Secondary fermentation on gelatin

[farwellbooth]

I’m doing my first ever batch of Irish Red. I’m going to do a secondary and want to put the gelatin in first. Would it be ok to cold crash the secondary carboy after a couple weeks with the gelatin at 70 degrees? I’ve read it works best to cold crash when adding galatin. I’d like to do the secondary at 70 degrees for a couple weeks prior to the cold crash.

Most will go in a keg and 2 gallons in bottles. Is it ok to go from cold crash, add the sugar solution, and then 70 degrees bar carbing and conditioning? The keg beer won’t get sugar and I’ll force carb.

Thank you

[uberculture]

Gelatin works best when you add it to cold beer. Plus, after you put it in secondary, it may clear enough on its own without it.

Even if you do end up adding gelatin, you should have plenty of yeast in suspension to bottle condition.

[23152]

That’s not a good idea… this is why. Secondary has a purpose and coldcrashing with gelatin has a purpose. Secondary is used to get the wort off the trub and also for the yeast to clean up diacetyle and other byproducts of primary fermentation. If you cold crash, you may put your yeast into dormancy and prohibit them from cleaning up primary fermentation mess. Complete your secondary and then cold crash. Put in your gelatin after you’ve reached your coldcrash temp. Cold crashing drops out yeast and suspended matter in your wort and gelatin grabs onto proteins and yeast to clean them up. In secondary, you want yeast… not get rid of them

[farwellbooth]

You mentioned the gelatin gathers up the yeast. Some of this I will bottle. Will there be enough yeast to produce Co2 with added sugar? Thanks

[23152]

Yes there will be enough when you cold crash, but it may prolong your carbonation when you use gelatin.
A resolution would be to add a pack of dry yeast to the bottling bucket with your priming sugar. This is a common practice with bottling high gravity beers.

Maybe someone could chime in on using gelatin when bottling. When I bottle, I only cold crash.

[23152]

I just think when u bottle homebrew, there’s a slight compromise that has to be made between flavor and visual. I would rather have a hazy beer than one that tasted like crap and not carbonated.

[farwellbooth]

Thank guys. Is it ok to cold crash and then warm the bottling beer again for conditioning/Co2 production?

[uncdeo]

Yes.

[23152]

If your talking about the beer prior to bottling…It is okay, but not necessary. Leave it cold and calculate that temp into your priming sugar calculator. The colder the beer is, the more CO2 is in solution. Leave your bottles at room temp and let them warm up on their own. When you let the carboy warm up, you may start to see floaters start to rise up from the bottom.

Reading your post again and if your talking about putting the “Bottled” beer into warmer temps… then absolutely yes. Your right, yeast need to consume the sugar for carbonation.

[loopie_beer]

@23152

The colder the beer is, the more CO2 is in solution.

Not so fast! The dissolved CO2 remaining in the beer will be dependent on the highest temp the beer hit. As the beer warms less CO2 remains. This is why lagers that skip a d-rest will contain significantly more CO2 than an ale. However, it is not reabsorbed by cold crashing.

[23152]

Hmm not saying your wrong or that I’m right, I just researched otherwise. Maybe you could steer me in the right direction. I’ve always done it by the current temp of the beer and never had an issue.

[23152]

Hey so I couldn’t find a definite answer to this priming sugar question, but I will say that you are correct. There is some debate on wether cold crashing draws CO2 back into solution. I’ve read it somewhere but can’t seem to find the literature. However, I looked back over my notes and went by the highest temp of my fermentation.
In other words, I miss spoke and thought I remembered doing it another way. Thanks for pointing that out Loopie and sorry Farewell for giving you not sufficient information. My mistake.

[loopie_beer]

I think there might be some CO2 that would be reabsorbed due to the blanket of CO2 in the headspace but I would be willing to bet it’s very little and negligible. I think we are both right in this sense.