A 'little Bit' Of Cooling In Secondary.....should I Bother?

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einnebcj

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Have got 17l of DrS'sGA sitting in my primary at the mo - my first AG BIAB. All seems to be going well after 11 days. Think we've hit final gravity of about 1006 from original of 1044. Tastes good to me to!
I've waxed and waned about racking to secondary but with only 17l in a 30l fermenter I'm worried about infection in secondary so have pretty much decided to leave it in the primary to finish. I posted a few days ago about not having any means of crash chilling and my only option to clear up the beer is just to leave it to settle as much as possible. My question is, is there any benefit in me carefully moving it 30cm into a (deep) sink and filling it with water, then adding a number of frozen 3l containers and rotating these to brng temp down. I'm under no illusion that I'll brng it down massively.....maybe a few degrees. Is it worth it or should I just leave it sitting on the bench in primary and wait another couple of weeks before bulk priming and bottling.
Chris
 
Have got 17l of DrS'sGA sitting in my primary at the mo - my first AG BIAB. All seems to be going well after 11 days. Think we've hit final gravity of about 1006 from original of 1044. Tastes good to me to!
I've waxed and waned about racking to secondary but with only 17l in a 30l fermenter I'm worried about infection in secondary so have pretty much decided to leave it in the primary to finish. I posted a few days ago about not having any means of crash chilling and my only option to clear up the beer is just to leave it to settle as much as possible. My question is, is there any benefit in me carefully moving it 30cm into a (deep) sink and filling it with water, then adding a number of frozen 3l containers and rotating these to brng temp down. I'm under no illusion that I'll brng it down massively.....maybe a few degrees. Is it worth it or should I just leave it sitting on the bench in primary and wait another couple of weeks before bulk priming and bottling.
Chris

Don't bother mate, unless you're going to cold condition then leave it as it. Dropping the temp by only a few degrees will do bugger all. If you're bottling it will clear up once it is carbed. A couple of months in the bottle does wonders for clarity.

You could always add some gelatine to clear it up a bit if its a big concern but IMHO it isn't worth the hassle.

I'm not a fan of racking either, once again IMHO, it's risks (infection and oxidation) outweigh the benefits.

JD
 
Agree with JD.

Wont make a rat's ass of difference if you can only drop it by a few degrees.
 
It is worthwhile still having it sit around for the extra time though. Will condition faster in a larger volume than in the bottles.

[EDIT: typo]
 
Absolutely do agree with JDW. It will condition (mellow the flavours) by leaving it a bit longer but this will also happen in the bottle as it has to be kept at room temperature to carbonate so you might as well bottle now.

As for cold conditioning, once it's bottled and carbed, putting a few bottles in the fridge for a few days is pretty much cold conditioning - size of vessel does not matter, it's still on the yeast and they're still working, doing their job

Steve
 
size of vessel does not matter, it's still on the yeast and they're still working, doing their job
Just more slowly.

A lot more slowly.
 
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