Beer Forum

I've got my first all-grain batch in the primary fermenter where it's been since I pitched 6 days ago. I plan to leave it in the primary, let the fermenter rise to room temp from (68 or so where it's at now) and add my dry hop addition in 3 or 4 days from now. After dry hopping for 5 days, I wanted to clarify the beer so that all of the hop chunks would fall out of suspension.

Can I cold crash the fermenter and get the loose dry hops to fall out of suspension and if so, what temperature and for how long? I would plan to use a bucket full of ice water for this...Or if not, what other ways could I clear up this hoppy pale?

I'm going to transfer directly from primary to bottling, after hearing Jamil talk about not using secondary's. Any advice or answers would be great

Cold crashing your beer in the primary is the way to go if possible. 2-3 days of cold crashing (at least 40F or below) is optimal. This will drop out all of your hops in suspension and leave you with a nice clear beer above to rack off into your bottling bucket.

Don't forget to switch your airlock to an s-shaped one (instead of a 3 piece) before cold crashing. Put a small amount of starsan or water in there and you won't have to worry about it being sucked back into your beer as the pressure changes when the beer cools down like you would if you were using a 3 piece airlock. Learned that one the hard way.....

Thanks for the response. Will cold crashing hurt yeast health and ultimately carbonation later in the bottle?

Gabe_S wrote:Thanks for the response. Will cold crashing hurt yeast health and ultimately carbonation later in the bottle?

Absolutely. If you cold crash and leave it long enough to clarify you are going to lose a fair amount of suspended yeast. In fact, depending on the amount of time, you are lagering.This is one of the reasons to always have some dry yeast around. After cold crashing you can pitch some fresh yeast and let it do the carbonating. Just bring it back to room temp first.

macgruffus wrote:

Gabe_S wrote:Thanks for the response. Will cold crashing hurt yeast health and ultimately carbonation later in the bottle?

Absolutely. If you cold crash and leave it long enough to clarify you are going to lose a fair amount of suspended yeast. In fact, depending on the amount of time, you are lagering.This is one of the reasons to always have some dry yeast around. After cold crashing you can pitch some fresh yeast and let it do the carbonating. Just bring it back to room temp first.

Guess I am cheap. But I don't waste a packet of yeast on bottling a batch. I usually just dip the racking cane into the yeast cake in the bottom of the fermenter when racking and let it run about two seconds worth of yeast out of there.

I had a Belgian beer that spent 3 months in the primary and the gelatin fined it and drew off clear finished beer, didn't add any additional at bottling and it carbed just fine. Just to say that it is going to be both strain dependent and batch dependent whether you need more yeast at bottling.

spiderwrangler wrote:I had a Belgian beer that spent 3 months in the primary and the gelatin fined it and drew off clear finished beer, didn't add any additional at bottling and it carbed just fine. Just to say that it is going to be both strain dependent and batch dependent whether you need more yeast at bottling.

Ditto. I made a Kolsch-Style beer that was brewed in early September and lagered for 4 months around 39 degrees. The beer looked crystal clear but there was still plenty of residual yeast in suspension for it to fully carbonate without pitching more yeast.

Cold crashing your beer for 2-3 days will not affect the yeast health or performance. There will still be enough yeast in suspension to carbonate your beer properly.