I’m getting ready to bottle my first batch, I’m just going to leave it in the carboy for a few more days. From what I understand, cold crashing helps clear up the beer by causing some particles that are still in suspension to drop to the bottom.
If I’m relying on bottle conditioning for carbonation, then will cold-crashing the beer cause some of the yeast still in suspension to drop and result in less effective carbonation in my bottles?
I actually just did this for the first time too with a Belgian Double. It is taking a lot longer to carbonate the beer. I will never do this method again without pitching a new yeast before bottling.
Are you bottling out of the primary fermenter or secondary? You should still get plenty of yeast or try to suck up a little of the yeast-cake when transferring to the bottling bucket after cold crashing.
Carbonating in the bottle always leaves a bit of sediment. There’s nothing wrong with that except you need to pour it in glasses before drinking. Kinda defeats the concept of cold crashing.
For this particular beer I will be bottling out of the primary. But I plan on using secondary fermentation for future beers which I will be bottle conditioning.
I understand, and don’t mind, sediment from bottle conditioning. I guess I thought that cold crashing helped clear up the beer in general, not necessarily just to get rid of yeast sediment.
There’s no problems with cold crashing and bottle conditioning. I do the same thing with my lagers, and they carbonate just fine, but it does take a bit longer (about 3 weeks).
No need to suck up any of the sediment while bottling. There is enough yeast still in suspension even though you can’t see it.