Why do you chill.

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Hambone

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After 1 st fermentation, while still in the fermenter, why do you chill the brew down if you are bottling?
 
Helps clear the beer. Yeast and other particles drop out of suspension quicker, leaving them behind when you bottle/keg.

Still plenty of yeast in the beer to carbonate.
 
I do, a week for ales and two weeks for lagers* at about 0°C in the primary fermenter, for the reasons mentioned above, and to add finings/clearing agents.

*This is a short period, if I had another fridge they'd get another 5-6 weeks cold in the keg before tapping. One day.
 
It also retards staling/oxidation mechanisms that can occur while conditioning your beer
 
There's a "must read" book called Yeast - part of a brewing series - and one of the light bulb moments is when you read that even when beer in the fermenter looks perfectly clear to the human eye, in each ml. it can still contain more yeast cells than a Kim Jong-un birthday parade, so carbs up just fine when bottled.
 
Ok great thanks for that. Fermentation has steadied now for a few days. I'll chill it for a week or so. It's a mega hopped up IPA.
Cheers Hamo
 
If you've added a heap of dry hops to the fermentor I probably wouldn't leave it more than about 5 days to a week tops. Depending on the hops in que you may end up with some unintended grassiness and possibly bitterness.
 
Ahh right. Yeah it's a lot of dry hops. Cheers
 
Bottled this brew yesterday and at least during bottling it tasted great. Sweet and juicy Aussie IPA.
 
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