Conditioning Ales - Can This Be Done Cold?

[Spiderpig]

Greetings all,

After attempting quite early in my very short brewing career a Lager that didn't quite work out, I am for the while keeping things simple using Ale yeasts - mainly the US-05. My question to anyone is, can these ale yeast brews I am making be cold conditioned in a similar fashion to Lagering once the carbonation stage has completed?

I am fermenting 1st stage for 2 weeks bewteen 18 - 20C, then after priming (white sugear to bottle as opposed to bulk priming) I leave to carbonate in an old fridge (not on) to maintain a consistent temp for around 7 days. At this point I then allow the bottles to condition at whatever temp my shed dictates. Will I get a better product cold conditioning my babies having used an ale yeast, or do I stick to my current regime?

Any advice my fellow brewers?

Spiderpig

 

[BenH]

You could cold condition your brew in a cube (or a fermenter), before you prime and bottle. This allows a larger volume for conditioning.

 

[Spiderpig]

Cheers for that, much appreciated. How long would I do this for approximately? 4 weeks, or longer? Would this have any impact on the yeast preventing priming/carbonation when I did get round to bottling?

Still very new to this, so you all need to talk fluent "idiot" with me..

 

[BenH]

There'll be plenty of yeast still there to do the bottle priming, though it may take a little longer that you're used to.

 

[kabooby]

I would leave it longer in the bottle before cold conditioning. Needs more time to carb up.

Kabooby

 

[hosko11]

Hey Spiderpig,
I cold conditioned my very first home brew (coopers lager kit with the supplied ale yeast), but as BenH mentioned I did it in a cube before priming. I racked out of the primary fermenter to a cube after 6 days@19C and having had a steady SG for 3 days. I left it in the cube at 19C for a day and then chilled it down to 4C for 8 days and then bulk primed and bottled it. I must admit as it was my first brew I didn't have a basis to compare against, but I've got to say the clarity of the beer i've made is very good with minimal sediment and it's carb perfectly after spending 3 weeks in the bottle at 19-20C. I also can't comment as to whether the beer tastes any better because of the cold conditioning, but after following up a bottle of the brew with a VB can last night, it tastes 10 times better than the VB :icon_vomit:

So really, I haven't answered your question at all :lol: .... except that it tasted better than megaswill, which i'm sure it would have regardless of whether it was cold conditioned or not.

Anyway, good luck with it and hopefully you can glean something useful from my yabbering.
Cheers,
Hosko

FYI - the bulk priming part. After the cold coditioning I racked the still chilled beer to the bottling bucket and raised its temp to 18C. Then gently added (to minimise any oxygenation) the boiled sugar syrup to the beer in the bottling bucket (I used 114g caster sugar with a few cups of water - this was calculated on a beer temp of 18C and 20l, targeting a CO2 volume of 2.4), stirred it gently and bottled. I've maintained the bottle temps at 19-20C for 3 weeks.