Would it be a crime to cold crash the FV outside?

Emily185

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Many of us dont own a fridge for our brews. to cold crash the best we can do is an ice bath which is time and money, and even then its not gaurnteed youl get the beer down to the required temp, unless ur there to add more ice.
so with the cold nights here, would anyone risk leaving they're precious beer outside covered in black sacks overnight before bottling day, with a cold night expected of course like 3-4c.

im planning on doing this but just wanted to see if anyone else would consider it (or has already), or if anyone thinks its plain bonkers. latest ringtones

reading some threads on newbies beer having floating yeast and hops i thought we could take advantage of the cold nights ahead!
zedge ringtones and popular ringtones
 
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I've definitely thought of this before, most recently with the new corny kegs I have. the kegerator only holds one at a time, and I need to have a back up ready to go ;)

I don't see a problem in theory with what you said, but I think cold crashing takes more than just overnight. 2 or 3 days I think. but, any amount of cold crashing would be beneficial too.
How hot are your days? could you leave it outside for a day or 2?
 
you cant have temperature swings with yeast, cold crashing needs a constant low temp for several days 3 to 4 in my house at one temp, you can try to lower the temp outside but thats not the same result
 
Would a water bath outside maybe help to stabilize temps?
 
its going to be a slower temperature swing but still wont stay cold for a long enough time to achieve what your trying to do
 
I've used cool over night temps to cool cubed beer to pitching temps. To bad you don't have a bit more room in the fridge Emily:p.
 
I stick my fermenters outside in this weather. I have a set of stairs that goes down to the basement from outside. Its on the north side of the house so no direct sun. I repitched WLP007 slurry right from a 5-day-long outside cold-crashed porter (temp swings 30f to 63f) into an IPA and it seems to have performed fine.
 
don't get me wrong sure you can do it and it will chill the beer but once you move it the beer will cloud up again, to keep as much sediment at the bottom it needs to be still and untouched as possible so if you can set it up on something overnight, don't move it from that spot and siphon it into a bottling bucket the next day it should be fine
 
don't get me wrong sure you can do it and it will chill the beer but once you move it the beer will cloud up again, to keep as much sediment at the bottom it needs to be still and untouched as possible so if you can set it up on something overnight, don't move it from that spot and siphon it into a bottling bucket the next day it should be fine
Key is it needs time. It's not just yeast you're trying to remove from the beer by cold crashing, but the tannins and proteins that comprise haze. At cold temperatures, they bind and precipitate out, leaving your beer clear and perhaps a bit less astringent. An alternative that doesn't require cold temps is fining with either Gelatin or Super-Kleer. Gelatin precipitates out proteins, half of the haze-forming compounds. Super-Kleer is two stage - it gets tannins with the kieselsol and proteins with the chitosan.
 
Not a crime! Drop the charges! (gold star and a smiley if you get the reference.)

I don't cold crash anything except my starters, but then again I don't care about chill haze. Actually, call me weird but I kinda like it.

What I do do is attach a paint strainer bag (which I also use as a hop bag) with a rubber band to the end of my transfer hose, which filters out some of the gunk that would end up in the keg.
 
Now that the average temps in my region are 30-40 I move my fermenters to the garage 3-7 days before kegging. I just sit them on the same table I use for the mash tun.

During the warmer months I don't bother cold crashing and just make sure the fermenter is stationary in the location I will transfer to the keg. Cold crashing seems to clear it up more, but as long as I'm patient beers clear really well anyway.
 
you cant have temperature swings with yeast, cold crashing needs a constant low temp for several days 3 to 4 in my house at one temp, you can try to lower the temp outside but thats not the same result
Temperature swings aren't crucial after fermentation is complete. Go ahead and stick them outside in a shade spot . After a really cold night throw a blanket over them . The colder the better. I've buried my kegs in snow and have gotten a super clear beer. I often lager in a snow bank no problem
 
yes but cold then worm will wake up the yeast and all kinds of things happen including cloudy beer
 
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Not a crime! Drop the charges! (gold star and a smiley if you get the reference.)

I don't cold crash anything except my starters, but then again I don't care about chill haze. Actually, call me weird but I kinda like it.

What I do do is attach a paint strainer bag (which I also use as a hop bag) with a rubber band to the end of my transfer hose, which filters out some of the gunk that would end up in the keg.
The cheapest knee-high panty hose you can buy in bulk at Wal-Mart (or local equivalent) work very well for this - extremely fine mesh! And last night I discovered another source of haze I hadn't thought about: Introduction of oxygen at packaging. From now on, my bottling bucket gets purged with CO2 before beer goes into it! Supposedly the yeast in the bottles will scavenge the oxygen but I've had many beers clear at packaging and cloudy at pour. This includes lagers that were clear at 33 degrees F (0.5 C) when I packaged them!
 

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