Brew cherry popped

Hi Gash.

Yep - always have. The reason is I don't want to unnecessarily disturb the trub/yeast cake immediately before bottlng. I thought about it and decided it would cool down quickly enough to make the yeast dormant before any significant amount of the priming sugar is acted upon. And beleive it or not, it really does work!

I now use this method for both lagers and pilsners as well as ales (in dozens of K&K and extract brews, as well as a couple of BIAB brews).

Cheers, Phil

Interesting, no doubt it works but I think you'd have troubles judging just how much carbonation you would get, I'd think if you happen to have an over active yeast it could eat a fair bit before going dormant, but as long as it works for you all good and that's all that matters! I used to crash after fermentation for a few days and then bulk prime but I'd use a second fermenter or bottling bucket so the yeast bed never got disturbed, it also meant I didn't have to stir the sugar solution in and the transferring of the wort distributed the sugar solution evenly.

Cheers!

Hi mate

Even using quite aggreesive yeasts it doesn't seem to present any problem. I wait until the yeast has cleared pretty well, and it never seems to "wake up" before the temp has dropped below its working temp. (The first few dozen times I was using an airlock to keep an eye on any unwanted activity but I never bother now).

Usually with lagers etc I'll rack it off the cake, but not for the ales. I've really found it to have many advantages and haven't identified any cons. The carbonation has always been extremely predictable and consistent.

I've never heard of anyone priming then cold crashing! It's amazing how I hear new methods all the time even after brewing for so long! I couldn't do it that way in my set up, the sugars would be eaten by the yeast way before it was cold enough. How long does yours take to get down to 0c. Coincidence we are talking about this because I had a discussion a couple of days ago about how some people when cold crashing do it by just 1 or 2 degrees each day so as not to shock the yeast, there is a couple of different reasons but basically it's so the yeast doesn't get shocked from the sudden temperature change causing them to excrete protease enzymes which would be damaging to head retention and also possibly release off flavours.

My old fridge is great at getting wort down to fermenting temps in a couple of hours, my chiller only gets it down to about 30c and the fridge does the rest, but it takes about 2 days to get down to 1c or 2c.

I have to admit, Gash, it does sound a bit odd, but I probably first tried it on about Brew #6 and was really surprised. In those days I only had a little bar fridge. So to fit it in, I racked to a 20 litre HDPE cube after the beer had cleared. During the process, I poured some of the wort into a sanitised 2 L Pyrex jug (that had the premeasured dextrose), and stirred it in to dissolve, then roughly-evenly poured this in as the beer was being racked. I drilled a hole in the lid and inserted a grommet and airlock to keep an eye on it. In truth, I only seemed to need to drop the temp by about 5C from the fermenting temp (I like to ferment at the lower end of the recommended range) to be sure the little yeasties would stay asleep. In the beer fridge this took about 5 or 6 hours. I kept chilling it and could get that fridge down to about 3C.

Then the beer gods smiled at me and a neighbour gave me an upright freezer. I put on a temp controller and it fits a 60 litre FV easily. All the brews are now done in this freezer and I prime at fermenting temps. I suspect this lowers to temp significantly faster than the bar fridge but I haven't measured. I've never had problems with yeast shock that I know of (or any unwelcome tastes). One thing I have noticed though, is since crashing it at 0C for 5 days and bottling at that temp, I seem to have almost totally solved the chill haze problem I used to get with extracts and BIAB. (I had a Coopers Sparkling clone BIAB that was a little more cloudy than I would have liked, but not so much I could whinge about it).

I saw a discussion on a US website about dropping the temp only a few degrees each day (after a diacetyl rest at 18C for 2 days for a lager. I tried it once but is didn't seem to make a difference, and it wasn't helped by me being the impatient type!

Anyhoos, it works nicely for lil' ol' me! Cheers, Big Boy!

It's a really cold and miserable day here in Newcastle today. So to cheer everone up with a really good laugh (at my expense), and because I promised to post some pics of my esky manifold (filter/drain thingy) and sparge arm, here goes!

Just remember I never claimed to be the world's neatest brazer!

Edit added: I should also mention it's a Willow 55 Litre esky so I also made the common novice's mistake of going too big. It means that, to get a decent grain bed thickness, I think I might have to do a minimum knockout of 40 litres or so. Oh well, every day for me means I can look forward to a new cockup.

Interesting! I have edited this post as i didnt see the second page of this thread.

I thought priming first was logical, however my logical was whilst racking to secondary . I had to do this step as my yeast cake/trube was a little larger than an experienced brewers would be and more than my second attempt will be I hesitated at cold crashing straight away. I wondered if the low temp after so much fermentation would kill off/shock the remaining yeast and i would have no carbonation...? I'm guessing from reading between the lines it will start eating the new sugars added before the temps drops to significantly ...? The crash for me was about clumping any excess floaties...? any other reasons to cold crash...?

The plan so far was to rack and prime to secondary. Bottle and refridge at 18C wait a week and then chill down to start drinking? was going to leave it a couple of weeks before letting any mates taste it

yeah that is a bit big for single batches, but maybe lay something over the grain bed when mashing to try and contain the heat, just to help. As for the workmanship yeah it's a bit rough, but as long as it works! Just give it a good clean of course, a soak in some hot water and sodium percarbonate or oxiclean/napisan or whatever you have, and you should be good to go! Do you have slots on the top and bottom??

The usual method is ferment, for about 7-10 days for a normal type beer 5% ish wih a normal type yeast, sometimes if using dry yeast and no starter or rehydrating it can take a couple of days longer. Once initial ferment is done most leave for another couple of days, one just to make sure, and two it's also known as a Diacetyl rest in lagers mostly but it also helps ales, in simple terms the yeast, once the majority of sugars are gone start eating their own waste or by-products which can cause off flavours, so in other words it cleans up after itself. So it can be all up from 7-14 days usually, sometimes if things aren't ideal like temperatures or just an old batch of yeast it can take longer. At the moment I'm using a liquid yeast (wyeast) and with a 24hr starter the ferment is beginning immediately, I just pitched 2 mins ago and it is bubbling already.

After that the 'normal' is to cold crash, some people like to secondary for a couple of days or weeks. I normally brew hoppy ale beers that don't actually benefit from weeks of secondary, they lose flavour. Where as a lager would probably benefit. So I cold crash for about 2-3 days. Some people take a lot longer as earlier mentioned by slowly bringing the temperature down to prevent 'shocking' the yeast. Another thing is when cold crashing the consensus is not to leave it on the yeast cake for too long. This again is a debatable point, but once cold for a few days there isn't really much point except for lagering which is another matter.

For over 20 years of my brewing I never bothered cold crashing, I didn't see the point, clarity was never an issue, but it was the move to kegging that made me take it up, it just helps keep hop and other matter out of my taps and lines.

When you go to bottle that is when most will bulk prime, bulk priming is much easier with a second vessel, the transfer of wort helps mix the priming solution and also takes the beer off the yeast cake so tipping up the fermenter to get the last bit out won't stir up the junk in the bottom.

I'm not saying Phil is wrong at all, it works great for him! Just stating how most do it. I'm not sure if you've seen what happens when you put a new batch of beer on top of a used yeast cake, but it goes insane immediately, the yeast is very much alive and active even when just sitting on the bottom. I think that Phil must have a very effective freezer, because other wise that 150g of sugar could be eaten up within hours! I'll say it again though and it's what's fun about brewing, many different methods work, and it doesn't matter how you get there, as long as you get there, but I'd just have to say to be careful using that method because I don't think it would work for everyone.

oh and I forgot
CHEEEEERRRZZZZ