of is that after that much time you might not have enough yeast left in suspension to carbonate the beer in the bottle. If that's what you intend to do, it'd be a good ...
6
It looks like the fermentation is complete, as the specific gravity has essentially stabilized. However, I'd leave it at 20C for another week at least to let the yeast clean up before cold-crashing. This is called the "conditioning phase", and can greatly improved the beer's flavour.
5
I cold crash (and fine with gelatin) at 30F for two or three days before kegging. I have found that 30F for two days clears my beer better than weeks at 38F in my refrigerator.
If you plan to bottle the beer, you might fear that you'll drop too much yeast out, leaving you with too little yeast to carbonate the beer. That isn't a concern. Plenty of beer has ...
5
Once you have cold crashed there will still be enough yeast to carb up your beer, given enough time.
I suggest leaving your beers in primary for your usual amount of time, but racking to secondary and leaving for a couple of days before you bottle, to allow any sediment kicked up in transfer to settle out.
If you are bottling with a few grams of sugar per ...
4
I routinely do this. Namely because of time constraints as well. My normal brewing process involves brewing once a month. So when brewing the next batch I am tending to the previous batch which was fermented and then crash for a month.
4
Sure, that's a good idea. Give it a week or 2 cold and it should clear up.
4
To really answer your question, a couple of days more or less will not make a difference.
Actually, you shouldn't cold crash witbier. It is also bottled with its yeast. At serving time, you then make a choice about pouring it clean, or swirling the bottom and adding it to your beer.
3
Yes, you have it. Normally you cold crash at the end of fermentation, before bottling. And a word of warning...if it was still outgassing heavily when you bottled it, it's likely fermentation wasn't finished. Bottles could explode. Keep it in a box in a closet, or somewhere safe.
3
It's certainly possible - a starter is only fermented to completion, but not conditioned, so byproducts of fermentation, such as acetaldehyde (green apple) and acetolactate (which becomes diacetyl - butter/butterscotch) are still left in the beer. This have low taste thresholds (50ppb for diacetyl), so it doesn't take much for you to notice then.
In a ...
3
The presence of yeasty dust in the bottle and some carbonation leads me to believe you can expect these to carbonate normally. I have lagered beer at controlled temps for at least 5 months and gotten successful bottle conditioning.
Issues holding yours back are likely the temp swings. Move the bottles to someplace closer to 70F and try and hold them there....
3
I think there are several reasons why cold crashing works, but they all come down to affecting various parts of the equation for drag (in other words, gravity is doing all of the work).
First, cold promotes early flocculation of yeast. Yeast clump together and form flocs as a survival reaction to adverse environmental conditions, with cold being one of ...
3
Most of the time mead makers don't cold crash. Just let it sit and it will clear over time. If you want to speed it along look into wine fining agents.
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Yes, you can keep the temperature for several days, no problem.
The only problem that can cause you is to clarify too much and lose the turbidity that witbier needs.
Glad to be able to help!
2
At the simplest level, cold crashing is about reducing any exothermic heat from yeast metabolism, since this causes convection and interferes with the sedimentation.
Cold crashing temperatures can (and should) be a good deal cooler than serving temps. Despite what is common practice, most, if not all beer, be served above ice-cold temperatures to properly ...
2
After 5 months of cold storage, there would but next to no viable yeast left in the beer. Store it for a couple more weeks, somewhere warm, and you may get lucky. If not, you'll want to remove the caps, add a couple grains of dry yeast to each bottle, and recap. Don't worry too much about oxygen, as the renewed fermentation should consume any oxygen that's ...
2
Wyeast 1272 American Ale II is has a flocculation level of medium.
You can get certainly clear beer from this yeast, you just need to give the yeast time to settle out. Cold crashing is a great way to do accelerate this process, 35F is fine, as close to freezing without freezing - how low you can go depends on how accurate your temp control is. Use a ...
2
I use gin as it is fine to drink if you accidentally suck it back through the airlock.
2
If you put your bottled beer in the refrigerator and let it sit, it usually will be crystal clear within a few weeks, even if it starts out with chill haze. I think the only difference between cold crashing before bottling and cold crashing in the bottle would be the amount of sediment you'll end up with in the bottle. When you crash before bottling, you ...
2
The beer will clear with age, but will clear more quickly in cold conditions.
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It won't hurt anything for sure. It will work about how you'd expect, actually, your beer will clear up quicker than at room temperature but not as fast as if you could get it down to 35 F or wherever you'd cold crash at. Some things like chill haze, you won't get to settle out unless it's cold enough to actually see it.
50 F should be cold enough for ...
2
There's no need for an airlock. By the time you get to cold crashing, fermentation is done so the need for an airlock is gone. I seal the fermenter using a solid stopper before cold crashing.
2
This is a valid way to do it.
There will be a slight amount of air and therefore oxygen sucked in, but not enough that I would worry about it.
2
You don't really need to rack to secondary. Just cold crash in your primary fermenter, and then be very careful not to suck up any yeast from the bottom when you transfer to your bottling bucket.
The way I do it is to position my siphon so the bottom is about 2/3 of the way down in my fermentation bucket. That way there's no risk of sucking up yeast. Once ...
2
Less bitterness - I would drop some of the interim hop additions, I would stick with the FWH just to reduce foaming, and I would eliminate the 40min 0.2oz and 20 min 0.45 oz additions.
If you want more flavour just up your dry hopping to get the flavours and aromas from the oils without the bitterness from the isomerised alpha acids.
And to further reduce ...
2
Regarding your question about yeast viability - it probably depends a little bit on how long you had the beer stored in the fridge, and how cold you stored it. Assuming you only had it stored for a few days, it's likely you will still have viable yeast left.
I also believe that you have not done any harm by warming your beer. The full keg of beer has quite ...
2
I brewed something like this a couple of months ago.
Wait until first fermentation has calmed down (not stopped), then rack to secondary and add some sugar to make fermentation go one, depending on the amount of headspace you still have. Use 4g/l of headspace.
Let it sit at least two weeks so that fermentation is finished, you will see that there already ...
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I send an email to John Palmer, he has been kind enough to answer. I guess it is ok to post it here, so here it is:
Hi,
It's best practice. Lots of breweries cold crash, and they lose head retention as a result. Thermal shock is most prevalent on cooling, not heating, although it can occur then too. But the difference of 10-20F at pitching doesn't have the ...
2
There are two steps needed here:
Ensure complete fermentation
Reduce the amount of yeast in suspension.
If you are concerned that the fermentation is not complete, you could raise the temperature of the cider to around 20C, and/or gently swirl the yeast back up into suspension. This will promote more rapid yeast activity, without being so high as to cause ...
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