Cold Conditioning, How And Why?

[Eugene]

Hi All,

Sorry if this is in the wrong area, I tried a search and founf not too much so I will ask the question.

Cold Conditioning? How, when and Why?

So for I have onlt kegged two brews, both have been from primmary to Ferm after 8 days, I know I should rack but I was impatient to get it up and running, so now the next brew I have going I want to do 100%/

here is waht I have.

Coopers Pale Ale, 1.5kg Coopers Light liquid malt extract, 1 KG light dry malt
US56 yeast, been in primary now for thee days, still bubbleing away SG started at 1.070.

I just checked th SG, it is sitting on 1.034 after three dyas at 22-23 geg C in a cool box filled with ice bricks

Plan to rack tommorow day 4 and leave for 7 days.

then Cold Condition?

My fridge can fit 6 cornies + some largies, or 4 cornies and a "jeery Can" for cold conditioning, can someone please run me through what I should be doing next to get this brew ready for the keg.

I have thought about adding some cooled boiled water when I rack to drop the ALC content as by my calcs I could end up with an 8% brew, thoughts.

Thanks all

 

[browndog]

Hi Eugene,
I can't really tell you much about cold conditioning other than it helps any suspended yeast drop out and perhaps "age" the beer slightly. I can however make a few recommendations for you. The idea of racking is to get the beer away from all the yeast that has dropped out of suspension and settled on the bottom of the fermenter, so you really want to wait till fermentation has stopped. That is a pretty big beer you have there and you could have to wait another day or two for it to get to it's terminal gravity. While it is racking more yeast that is still in suspension and any sucked though from the fermenter will drop out and you may drop another point or two in gravity. Cold conditioning ? aside from even more yeast and perhaps proteins dropping out, your beer will always taste better if you can wait so I guess if you don't filter, you are not in a hurry and you want you beer to have as much clarity as possible, then go for it. Hope this helps.

cheers

Browndog

 

[Mr Bond]

Some info here

 

[danman]

just been searching the wiki and threads and found this thread which has answered some but not all of my questions. am currently cold conditioning a BIG belgian ale to try and reduce my fg of 1028 to something closer to 1024 for 75% attenuation.

the idea of cold conditioning is to make suspended yeast etc fall out of the wort but can too much yeast fall out thus reducing the carbonation level in your bottles? i dont bulk prime just put 6g into each tallie. sounds like a plausible situation to me,but maybe ive been thinkin too much about it?

cheers,Dan

 

[razz]

Hi All,

Sorry if this is in the wrong area, I tried a search and founf not too much so I will ask the question.

Cold Conditioning? How, when and Why?

So for I have onlt kegged two brews, both have been from primmary to Ferm after 8 days, I know I should rack but I was impatient to get it up and running, so now the next brew I have going I want to do 100%/

here is waht I have.

Coopers Pale Ale, 1.5kg Coopers Light liquid malt extract, 1 KG light dry malt
US56 yeast, been in primary now for thee days, still bubbleing away SG started at 1.070.

I just checked th SG, it is sitting on 1.034 after three dyas at 22-23 geg C in a cool box filled with ice bricks

Plan to rack tommorow day 4 and leave for 7 days.

then Cold Condition?

My fridge can fit 6 cornies + some largies, or 4 cornies and a "jeery Can" for cold conditioning, can someone please run me through what I should be doing next to get this brew ready for the keg.

I have thought about adding some cooled boiled water when I rack to drop the ALC content as by my calcs I could end up with an 8% brew, thoughts.

Thanks all

Eugene the gravity seems a little high but racking will cause it to start again if at all, that is a pretty agressive yeast and it sounds like under those conditions it maybe done. You do have a lot of unfermentables there in all that malt. Pitching more yeast may get it started again. You brew will be no where near 8%, more like 5%

 

[Enerjex]

put it in the cold condition and see what it does first hand. it will clear up un there and flavour can improve. taste a sample before putting it in and then taste it again after 2 weeks. i had a lager i did as my first brew back into it from a kit that i did a diacetyl rest on and thought i had ruined it. it had a really unpleasant sourish yeast taste in it. two weeks in cold conditioning and it's actually become quite reasonable. i was ready to tip it out but i'm glad i didnt now. some brewers leave their beer in cold conditioning for months (mainly lagers i think).

 

[Stuster]

Might be a little late for Eugene's beer now (check that date ).

Danman, if you want to reduce the FG, you'd be better off warming it up than cooling it down. That should get the yeast working. CCing will reduce yeast activity.

 

[Enerjex]

lol i didnt see the date.... well if it's been in cold conditioning up and till now he's probably clear to keg or bottle it

 

[danman]

Might be a little late for Eugene's beer now (check that date ).

Danman, if you want to reduce the FG, you'd be better off warming it up than cooling it down. That should get the yeast working. CCing will reduce yeast activity.

sorry mate should have given more info.

brew was sitting on a constant 22deg on a brewpad warmer for nearly 3 wks before i got a consant reading of 1028 for 3 days. ive tried heating the brew up,even added a dry yeast sachet to try and fire up the old yeast but yielded nothing. the only thing i could think of was that the fermentables had been exhausted,so cold conditioning was the only thing to do. im hoping that some of the unfermentables will settle thus reducing my fg.

sound plausible?

cheers,dan