Cold crashing. Why the long wait times?

[Doctormcbrewdle]

I'm seeing alot of brewers crashing their beers for not only days, but a week or two at freezing temp. I only ever go 24hrs max and the beer is fairly clear for transfer. I'm just wondering, why the long wait times? Yeast can't work at such low temps so it can only be beneficial for protein floc, right? Am I missing out on super fine, next to no sedimentation in bottles?

 

[manticle]

Stuff takes time.

Some yeasts floc much much quicker than others.

 

[Coldspace]

Several days minimum, I usually do 1 week minimum for ales, couple of weeks for lagers or longer.

All beers improve over time with cold crashing ( lagering) upto a certain time, unless really hoppy ales where you want them younger and fresher, but even these need a week for the flavours to shine through after ferment and most of the crap to drop out unless filtering.

It's why the last half dozen or so glasses out of the keg weeks down the track are the best.

If your pushed for time and /or don't have the luxury of multiple kegs for storage and conditioning then try to cc for 3 days before kegging up. You will get a lot less crap settling in your main keg and the beer will condition further in this keg anyway. That's unless you drink it straight away

 

[RobinW]

Not here. It takes about 24 hours to get to 2C.
I've been tossing in microwaved gelatin once it does and then run it through a filter into a keg 24 hours later.
Gelatin seems to strip out the chill haze.

Would be nice to have a bigger fermenting fridge but this one will only fit one 30L bucket.

So it's like sizzler round here, get em in and get em out.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

It does depend on what happens in the mash and sparge pH wise, the other is in the boil, a good vigorous rolling boil to drop out protein and tannins and a rapid chilling of the wort gets rid of a lot of the haze forming compounds. 24 to 48 hour cold crash at -1 to -2 after fermentation is complete and that should be enough for a nice clear beer. But some beers do buck the trend I have had beers drop bright using no chill and without cold crashing which I would put down to the yeast being used namely S04.

 

[Coldspace]

I'm amazed at how clear and bright my first ale using the Melbourne wl059 yeast is.

As clear as filtered beer after 1 week cc and biofine.

 

[Bribie G]

If you've gone to all the trouble of brewing 19L of beer then you might as well get 19L of clear beer into your keg. If you are relying on clearing in the keg then you are probably going to waste a litre of sludge. Best to leave that in the fermenter to drop bright and preferably at near freezing to slow down any possible yeast autolysis etc if chilling for an extended period.

If you drink a keg a week and lose even half a litre per keg then you're basically depriving yourself of nearly a keg and a half a year. Imagine you've got a carton of eggs in the fridge, eleven eggs and one egg box "dimple"of chicken shit.

 

[Black Devil Dog]

Agree with the advice, but geez if you get through a keg a week, there might be bigger issues to deal with than clear beer.

 

[Doctormcbrewdle]

I agree you might as well end up with crystal clear beer, BUT. in my new chest freezer with STC-1000 it's clear within 12hrs at 4 degrees. Never had to even go close to zero and cannot fathom why anyone would. Zero is an iceblock! Wtf you want an iceblock for!?

 

[Coldspace]

I agree you might as well end up with crystal clear beer, BUT. in my new chest freezer with STC-1000 it's clear within 12hrs at 4 degrees. Never had to even go close to zero and cannot fathom why anyone would. Zero is an iceblock! Wtf you want an iceblock for!?

Beer won't freeze till -2 , heavy high alc ones even lower.
Cc at 0 or just under will help drop crap faster and haze proteins etc as I understand also drop faster.

You then can serve it slightly warmer if you wish.

I like my lagers in summer crisp and cold, so I run my kegs at .5 to 0 shut off. This way they leave the tap into glass at around 1 degree. Nothing better than this into a chilled glass.

My ales, I tend to run a degree warmer and then serve.

In winter months when I have mostly English ales, reds and stouts on tap I usually serve at 2 to 3.

This is warm Aussie land don't forget ..

There is a significant difference between clearish young beer after 12 hrs as you do and what's called bright beer that's either cc and lagered for longer or filtered and aged alittle.
These beers that have been conditioned properly are far superior in not only appearance , but also flavour developments are shown properly and flavours don't hide behind unwanted flavours of yeast and crap,

Except for some styles where you may want some yeast character , eg coopers type ales etc

 

[manticle]

Agree with the advice, but geez if you get through a keg a week, there might be bigger issues to deal with than clear beer.

Yes. Heaps of cleaning.

Seriously though, everyone is different and not all our beer is drunk alone. Partners, friends etc can help clear a keg in much less time
What if you live in a household of beer drinkers?

DcMc- you do realise the info on the why is pretty easily available and your scepticism will only be answered by you actually trying it and seeing whether or not it’s for you? If you’re happy with 12-24 hrs, then great for you. People are not all made the same. Definitely no iceblocks going on with beer at 0-1.

 

[Bribie G]

2.7 litres a day = just over a six pack per day.

That's just a tease

 

[Batz]

2.7 litres a day = just over a six pack per day.

That's just a tease

 

[Black Devil Dog]

Seriously though, everyone is different and not all our beer is drunk alone. Partners, friends etc can help clear a keg in much less time
What if you live in a household of beer drinkers?




Of course, if there's a household full of beer drinkers, or you've got beer drinking friends regularly visiting, then sure, they'll help you get through it much quicker.

My comment was made assuming that 1 person was drinking 1 keg, per week, by themselves. Sorry, I probably didn't make that clear enough.

 

[Doctormcbrewdle]

Now now Skeeter, don't want no trouble round ere. I'm genuinely asking a question and there were no real actual answers until coldspace chimed in. I really didn't know there was a difference between clear beer and bright beer so will definitely try it on my next lager! Thanks man

 

[Benn]

If your beer is freezing at 0 degrees maybe look at calibrating your STC, I've got several and generally they are fine out of the box but I have had one that was out of calibration by a couple of degrees. I have a Mercury thermometer that I bought from Grain & Grape which I use to check any other temp reading devices. (I've since thrown out a number of cheap & not so cheap digital thermometers)
FWIW I calibrate the STC that runs my fermenting freezer at 18c and when I was using one to maintain mash temps I calibrated it at 65c

 

[DrewCarey82]

Guys I've seen reference of using finings/gelatine with cold crashing, just got my lager down to 1 degree now, should I bother or is that just being finicky for the sake of being finicky.