I dry hopped a double ipa and have read about cold crashing to get the hops to settle. I want to bottle this beer in a few days so not wanting to wait for it to settle in time. I’m ok siphoning with the hop layer on top but curious if anyone has good or bad experience cold crashing to get them to drop. Any benefits seen/tasted?
Kevin I typically cold crash to remove the majority of the yeast from the beer. Cooling it down does increase the speed of clarity and you can add gelatin to encourage the speed along even more.
I would be careful that you do not get to much hop debris in your bottles. These can act a nucleation points and cause gushing bottles or just make it more difficult to drink. I know the excitement to bottle your beer ASAP but it is always worth it to wait and make sure your product, which you spent time on, is ready.
You can also try and boil or sanitize a muslin bag or piece of cheese cloth and wrap it around your siphon bottom to stop some of the hops from making it to the bottle.
I just started drinking my most recent IPA, which I dry hopped AFTER cold crashing. I was tired of losing a significant amount of dry hopping flavor when it settled out with the yeast during the cold crash. I do ferment in conicals, so hop debris isn’t much of a problem as it tends to all end up in the first bottle [usually a bomber]. Best damn IPA I’ve made to date, we’ll have to see how quickly the hop flavor fades though.