Cold crash

[Brooa]

Just a guess, but possibly the amount of yeast in bottle conditioned beer is way less than in a fermenter. re the infection risk, I am over the top with my sterilisation.

 

[panzerd18]

Or a stout can be bottle aged for years with the yeast.

 

[Rocker1986]

Yes, but the amount of beer in a bottle conditioned beer is way less than a fermenter as well. Either way, transferring to a secondary for a week of cold crashing is an unnecessary practice. It's up to you whether you keep doing it or not - I've cold crashed lagers in the primary on the yeast cake for 5-6 weeks in the past without having any issues with unwanted flavours.

 

[Goodbeer]

G'day guys

Bottled my pumpkin ale last night. Ended up cold crashing for two weeks...so about 25 days in FV. Wasn't planning that long, but just ended up that way. Worked a treat, beer was crystal clear.

Also racked straight to bottle using an auto syphon, so as to avoid the 3 odd litres of trub.

Just wondering if anyone had any advice for avoiding trub when racking?

Tried taping the syphon the fv, using an s hook, but nothing held it, had to hold it myself whilst my wife bottled! Took awhile.

Cheers

 

[Goodbeer]

Oh yeah should mention first time racking

 

[pat86]

There is some good info on here about cold crashing. If you can take your fridge lower than 3C it has been recommended that you will get better results closer to 0C or -1C. I don't know if there is any research but I seem to remember that a few days at say -1C was more effective than a much longer time at say 3C. That said I usually do a longer, cold cold crash anyway.

Re. racking, easiest way would be to rack to a priming bucket I think, or you can play around and find a good yeast that settles into a sturdy yeast cake.

 

[Rocker1986]

Yeah, racking to a bottling bucket would be easier than siphoning it into bottles. I do this, just by transferring it through the FV tap via a hose into the bottling bucket below, which contains the priming solution for the entire batch. Hardly any of the sediment, if any, gets disturbed by doing this. I do this transfer cold, straight out of the fridge from CCing, which may or may not help with keeping the sediment compacted and/or less prone to disturbance. I am also quite careful not to stir up the FV while racking it. Just a gentle tilt to keep the beer above the tap level, until I can see the trub start to make its way towards the tap then I stop the transfer. Normally I leave very little beer behind in the FV, maybe 500mL or so. It works well, and bottling is a cinch without having to buggerise around with individually dosing bottles with priming sugar.

 

[Goodbeer]

Thanks rocker. Given me some good info on this one.

Reason for racking with the syphon was because of the way I used the pumpkin, the trub was almost above the tap line! The sample I took before bottling was chock full of crap, despite the CC.

Also don't have a secondary, normally just bottle straight from my primary.

 

[Rocker1986]

Yeah fair point. I had a pilsner batch like that recently after I emptied the whole cube into it which contained way too much trub (long story...). I thought about siphoning it but I decided to use my normal method but filter it through a stocking to keep the crap out. Worked pretty well.

I use one of those 25 litre water containers from Bunnings as my bottling bucket. I think it cost about 20 bucks. Haven't looked back since I started bulk priming this way.