Cold Conditioning Ale?

Adeptus Titanicus

Another query for the master brewers

I have an ale in secondary for 7 days now, following a 4 day vigerous fermentation in the primary. The bubbles have all but stopped (maybe one every 45 mins now) but it's still cloudy as hell. It's been kept at 20-22 degrees, so I was going to move it to a colder room to clear it (an unheated store room, pretty damn cold!).

The thing is, how cold, and how long? This is probably a stupid question, but would it clear so much that there'd be no yeast left in suspension to provide carbonation at bottling time?

Ta!

oblivious

Not all yeast flocculation yeast at the same rate, what one did you use?. I would of thought not all of the yeast would come out of suspension unless it had been left in the secondary for a very long time,8 mounth. The general rule of a normal strength is one week primary, two week secondary and three for carbonaton, german Alts and Kölsch are cold contidionted for weeks and the yeast still carbonate the beer fine.

Adeptus Titanicus

Ah grand so. A week in the cold (not very cold mind) shouldn't do any harm so. It's a Wyeast London Ale 1028. As I said, pretty cloudy still. In fact, another brew we did only last Saturday looks very slightly clearer! (same yeast, although it's a paler ale so it's probably an optical illusion)

oblivious

If you ever think you yeast may have give up after a long secondary and high alcohol content you can add a pack of US-56 or Nottingham yeast at bottling. These are neutral and wont affect the taste of your beer

bigears

From the Wyeast site:

1028 London Ale Yeast. Rich with a dry finish, minerally profile, bold and crisp, with some fruitiness. Often used for higher gravity ales and when a high level of attenuation is desired for the style. Flocculation - medium; apparent attenuation 73-77%. (60-72° F, 15-22° C)

Flocculation is the degree to which the yeast clumps together rather than floats freely - if it clumps together (high flocculation) it will stick to the bottom of the bottle and your beer will be bright. If this is stated as medium it may not drop clear without the aid of finings, unless you store it cold for an extended period. A lot of the liquid yeasts are used by microbreweries who routinely fine their beers (but that's another discussion!)

Some yeasts have high flocculation such as Safale 04, others like Weissbier yeasts have low flocculation as the beers are supposed to be cloudy.

A week in the cold will definitely help drop some of the yeast out of suspension. Some swear by cold conditioning, even if only for a few days, for most beer styles.

Once you decide whether a bright beer is important to you then you can decide how to tackle it.

oblivious

I have used S-04 a number of times, its great for nice clear beers

Adeptus Titanicus

bigears wrote:

A week in the cold will definitely help drop some of the yeast out of suspension. Some swear by cold conditioning, even if only for a few days, for most beer styles.

Once you decide whether a bright beer is important to you then you can decide how to tackle it.

To be honest, as long as it's drinkable the clarity doesn't bother me too much (being a weizen-lover, a bit of yeast wouldn't bother me) But then again, I want others to enjoy the fruits of my labours and some are more sqeamish than others

I'll leave it for a week in the cold room and see how things develop. I wanted to avoid adding anything else to it really, and juding from your tone about the finings discussion, would I be safe in assuming that you don't like using finings yourself?

On the cold room side, is there a recommended temp range at which cold conditioning happens?

Thanks

bigears

I want others to enjoy the fruits of my labours and some are more sqeamish than others

That's a good reason to want a bright beer. Some drinkers associate crystal clear beer with quality, unfortunate but true.

would I be safe in assuming that you don't like using finings yourself?

Not at all, I have no problem with finings. I have just fined a beer with gelatine for the first time this week and made a bit of a pig's ear of it (or should that be cow's hoof? ). Due to my own ignorance of its usage it didn't go as smoothly as I would have liked. I think the beer is fine but I learned a few lessons. I had a packet of Harris Beerbrite finings but decided against using them as they were out of date.

The main reasons I fined were

1. the same reason you stated above
2. i wanted to experiment and try something new.

I don't see myself using them when the beer has enough time to drop bright (or relatively bright) on its own but if I want a quicker turnaround I will consider them again. Incidentally there is no way a microbrewery could turn around their beers quickly without using them.

On the cold room side, is there a recommended temp range at which cold conditioning happens?

Shed/garage temp works for me this time of year A fridge works fine too

Adeptus Titanicus

So what exactly happened to your brew? Did you end up with beer jelly?

I'm looking forward to seeing how the cold conditioning goes. It's now in a room at the back of the house that has no heating, and sod all insulation (a cowboy builder "extension" from the early-mid 80s I think) so it's probably perfect conditions. I'll leave it for a week I think.

But I think I'll probably be investing in some finings just in case

Hendrixcat

I have never used finings in any of my brews. I've used a wide variety of yeasts from dry to wyeast and white labs. All of my beers have dropped bright unaided despite the various level of flocullation associated with the yeast strain. Even the White Labs Hefe Weizen dropped bright which was a surprise. I ended up with a krystal wheat beer unless I mixed up the sediment a bit at the end. All the fermentation and conditioning was done in a room that kept a steady 20 to 21 C in summer and dropped to 18 - 19 C in the colder months. I had similar worries about the clearing when I first started but it seems to me that a hazy beer is more likely to occur as a result of bad cold break and subsequent precipitation of protein matter when the beer is chilled before serving. There will always be sufficient yeast to condition the beer unless you are doing some serious cold storage or bulk conditioning for a very long time. Many American barley wines are warmed stored and then cold lagered for a year or more and require re-priming with yeast when they are bottled.

bigears

So what exactly happened to your brew? Did you end up with beer jelly?

No, thankfully But I overheated the gelatine/beer mixture before adding it to the fermenter; in addition I didn't let it cool enough so I had a film sitting on top of the beer :eek: I had to skim it off and start again. Like I say, lesson learned My previous brew was crystal clear (mind you it was in secondary cold coditioning for weeks on end)

I wouldn't advocate using finings or not. Some brewers do, some don't. In my case I wanted to give the beer a head start in falling bright, but if anything I set it back. It'll still get there though and I'm not sorry I experimented. Nothing ventured etc.

Kirin Iciban

If you leave a beer long enough it should eventually clear, but for those of us with only a small window of opportunity(!) from pitch to bottle you might consider bentonite clay.

This stuff swells in water and then you add it to your secondary/bottling bucket. Swill it round every few hours for a day and the yeast in suspension attaches itself to the expaned clay. Leave it to settle and rack/bottle off it.

There are other clarifiers out there, and alot of talk about positive and negative 'charges' etc. Choose one that suits your brew set-up/timeframe.

Just a casual note, its possible to pick up Milton sanitized wipes in the stores now. These are very convenient and can clean those things that fall off the table to the ground in the middle of your brewing.
Milton fluid is also very convenient as a sanitiser as you can use cold water and theres no need to rinse...what could be easier?!!