Tips for cold crashing?

[Craigerrr]

Yes, bottle conditioning

You could forgo cold crashing in the fermenter, and essentially cold crash in the bottles after conditioning.
Chilling your bottled beer for a good period of time does is compact the sediment, and makes for better pours.
There is already the risk of O2 exposure in the bottling bucket (fairly significant), and from the headspace of the bottle (fairly insignificant).
Having said that, if your beers are not currently getting oxidized from your bottling process, I wouldn't change anything.

 

[Hawkbox]

That's what I would be doing.

 

[BarbarianBrewer]

Barbarian - curious about your setup. I assume the hose goes into a jug, and that the length is enough to capture sufficient CO2, or does the jug capture the gas?
Wondering if a capped jar of sufficient size would be able to hold the same amount of CO2 as a balloon. Smaller volume but under higher pressure.

That's a good way to simplify my method. Basically use a blowoff hose during fermentation and before cold-crashing, just remove the end of the hose from the jug and let it sit on the bottom of the chest freezer. The hose will be full of CO2 and the bottom of the chest freezer will have a high concentration of CO2. So any air sucked back into the fermenter will have less O2 than if I did nothing. However, I should note that the other methods described (mylar balloon, double mason jars, CO2 purge) would be better because they would have a more CO2 and less O2. My method falls squarely in the lazy & cheap home brewer camp.

 

[Box of Rocks]

You could forgo cold crashing in the fermenter, and essentially cold crash in the bottles after conditioning.
Chilling your bottled beer for a good period of time does is compact the sediment, and makes for better pours.
There is already the risk of O2 exposure in the bottling bucket (fairly significant), and from the headspace of the bottle (fairly insignificant).
Having said that, if your beers are not currently getting oxidized from your bottling process, I wouldn't change anything.

Makes sense, but... There is always that guy that tips their bottle up to chug, or has no idea they need to pour carefully and leave yeast behind.
Curious as to what is the best bottling approach that minimizes oxidation? Mine is: siphon to the bottling bucket, and use the bottle filler to fill. Lots of exposure but for a relatively brief amount of time, while headspace in bottle provides small exposure for longer time.

 

[GFHomebrew]

Makes sense, but... There is always that guy that tips their bottle up to chug, or has no idea they need to pour carefully and leave yeast behind.
Curious as to what is the best bottling approach that minimizes oxidation? Mine is: siphon to the bottling bucket, and use the bottle filler to fill. Lots of exposure but for a relatively brief amount of time, while headspace in bottle provides small exposure for longer time.

If I was bottling I'd cold crash it drops sediment quick and compacts the trub if you used sugar tablets you could probably just transfer straight into bottle skipping that extra transfer.

 

[Craigerrr]

If you are fermenting in a bucket, just add a spigot at a level just above your typical trub level, then bottle directly from there as Ben suggests.

 

[Box of Rocks]

If you are fermenting in a bucket, just add a spigot at a level just above your typical trub level, then bottle directly from there as Ben suggests.

Could almost ferment in the bottling bucket if the spigot was an inch or three higher. Makes sense. Might add a spigot to the fermenter, high enough for trub from a big beer (guesstimate), and can always tip it to get the rest.

 

[Hawkbox]

Just don't stir the trub if you want to add sugar that way or you've wasted a bunch of time trying to clear the beer.

 

[Box of Rocks]

Just don't stir the trub if you want to add sugar that way or you've wasted a bunch of time trying to clear the beer.

Other than time, is there a downside to splitting the sugar water across the bottles prior to filling?

 

[BarbarianBrewer]

Other than time, is there a downside to splitting the sugar water across the bottles prior to filling?

I think it would be very difficult to get the same amount in each bottle. Maybe if you use an eye dropper it would work. Or you could use Domino Dots sugar cubes. That would probably be easier.

 

[Mark Farrall]

Other than time, is there a downside to splitting the sugar water across the bottles prior to filling?

I fill one bottle up with the sugar I expect to need for the batch and dilute it with 5 or 10 mL for each bottle I'm hoping to fill. It's easy to do with the bottle sitting on the scale and a kettle. One mL of water = 1 g of weight and the dilution depends on what syringe I'm using.

I then use a syringe with a bottle attachment you can get from most chemists and squirt the sugar solution into each bottle. I don't do big batches so I don't notice much of a time difference. It also reduces oxidation as I'm only transferring from fermentor straight to the bottle.

 

[Box of Rocks]

Thanks Barbarian and Mark, both approaches sound like a potential improvement.
Sounds like neither involves boiling. Any downside if you don’t boil the sugar? And with regard to types of sugar, are cane and corn sugar going to act in a nearly identical manner?

 

[west1m]

In the past if I have a couple bottle's worth left over after filling my keg I have just used a funnel to add a teaspoon of sugar to each bottle. I have been a bit concerned if the un boiled sugar could cause an infection problem but it has worked well for me so far...

 

[Mark Farrall]

Thanks Barbarian and Mark, both approaches sound like a potential improvement.
Sounds like neither involves boiling. Any downside if you don’t boil the sugar? And with regard to types of sugar, are cane and corn sugar going to act in a nearly identical manner?

I sanitise the bottle before adding the sugar. Then boil the kettle and add the boiled water to the bottle. Sugar is a pretty bug free substance and recently boiled water should cover anything that did hitch a ride.

 

[BarbarianBrewer]

Thanks Barbarian and Mark, both approaches sound like a potential improvement.
Sounds like neither involves boiling. Any downside if you don’t boil the sugar? And with regard to types of sugar, are cane and corn sugar going to act in a nearly identical manner?

As Mark said, sugar is pretty much bug free. However, I always boil the sugar solution just to be safe. Since Corn Syrup isn't as fermentable as Cane Sugar, you'll need to add a little more. A priming sugar calculator will let you know how much of any fermentable you need to prime with.