I just brewed a pumpkin ale 2 weeks ago. I leave for a week and half long business trip tomorrow and was thinking about transferring it to a secondary and cold crashing to about 38 degrees for the time I’m gone. Is there any harm in doing this? Anything to worry about with chill haze? I am still a little unclear on what exactly causes chill haze. On a few other forms that I read, there were contradicting opinions on whether this could cause haze. I think it more just me misunderstanding.
You should cold crash every beer, ale or lager. It is standard brewery practice. the only time a beer would not be “traditionally” cold crashed is if it were going into a pin or firkin.
You want to cold crash to create chill haze to let it drop out of suspension. Chill haze may or may not be there but you will get less chill haze if you cold crash (which also drops the yeast) and fine at the same time. Just making the beer 'cold" doesn’t create the chill haze, it is there regardless and will form when you get the beer cold anyway and usually will drop out over time even without fining. Or were you planning on drinking your beer warm?
Once my beer is completely fermented out I set my controller to 30F. Overnight the beer will reach 30F. Then I fine with 1/4oz of gelatin disolved in 4oz 150-155º water. I let that sit 3 days to a week depending on when I find time to bottle.
