# How To Crash Chill Before Bottling



## hazard (21/3/09)

OK, so i'm ready to bottle a batch of Dr Smurto TTL (modified partial mash recipe). It was in primary for 1 week, then I racked to secondary with gelatine finings. Its been there for a week and SG is steady at 1012. Now I'm keen to make the best beer I've ever made and want to try crash chilling before bottling to get the beer as clear as possible (I've never tried this and most of my beers are a bit cloudy, except for stout which is probably cloudy but so dark I can't tell). So a few questions if anyone can help:
- what temp should I aim for?
- how long should I keep beer cold?
- will there be enough yeast left for bottle conditioning? Will carbonatioon take longer due to less yeast in each bottle?

thanks for good advice!

hazard


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## Bribie G (21/3/09)

If you have a fridge that you can put the fermenter in, just leave it in there for about a week at whatever fridge temp (mine gets it down to about 2 degrees after a day). I always use polyclar to avoid chill haze. It's cheap as chips. Mix it up as directed and tip into fermenter and stir in gently, the day before bottling.
Don't worry about the yeast, there will be heaps there even though the beer looks clear. 


Hope it will be worth the wait!


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## Fourstar (21/3/09)

BribieG said:


> I always use polyclar to avoid chill haze. It's cheap as chips. Mix it up as directed and tip into fermenter and stir in gently, the day before bottling.



Hey Bribie, Ive never used Polyclar but interested to know. Any reason why you add it after crash chilling and not before? seems to negate the idea of crash chilling it if you are rousing the yeast by stirring in polyclar (which you would be).

Cheers!


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## Bribie G (21/3/09)

The directions on the pack say "add to cold conditioning beer" . Thirsty boy did a big post recently on how it works, apparently it doesn't work the same way as other clearing agents. What it does is to attract the polyphenols (the chill haze causing stuff) in the beer electronically using hydrogen ions and the compounds attach themselves directly to the Polyclar granules and it's the polyclar that flocs out. So the beer needs to be cold to throw a haze in the first place. I don't stir hard, just gently at the top and the polyclar soon works its way into the brew.


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## SpillsMostOfIt (21/3/09)

The beer does not have to be cold for Polyclar to work. The stuff that causes chill haze remains in the beer regardless of the temperature and PVPP will adsorb them regardless.

I have added it to the boil a couple of times and it appears to work well as those beers do not exhibit a chill haze whereas previously such beers did.

There is a thread on this forum about adding it to the boil where it is revealed that ISPCorp make a product called BrewBrite that is PVPP and carageenan (sp?) intended as a boil addition.


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## Bribie G (21/3/09)

That's interesting, I might experiment with it further. If that's the case it could even be a useful cube addition then add some more before bottling.


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## Sammus (21/3/09)

BribieG said:


> What it does is to attract the polyphenols (the chill haze causing stuff) in the beer electronically using hydrogen ions and the compounds attach themselves directly to the Polyclar granules and it's the polyclar that flocs out.



Electronically? :lol: using hydrogen ions? So do you need a hydrogen fuel cell to run it or something? Sorry mate, just 'avin a laff.


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## Bribie G (21/3/09)

Hmm the beer battery? Glow in the dark beer...........


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## Darken (21/3/09)

hello all im a very new person to this forum but have been reading for a while b4 registering. anyways when people talk about racking from primary does that mean the brew gets moved/drained into a spare Carboy fermenter? what does this do? reduce sediment/haze? any other reasons for this? when do u


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## buttersd70 (21/3/09)

Darken said:


> hello all im a very new person to this forum but have been reading for a while b4 registering. anyways when people talk about racking from primary does that mean the brew gets moved/drained into a spare Carboy fermenter? what does this do? reduce sediment/haze? any other reasons for this? when do u



link

followed by link


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## Darken (21/3/09)

ahh thank u i needed some straight up info rather than filtering thu endless topics for stuff i wanted to learn about.


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## hazard (24/3/09)

BribieG said:


> If you have a fridge that you can put the fermenter in, just leave it in there for about a week at whatever fridge temp (mine gets it down to about 2 degrees after a day). I always use polyclar to avoid chill haze. It's cheap as chips. Mix it up as directed and tip into fermenter and stir in gently, the day before bottling.
> Don't worry about the yeast, there will be heaps there even though the beer looks clear.
> 
> Hope it will be worth the wait!


Thanks Bribie, beer is in the fridge (at 4 deg) and I will be bottling this weekend. I will be bulk priming so want to ask:
a. Do I need to let beer warm up to room temp?
b. if not, do i need to cool down dex/water mixture (about 180g of dex) before I add to rackin vessel? I have been using bulk priming for my last few brews, and have had inconsistent carbonation - it appears to me that dextrose mixture hasn't mixed well with the beer, and if if dex is still hot I imagine it will float to the top rather than mix through evenly. 
c. Should I let dex and beer sit for a while in racking vessel to allow dex to mix through? If beer is still cold then there will not be a lot of fementation going on, so won't lose much carbonation if I wait an hour or so.

Thanks


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## Fourstar (24/3/09)

A. No
B. No
C. No

Get your beer out of the fridge and pour your priming mix into your bottling vessel. Rack your beer ontop of the priming sugar solution, this will mix it in for you as it usually creates a whirlpool when its transferring between vessels. Once racking is done, simply bottle!


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## Effect (24/3/09)

hazard said:


> It was in primary for 1 week, then I racked to secondary with gelatine finings. Its been there for a week and SG is steady at 1012. Now I'm keen to make the best beer I've ever made and want to try crash chilling before bottling to get the beer as clear as possible



Did you chill the beer before you added the gelatine?

I'm pretty sure the gelatine won't have much of an effect at all if it isn't pre-chilled before you add the gelatine to fine with.


Opening post of 'how to gelatine'


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## Bribie G (24/3/09)

Yes I normally bottle 'cold' but the only problem is sweaty bottles (humidity here) but that dissipates by the morning.

_Before_ crash chilling I usually allow the brew to go to ambient for a day or so in case the beer needs a diacetyl rest. Diacetyl shouldn't be a problem with kit brews but I have made a couple of extract and AG brews that I rushed through the process and they got diacetyl, which tastes like a werthers butter drop :unsure: . The yeast cleans up the diacetyl at the end of the brew and hence the term diacetyl rest.

Then I crash chill. 

As an example I've got an old ale that I've had at 19 degrees in primary for two weeks today actually, and last night I put it out and it's up to 24. I'll rack and then crash chill tomorrow just to clean things up & drop yeast etc then probably bottle at the weekend.


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## hazard (24/3/09)

Phillip said:


> Did you chill the beer before you added the gelatine?
> 
> I'm pretty sure the gelatine won't have much of an effect at all if it isn't pre-chilled before you add the gelatine to fine with.
> 
> ...


No, I added gelatine to bottom of fermenter before I racked from the primary - I thought to use the whirlpool effect to mix in the gelatine (like FourStar described for bulk priming). Then chucked fermenter into the fridge.

Why would beer need to be chilled before gelatine works? I mixed it with hot tap water (about 50 deg at my place and it was sticky in the cup, so I assume that it would be effective as a fining agent at ambient temp? Any other thoughts on this?

Hazard


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## Bribie G (24/3/09)

I have always gelatined at ambient temp.

One downside of gelatine is that it can give bottled beer 'fluffy bottoms' so instead of settling out into a solid sticky layer the yeast in the bottom can be a bit fluffy and rise up when pouring the bottle despite the beer being (initially) crystal clear.

I only gelatine nowadays when I'm using a yeast that's poor flocculating like West Yorkshire 1469


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