Cold Conditioning A Porter

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zarniwoop

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Hi All,

My extract porter is getting close to the end of it's fermenting time and I was planning to cold condition it, is this a good idea with this style?


Cheers

Zarniwoop
 
I'm cold conditioning an all-grain Foreign extra stout right now because I'm going to bottle the whole batch and I would like it to be as clean and free of sludge as possible. Also if you can get it cold enough then they reckon a week at near freezing is as good as a month at a few degrees. I'm lucky as my conditioning fridge gets down to -1 and don't Origin Energy love me :p but a week or so as cold as you can get it will polish it up for sure.

If you're bottling, don't worry about not leaving enough yeast cells in suspension to allow bottle carbing. Never had any problems with that, except it can take a couple of weeks as opposed to a week to carb.
 
Thanks, how cold can you go to before freezing becomes an issue? I'm using a chest freezer so I can go really low :D
 
-1 is the sweet spot because the alcohol is an anti freeze. However I've ended up with a very small bit of an ice cap on some brews, didn't do them any harm. I mean look at that magnificent brew Carlton Cold :p :p :p
 
I exactly the same position here, my toucan porter is just about through primary fermentation (3 days and less than 0.001 movement in gravity).
It's currently sitting at 18C now.

I'm brewing in a fridge, so 4-5C is possible - leave that for a week and then bottle?
 
Yes, I'd transfer to a cube and gelatine, yup that's right - even though stouts and porters are dark, they can still be crystal clear with "garnet" highlights when you look through them and a bit of CC and clearing of yeast will produce less sediment and cleaner, clearer beer in the glass eventually. :)

Also you get more consistent beer from bottle to bottle if you've settled the main yeast and trub in the cube and not bottled out of primary, where you can end up with the first few a bit soupy until you begin to hit the upper levels of the brew.
 
Hey Bribie, what's the advantage of a cube to a carboy/tub? I know with racking minimal headroom (less chance of infection from fresh air) is important - is this the difference?
 
Thanks, how cold can you go to before freezing becomes an issue? I'm using a chest freezer so I can go really low :D


I use a chest freezer as well, temperature controlled by a "Fridgemate". When establishing my 'how low a setting can I go", I included a half full glass of water next to the fermenters. ie. it would begin to form ice well before the beer would. eg no alcohol, small volume
 
I cc everything except weizens (which I hardly ever make).

0-4 will be fine (0-2 will be better)

I rack to bulk prime - serves also to remove the bulk of the beer from the sediment.
 
I CC in Willow Cubes because they fit nicely in my old fridge, but the more square variety as supplied by the likes of Craftbrewer actually fit better in my new Kegmate lagering fridge (where I can stack two on top of each other). The advantage of a cube, for me, is that I can flush the headspace with CO2 using a gas line that I have branching off for that purpose and the cube basically becomes a big bottle for a week or two.
 
Ok, so being that I dont run and keg setup and dont have C02 handy the benifit would be that I may be able to fit more in my brewing fridge at a time?

I am brewing in a bar fridge (have moved the freezer part) so I guess I could get 2 x 20Lt Jerry Can style cubes in.
 
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