Is it ok to cold crash in primary for 3 weeks? I have a beer in primary that calls for a 21 day cold crash/conditioning after reaching attenuation…Should i get the beer off the yeast cake before cold crash/condition or is there no problem doing this on the main yeast cake in primary? Thank you Cheers
Which yeast, ABV, and what would total time on the yeast be?
wy1388, target ABV is 9-9.5% ( gotta wait for my hydrometer before i find out for sure) and so far its been on the yeast 17 days, so when all said and done i figure it should be on the yeast 1.5- 2 months if i leave it in primary to cold crash/condition, thank you
I have little experience with 1388. I’ll let someone else answer.
Thanks Jim cheers
In general, I would not worry about it. Cold slows breakdown, and generally Belgian strains are pretty tuff.
As a low floc yeast, I would think it won’t matter a whole lot (if you rack and crash, you will be dropping a lot of yeast out of suspension, anyway, so the beer may still be on a reasonably significant amount of yeast cake). My thinking is that the beer is in contact with only the top portion of a yeast cake, anyway. But, I could be convinced otherwise!
I have kept mixed fermentation Belgian beers on yeast cake for a whole lot longer than what you are proposing, without apparent ill effect. My solera Flanders Red is perennially on some amount of lees.
Sure, no problem, but that’s a ridiculously long time.
this recipe calls for a 21 day cold condition cause i think the yeast does not like to floc, but its good to know it will not have any negative affects other then a long wait, thank you Denny and everyone else who chimed in, Cheers
I’ve never had any problem getting it to floc. IIRC, last time I used that yeast I did a 4-5 day cold crash.
Did the beer drop out brilliant from a 4-5 day crash? cause i really would like this beer to be brilliant clear. I plan on bottle aging for a long while so i was planning on dropping out all of the 1388 and adding fresh yeast at bottling to insure yeast health in the bottle. Maybe fine with gelatin?
im on day 6 of the cold crash @28-29F and only about the top quarter of the carboy has cleared, i read that calcium in the water helps yeast floc, in the water i used it had 66 ppm calcium, is that enough calcium to help with precipitation of yeast?