Cold Crash Duration

[Otto Von Blotto]

Never. Although I do notice that they have cleared more after the CC and finings than they would have without it. It's mostly yeast I'm waiting for though, as PVPP is very effective at removing chill haze. 

Fast chilling after the boil is a good way to avoid chill haze as well so if those batches were done that way perhaps that's contributing too. 

I have a batch to keg today, it's been crashing a few days longer than I normally would do due to being away. I'll pour my usual glasses from it to clear around the FV tap, so it'll be interesting to see what its clarity is like. 

[BlackSands]

5 minutes ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

Never. Although I do notice that they have cleared more after the CC and finings than they would have without it. It's mostly yeast I'm waiting for though, as PVPP is very effective at removing chill haze. 

Fast chilling after the boil is a good way to avoid chill haze as well so if those batches were done that way perhaps that's contributing too. 

I have a batch to keg today, it's been crashing a few days longer than I normally would do due to being away. I'll pour my usual glasses from it to clear around the FV tap, so it'll be interesting to see what its clarity is like. 

Actually my chilling process is a bit of a problem... it's very slow.  When doing these stove-top AG's I end up with around 15 litres of concentrated wort in my 20 litre SS pot which I place in a kitchen tub full of cold water... with the tap running. The water overflows into an adjacent sink.  I aid the chilling by pre-cooling some water in the freezer, but either way, it still takes ages to get down to pitch temperature.   

What's even more intriguing is I actually forgot the whirlfloc in the previous AG batch.  That beer, though still hazy after 4 days CC was super bright in bottle a day later and that has left me wondering if I even need to bother with whirlfloc?   I won't really know for sure how that one looks until I chill and serve though...  that'll be next week sometime.

One other thing I have observed is the degree of clarification is very obviously layered.  A past batch I actually took a sample off the top of the beer. Absolutely crystal clear while samples drawn from the tap were far from it.   When I bottled that batch the level of haze was noticeable different when comparing the first bottle to the last.  

 

[Otto Von Blotto]

I notice the layering too, it would be yeast. Happens in my kegs too; although I obviously can't see inside, the first few glasses often have a bit of yeast haze and it clears up as the keg gets lower. It would be partly due to it dropping out, but the top would clear first. 

I had the opposite experience when I didn't use kettle finings. Got some sort of permanent haze, isinglass and polyclar didn't fix it, neither did two months chilled while it was on tap. The hot break didn't separate very well post boil which probably caused it. It was quite hazy out of the kettle and remained that way the entire time. Not gonna do that again. 

[Otto Von Blotto]

This was a glass poured from the FV just now, before I started filling kegs (5 litres into the little one and the rest into a 19L one). It's not crystal clear but I can tell the haze is yeast. The top would be clearer. It'll have a bit of time in the keg before I tap it because the little one will go in first, so I expect it will be a bit more cleared up by then. Tastes a bit sweet but being flat it doesn't have the carbonation bite to offset that more.

 

[Shamus O'Sean]

On 11/29/2019 at 8:42 PM, Worthog said:

After (virtually) observing Kelsey's swimming  pool cube temperature reduction, post whirlpool, I have just filled a 200 litre plastic (wine) barrel to attempt a similar outcome, which I will chuck my 20L cube into to accelerate temperature reduction, to the extent I can place it in my 18c fermentation fridge prior to next day FV ferment. All in hope of reducing oxidation.

Cheers

How did the cooling effort go?