Conditioning

[OldThumper]

On average what is the ideal time a beer should be sat at a fermentation friendly temperature prior to cold conditioning (moving it somewhere cold which is not hard in this weather)

The reason I ask is because:
I fermented my 5 gallon Tim Landlord batch in my fermentation fridge for 9 days between the temp 18 - 20C (fermentation finished after about 5 days). I then moved the batch out of the fridge and left it in my cold garage (where my fermentation fridge is) to condition. I plan to transfer to corny after a total of 2 weeks from the brew day.

Is 9 days enough time for the yeast to be active and clean up after itself following fermentation because the garage is going to be around 2-4C with this cold weather? Obviously the cold will help drop any yeast out of suspension but I guess it won't be working away but suspended by the cold, right? Is 9 days generally enough for the yeast to finish working (the 1469 yeast was healthy from a smackpack)?

BTW: I had no choice but to move the beer from the fridge because I needed it to ferment my next batch and Xmas will soon be here

Thanks all!

[gnorwebthgimi]

9 days should be fine.

but it's best to experiment and find out for yourself (after all it is your set up and personal taste).

[nobby]

Cold conditioning a Bitter!! It's someting that I have never done, am I missing something here, but never heard this before.

[gnorwebthgimi]

Cellar temperature (10 - 15'C) is generally colder than the activity of most top fermenting yeasts. So most beers are "cold conditioned" relative to the original fermentation temperature. A lager yeast initially ferments at about 15'c and is lagered at about -2 - 4'c, whilst this is more extreme the concept is similar.

[OldThumper]

I transferred this brew to Corni a couple of days ago and it tastes very promising. Very much like landlord in fact. The keg is sat in my unheated conservatory so the beer will be very cold indeed. I guess this will aid it clear quicker than room temperature in the house (i did not prime the keg but used gas instead this time).

I hope I don't see any astringent/off flavours with this brew like some of the others. Just ordered another 2 cornis from Norm so I must be confident all will be well

[EccentricDyslexic]

Is it true that commercial brewers pretty much give the yeast 4 days then keg/cask it?

SteVe

[gnorwebthgimi]

If they do then I think they filter out lots of the yeast. I think I'm getting off flavours from too much yeast because of barrelling beer too early.

[Piscator]

Is it true that commercial brewers pretty much give the yeast 4 days then keg/cask it?

SteVe

Pretty much - 4 days is a little quick, but many will rack off within a week. The beer doesn't hang around maturing for weeks either, most of it is out the door very quickly. This is about business after all and the fermenters need to be turned around for the next batches.
I was told that dropping the last few days of the fermentation to 10°C helps to drop a lot of yeast out and also helps to maintain a lot of the CO2 in suspension meaning that the barrel doesn't need any secondary priming.

[chivelegs]

http://vimeo.com/17310545

About 4:15 in, he explains how commercial brewers cool during fermentation. The whole thing is pretty interesting

[Spud395]

I'm drinking the 1st bottle of my last brew as I read this
It's a very relevent statement though, it was a verymuch panic brew and then effected by the weather.

Here's the story,
I brewed on Sat20 nov and fermented for 7 days at 20deg then like yourself need to free up the fidge so emoved it to the mercy of the garage at around 2 deg. Now I ment to bottle but it was 4 days at these kind of temps. Tuesday 30 I bottled crystal clear beer, I was a bit worried to say the least. 3 days later (tonight) I said I better have a look see how it was working out.
I'm drinking beer 13 days after brewday, clearer than any AG I've done yet, lightly carbonated and a very small amount of yeast in the bottom of the bottle.
I normally leave my beer 14 days in the FV and I'm amased how well this has turned out.

I'm familliar with one micro, they bottle after 7 days, 1 week warm conditioning and 1-2 weeks cool (depending on which of there ale's it is) then it's on the shelves

[EccentricDyslexic]

Nice video but i am in France at the mo with poor download speeds and it keeps stopping..a real pain!

I like the little hydrometer pot the hydrometer sits in...so easy for them to make so many tests...i wonder how they stop the yeast gathering in the pot though?

Something i must do is test more regularly the SG as the ferment progresses...i think i let it ferment out and the FG is sometimes too low and the beer too dry.

Looks like they would dry hop after the ferment and with the finings when they cask.

Steve

[OldThumper]

Hey Spud,

A recent brew of mine also cleared very quickly when sat in the freezing garage. I did a 6.5% IPA using SO5 yeast (normally it is quite slow to clear) and I bottled this after 2 weeks in primary - 1 week at 20C and another week sat in the cold garage. The beer is very clear already, just 1 week after bottling. The cold really speeds up the yeast dropping out of suspension. This cold weather is good for something then!

As to my original query above, all seems to be fine then

[weiht]

What i do usually is once my target FG is achieved, i will then crash chill the FV to about 3c overnite to drop the yeast. After that I will then keg it and let it condition at 13c for 2 weeks and then lower it to about 8c then eventually 3c again. I get great tasting beer that is clear in this manner.

Once i forgot to change the conditioning temperature to 13c n left it at 3c. It still tasted green after 2 weeks, therefore i raised the temperature to 15c to speed things up a little and after 3 days, i can taste the difference already. Generally i believe colder conditioning will give u a cleaner beer with less "risk" of off flavours but it will take longer.