Cold Conditioning Ale

[brewhead]

i searched the site and found where there was mention of cold condition your ale b4 bottling. here's my scenario:

i have an esb i have "cold conditioned" now for a couple of days. before bottling the batch should i

>let it warm up then bottle normally?

>stir it gently to get the yeast back into suspension?

>add dry yeast to the bottling bucket then bottle nornally?

>rack deep to the bottom of the carboy and strain that through my funnel seive into the bottling bucket.

much appreciated

 

[Mikey]

None of the above!

Cold conditioning (also called lagering) should be done for several weeks. A few days won't do much.

There's sufficient active yeast suspended in the beer even after weeks of lagering to do your cabonation, so no additional yeast is required.

 

[OldManK]

so if you are cold conditioning it is okay to leave the beer sitting on the cake for several weeks?

 

[the_bird]

You'd rack it to a secondary fermenter before doing any long-term aging. Might prove to be a non-issue, but why take the chance of getting off-flavors from the yeast?

EDIT: The time on the server appears to have changed; this is in response to OldManK below.