Cold Crash in addition to Finings? Anybody?

[Tommo 2]

Patience of a saint you have and maybe was a seagull in a former life

 

[Wigglebutts Brewery]

No big deal as a bit of gelatin is added with kegging and prior to that is a cold crash for 2-3 days but sometimes chill hazy just happens. Then i rely on time.

 

[Galena]

Unless I’m doing a style that should be hazy I use 1/2 Protofloc last 10 minutes of the boil, chill and leave for at least half an hour to settle before transferring from above the trub into the FV, ferment as normal, drop temperature to 12-15 degrees after fermentation, add Gelatine and cold crash for three days before kegging.
Something else that will probably divide opinions.
https://brulosophy.com/2015/01/05/the-gelatin-effect-exbeeriment-results/

Interesting read, I did wonder what temperature the beer was served at to the tasting panel and if served at typical British Ale cellar temperature you would have noticed any more of a difference.

 

[Carl66]

I have only ever cold crashed twice, one of those was for a lager so part of the process I guess, but according to a study by Brulosophy, it does not appear worth bothering with perhaps? There will of course be a split opinion on this - BRULOSOPHY

Cold crashing is integral . The secret to clear beer and lager

 

[The Baron]

Cold crashing is a very contentious terminology nowadays as it is out dated if you follow the latest techniques employed by the "scientific boffins".
you should slowly decrease the temperature and not drop it immediately in "crashing".
Me if I can not drop the temp as low as some say it will clear with time anyway.
There you are a proper can of worms opened.

 

[Galena]

Funny that this should pop up now when I am considering the first cold crash in a long time. I believe it is now recommended (by some) to lower the temperature by (don't quote me) 2 degrees a day, 1 degree at 12 hour intervals down to CC temp.
At my current diacetyl rest temp. of 22 degrees that would take 10 days to get to 2C, plus say 4 days at 2C, something I only ever previously tried for a Pilsner.
The wait is rather tedious and ties up one of my fermentation chambers for a long time.

I also CC by just screwing the top hard on my Speidel FV which seems to be able to take the vacuum with only minor distortion, but then I need to let it get back to room temperature before I open the lid to transfer so as to avoid sucking in oxygen, so another 24 hours or so.
As The Baron said, it will clear with time anyway and I will be trying Brausol in the keg.

 

[The Baron]

I did say "the Scientific Boffins" or until the next survey is done that contradicts the previous methods.
As you can see a little sarcasm in my post

 

[marshbrewer]

I don’t know if some people realise that some chemicals like isinglass ( a chemical used in the brewery business to clear their beer ) is actually from a fishes stomach

It's actually from a fishes swim bladder, not it's stomach.

 

[The Baron]

It is a bi-product of fishing like leather is from cows etc not specifically caught for

 

[SmallBatchGuys]

Funny that this should pop up now when I am considering the first cold crash in a long time. I believe it is now recommended (by some) to lower the temperature by (don't quote me) 2 degrees a day, 1 degree at 12 hour intervals down to CC temp.
At my current diacetyl rest temp. of 22 degrees that would take 10 days to get to 2C, plus say 4 days at 2C, something I only ever previously tried for a Pilsner.
The wait is rather tedious and ties up one of my fermentation chambers for a long time.

I also CC by just screwing the top hard on my Speidel FV which seems to be able to take the vacuum with only minor distortion, but then I need to let it get back to room temperature before I open the lid to transfer so as to avoid sucking in oxygen, so another 24 hours or so.
As The Baron said, it will clear with time anyway and I will be trying Brausol in the keg.

I'm a little late to the chat here but I thought I'd add my 10 pence for the sake of it.

Nearly all commercial breweries will cold crash, whether for cold crashing sakes, forced carbonation, conditioning (lagering) or if they will be filtering (better to be cold as the proteins latch together allowing the filter to do a better job. Hazy beers are still cold-crashed, and I'm not talking about chill haze, but intentional hazy beers with extra proteins.

Home brewing has its own set of problems, for instance, commercial breweries benefit from having massive fermenters, which creates pressure and technically the beer ferments under pressure, this is not so wide spread done in home brewing, but it does actually help with flavour as well as clarity.

Another factor is complete containment from external factors, bugs, oxygen etc... being able to transfer from fermentors to conditioning tanks, or using uni tanks for the full process and being able to dump as you go is a game changer for home brewers, it's difficult to recreate for people using carboys or buckets, even stainless steel fermentors like the Grainfather has difficulties if you don't understand the principles.

