Cold crash after or before secondary?

[TheDarkSide]

I almost never secondary, unless I'm going to dry hop the beer and reuse the yeast. Otherwise I just dry hop in the secondary. One of the comments I get on most of my scoresheets is "very clear beer". I do crash the primary before kegging ( in the case of a lager, I take it down about 4 degrees a day to cold crash...ales I just let them crash! ).

[unsteadyneddy]

I haven't been doing this for very long but what I've heard/read is that if you do an active pitch of healthy yeast (yeast starter) then your yeast will still be alive and healthy at the end of fermentation. Its actually important to give the yeast time after the ferment to clean up any off flavours produced (2 days once all activity has stopped) and a slight rise in temp toward the end will help (diacetyl rest). This is all done on the primary but you can rack to secondary if you want. The risk is an extra unnecessary transfer with possibility of introducing oxygen/contamination. When "cold crashing" its the final temp that is important not the speed at which you get there. Especially in lagers as going too fast will cause the yeast to produce a protein coat and produce off flavours. That's what I've heard and do with my beers anyway.

This is exactly what I have since learned. Mostly from listening to the BN. If only I had seen this response earlier...
to you over there in beautiful Margaret River!