Cold Crash Tips In Tiantai Fermenter Unitank

Generally, you want to perform the cold crash step when fermentation is completely finished in Tiantai beer fermentation tank. It’s also a good idea to let the yeast have some extra time to “clean up” the beer in fermenter unitank, by consuming some fermentation byproducts that can potentially cause off flavors.
It’s good to do that before packaging anyway, but doing it before cold crashing is important because yeast activity will slow down or completely stop at cold crashing temperatures.
Tiantai, beer fermentation tank, fermenter unitank, Cold Crash

Tiantai, beer fermentation tank, fermenter unitank, Cold Crash

DOES DRY HOPPING AFFECT COLD CRASHING?
Yes, it can. Cold crashing can help to drop any hop matter and potentially some hop haze out of the beer.
That said, there are some folks who maintain that cold crashing can also affect the flavor and aroma that you added by dry hopping in the first place.
For me, if the beer was “lightly” dry hopped, I will go ahead and cold crash once dry hopping is done and the beer is ready to be packaged.

If you are doing a really serious dry hop addition and you want to get the most out of those hops, then you probably want to cold crash first. The downside here is that you probably want to use another vessel for your post-cold-crash dry hop charge. This is because you want to get the nice clear beer away from all the stuff you just removed from it.

IS COLD CRASHING THE SAME THING AS LAGERING?
Not really, although some of the same benefits are achieved by both. The primary benefit is clear beer.
As I mentioned before, cold crashing is kind of like speeding up time. During a lagering phase, many of the same processes take place, just at a slightly warmer temperature over a longer period.
Lagering is also more of a conditioning process, whereas cold crashing is kind of like instant gratification. At least as far as clarity is concerned.

WHAT IS THE BEST TEMPERATURE FOR COLD CRASHING?
I cold crash my beer as cold as possible without letting it freeze. Depending on the level of alcohol in the beer, the freezing point will actually be a little lower than water. But I usually set my temperature controller to just above freezing (say 33F).
This is important if I plan to harvest yeast from the fermenter or if I will be bottle conditioning my beer. We don’t want to kill the yeast, just get most of it to drop out of solution.

HOW LONG DOES COLD CRASHING TAKE?
I have had great success crashing for 24-48 hours, but longer periods will result in clearer beer. My suggestion would be to cold crash for as long as you have time for.
That said, extra time spent cold crashing eventually hits a point of diminishing returns. More than 5 days to a week is probably that point, at least in my experience.

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Emily Gong

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