One tip is to keep that pressure up when cold crashing, in a commercial space this can cause a vacuum and collapse a tank. Never seen it with my own eyes, but I have seen the results. Not a cheap mistake.

Happy to have anyone come back with comments, as there is always another way of doing things. None of what I have said is 100% as brewing is as much art as is science. I'm just talking from my own experiences. Also, it ultimately comes down to what you prioritise. If you are happy with chill haze, or bits because it amplifies your flavours then do it, make it a part of the story. But for traditional clarity and styles, my suggestion is to try and emulate the big breweries in a way that works for you.

I use finings on my beers, dump, cold crash dump, and then filter on the way to the keg. I have a grainfather conical fermenter, I use a spunging valve to ferment under 2 psi (not a lot but I feel it makes a difference), I have removed the bottom hose for plastic couplers that allow me to connect an inline filter from Brewtools that goes directly to the keg. The previously mentioned spunging valve is attached to a 1.5"TC plate that has a ball lock and a 5psi release valve so I can push with CO2 into the keg without blowing up the fermenter (5PSi doesn't seem to give it too much trouble, not that I need to go that high to push).

Sorry, that was a long one, I'll leave you to it.

Good luck and happy brewing.

 

[MashBag]

I have only ever cold crashed twice, one of those was for a lager so part of the process I guess, but according to a study by Brulosophy, it does not appear worth bothering with perhaps? There will of course be a split opinion on this - BRULOSOPHY

Nicely put.

 

[MashBag]

Just on the point about the sucking the airlock contents into the beer during the cold crash, I saw a good idea somewhere about using a foil balloon of the type you normally put helium in.

A quality air lock, properly filled does not blow back. They are bidirectional.

 

[Agentgonzo]

A quality air lock, properly filled does not blow back. They are bidirectional.

You'll still get air getting sucked back into the fermenter, even if you don't get any of the water/vodka/starsan sucked back in, which was one of the factors they were looking at.

The foil balloon makes sure that it's just c02 that's sucked back in instead of air

 

[MashBag]

You'll still get air getting sucked back into the fermenter, even if you don't get any of the water/vodka/starsan sucked back in, which was one of the factors they were looking at.

The foil balloon makes sure that it's just c02 that's sucked back in instead of air

Missed that, was thinking contamination not gases.
That and only use airlocks for pressure equalisation.

 

[hoppyscotty]

I have only ever cold crashed twice, one of those was for a lager so part of the process I guess, but according to a study by Brulosophy, it does not appear worth bothering with perhaps? There will of course be a split opinion on this - BRULOSOPHY

Well there are a few reasons and benefits why you want to cold crash. But if we're talking about cleaning up beer then if you don't cold crash then you're just putting more work on what ever other method of clearing beer that you might be using like finings or filtering. And if you're bothered about consistency, which I know alot of people are not, then stuff like this really matters.

Though Brulosophy is interesting I dont think their results are particularly meaningful...their process control is nowhere near what it is for a pro brewery, so alot of the differences are hidden in other imperfections in their beer due to the basic brewing process. Also making decent drinkable beer is relatively easy and we brewers forgive imperfections in our beer because we're proud we've made something that we enjoy and others enjoy too, but if you want to elevate your beer to another level, especially if you have ambitions commercially or want to brew 'commercial grade' beer, then you're starting to chase those finer and finer things which matter and inevitably take more and more effort to achieve because of the law of diminishing returns.

Horses for courses.

 

[MashBag]

Spot on. It does depend on why you brew. For yourself, for mates, to experiment, for comps, or like your said with a plan to go further.

 

[Appleton Brews]

I’ve never used finings, gravity is the best clearing agent. I take my beer out of the brew fridge, if bottling transfer to the bottling bucket and leave for about 3 days at the garage ambient temperature by which time it’s clear. If I’m kegging I leave the beer in the primary fermenter for 3 days again at ambient.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

I believe " you canna change the laws of physics".
I doubt finings would work in zero gravity.

 

[Galena]

Though Brulosophy is interesting I dont think their results are particularly meaningful...

Indeed, not sure when I said that but I have come to realise that Brulosophy experiments are not remotely scientific.
l

 

[Agentgonzo]

Indeed, not sure when I said that but I have come to realise that Brulosophy experiments are not remotely scientific.
l

What would they need to improve on to make it scientific in your eyes? Which are the most unscientific parts of what they do? I'm genuinely curious.