Beer Forum

Fellow Home Brewers:

I am brewing the Breakwater Pale Ale from Northern Brewer using Wyeast 1056 American Ale yeast. OG 1.049.

The beer spent 2 weeks in the primary at temperature 67F, 2 weeks in the secondary at 64F.

After that, I moved it to the basement to sit at 58-60F after I dry hopped it. I plan to bottle it after 1 week at this lower temperature.

I plan to bottle this weekend, then let the beer bottle condition at 70F.

My question is: did the low temperature (58-60F) "kill" the yeast so they will not do a good job during the bottle conditioning phase? Do yeast lie dormant when they spend time at a low temperature, or do they die?

Thank you for your advice!

They'll be fine once you warm them back up.

I cold crash my beers for a week at ~40F when fermentation is over. Even with most of the yeast dropping out they bottle condition just fine.

Thanks very much. Good to know that I should be fine.

Yep when you chill it down the yeast just go dormant and stick together to flocculate out of solution. Unless you went for a long period of time or the yeast was not particularly healthy there will still be plenty of yeast in solution to bottle condition.

Thanks for the additional info!