Cold crashing sucks

[colm89]

Thanks all for sharing your methods, a lot of food for thought!

I think having mulled it over a lot, I’ll probably not bother cold crashing dry hopped beers in future, and otherwise crash with a starsan soaked rag or tinfoil over the hole!

 

[Mavroz]

I always cold crash down to 2 or 3 degrees, this gives me a good clean ale before bottling or brewing. Yes you still get a little sediment but a lot less than not crashing.
I just lift the top on my blow off when Crashing so no liquid gets pulled back but the blow off is a small one so I don't think a small amount of sanitiser would harm anything.

 

[dave_77]

Any reason you use buckets for saison?

Firstly because paranoid about getting stray diastaticus saison yeast in my fermzilla and kegs(too many tubes/poppets/springs to clean). Also I have read that having the lid off with certain strains of yeast helps stopping stalled fermentation which is easy with a bucket just to have it resting on the top.

 

[gerald8_kop]

I cold crash but am always far more concerned about the intake of oxygen than sucking some starsan into the brew which I dont believe would be detectable?

Actually ordered a plaato valve today but more out of curiosity than anything considering the low price point and free worldwide shipping. An extra 10 percent off too if you add it to the shopping cart and then leave half an hour - you get emailed with a discount code.

 

[BeerCat]

If you have an airtight bucket use a blow off tube with a tap halfway down. Close the tap when cold crashing. Will suck the bucket in a touch but thats ok. Don't do this with glass.

 

[gerald8_kop]

If you have an airtight bucket use a blow off tube with a tap halfway down. Close the tap when cold crashing. Will suck the bucket in a touch but thats ok. Don't do this with glass.

But you will have to open it again when racking or bottling? So the vacuum will then suck the oxygen in regardless.

 

[BeerCat]

But you will have to open it again when racking or bottling? So the vacuum will then suck the oxygen in regardless.

Correct but it stops the sucking in of starsan. Exposing to oxygen when kegging isn't an issue. I would be more concerned about oxidising from the bottling process.

 

[Mayor of Simpleton]

I just put a clamp on the blow off tube when I cold crash. It works fine for me. I have forgotten to do this a couple of times and sucked star San into my brew bucket though.

 

[DocAnna]

Apologies for promoting one of my own posts, but the mylar ballon bit really isn't that hard. I had thought that now I was brewing with a pressure sealed fermenter that I wouldn't use it but I'm not fermenting everything under pressure so am keeping these around.
https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/...-co2-collection-bruloonlock.89874/post-951982
Anna

 

[colm89]

I guess my hesitation to go down the Mylar balloon route is largely down to the space available. I’m not sure it would fit in my ferminator

 

[gerald8_kop]

Correct but it stops the sucking in of starsan. Exposing to oxygen when kegging isn't an issue. I would be more concerned about oxidising from the bottling process.

He isn't kegging.

 

[Buffers brewery]

I guess my hesitation to go down the Mylar balloon route is largely down to the space available. I’m not sure it would fit in my ferminator View attachment 42506

I drilled a hole in the side of my fermentation fridge and ran a pipe from the FV lid to the outside and connect up the balloon for both collection and cold crashing.

 

[moto748]

Have to say, I make all my beer in a plastic bucket initially, which is far from sealed, it doesn't even have its proper lid any more, just a cover. So initially air can get to the wort, for better or worse. After 5 days or so, it goes into demi-johns under a fermentation lock. Few more days, and as it starts to clear and the gravity reaches around 1010 (hopefully!), it's bottled. All this time, it's either in the living room, or the kitchen, which is slightly cooler, as you'd expect. I No fridges or cooling devices in involved. I have never ever had a beer suffer from 'oxidation'. I have seen queries here from posters who are nervous about even opening their FVs for a few seconds to take a hydrometer reading! Surely this is over-paranoid?

It may be that lager production, for example, is poorly suited to these basic methods, but I don't care about that, I am not such a lager fan, and there are plenty of other types of beer. But I very much take the view of the poster upthread: mankind has been brewing beer for millennia, without the need for fridges or blow-off tubes, etc etc...

I'm not saying, of course, that these things are a waste of time and have no value, far from it (and I should say that the vast majority of posters on this forum appear to know a hell of a lot more about the subject than I do, and I have learnt a lot here) just that for most types of beer, they hardly seem essential.

 

[Braufather]

Just get yourself a John Guest one way valve and fit it to your airlock/blowoff tube.

Sounds interesting, how does that work? If I cold crash, I do it in the keg but am thinking of doing it in FV instead, so trying to follow this. If the one way valve is out only why not just close it up Instead?

 

[nixhaz]

Brew under pressure.....

Just doing my first brew under pressure and about to crash it tomorrow. Anything I have to do? It's at 25PSI at 19 degrees C currently. I'm freaking out just a little bit!

 

[DocAnna]

Just doing my first brew under pressure and about to crash it tomorrow. Anything I have to do? It's at 25PSI at 19 degrees C currently. I'm freaking out just a little bit!

That's about 2.4 vols CO2 so likely spot on for carbonation of many beers. The pressure will fall as you cold crash and the beer will absorb more CO2 as it cools so I suggest checking the pressure once it's reached a stable cold temperature based on a calculator for carbonation Force Carbonation Calculator - HomeBrewing.com you may then want to reduce the pressure for a couple of days if you are looking for accurate carbonation.

Anna

 

[nixhaz]

Thanks Anna that's great.
I was mostly just hoping that the fermzilla wouldn't implode!

 

[nickjdavis]

Sounds interesting, how does that work? If I cold crash, I do it in the keg but am thinking of doing it in FV instead, so trying to follow this. If the one way valve is out only why not just close it up Instead?

I use it in my FV and I cold crash in my FV....so I have a blow off tube from my FV with a JG one-way valve placed in line. Under normal fermentation the valve allows CO2 to escape via the blow off tube and flask of star-san. When I cold crash in the FV the valve prevents the star san in the flask from being sucked back in to the FV....which is the issue the OP was trying to avoid.