Dry hopped an IPA for 5 days before cold crashing for 7 days. I cold crashed in a standard fridge but didn’t realize until bottling that my auto siphon wouldn’t go into the carboy due to the small amount of head room above the mouth. So… I attempted to move the carboy out of the fridge and ended up plunging the siphon into the trub and sending a cloud of it into the beer.
How do you all cold crash and then rack? Thanks
You should take the carboy out of the fridge first.
Agreed. Move it a few hours before you plan on racking it to the bottling bucket. This way, if anything is stirred up it will have time to resettle.
Agreed with the above. But all is not lost. After carbonating at 70ish for 2-3 weeks, store the bottles at cold crash temps for at least 2 weeks. The hop material will settle back down to the bottom and form a solid pellet. Just be careful when pouring.
Thank you @brew_cat, @loopie_beer, and @jimrmaine. I ended up carefully moving the carboy out of the fridge about 5 hours before bottling. The reason I hesitated to do this is because I’ve heard that temperature fluctuations can cause “off-flavors” to be produced. Is that a legitimate concern? Or is that only during fermentation?
How do you guys cold crash?
First off is relax and have some home brew. Yes fermentation temp is critical but just moving your fermenter from the fridge to the counter isn’t going to cause a off flavor. Your not going to contaminate your beer or ruin it by moving it or whatever. When you cold crash just put it in the fridge for a couple days and when you have time, longer won’t hurt, move it to the counter and tilt it with a block of wood and and carefully rack it to a keg of bottling bucket. That’s it.
In addition to what @brew_cat was saying, your “off flavors” come from the actual fermentation of the beer. The first 3-4 days (7-10 for a lager) are the most important. This is when most of the flavor profile (good and bad) is produced. If you can control your temps during this period you’ll fend off those off flavors. Moving your finished beer out of cold crash won’t affect the flavor profile.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge - @brew_cat @loopie_beer. I wasn’t THAT worked up about it but it was frustrating to see the cloud of trub go everywhere. Seemed like it defeated the purpose of cold crashing.
I live in Maine and have an attached garage that this time of year gets down to around 30. I put the carboy in a swamp cooler bucket filled with water to act as a moderating heat sink. Until the water freezes solid to the bottom, I know the lowest the beer can get is just above freezing. During last year’s horrible winter, the water did freeze to the bottom and my Bock froze in the carboy. Thawed it and eventually bottled. It turned out fabulous.
I’ve read on here that those swamp coolers work well. I’ll probably put one together this summer. I live in Iowa but the summers get pretty warm here. There’s no way my basement will be in the low to mid 60’s for fermentation. Your bock sounds awesome.
