It's my first time making beer. I read that for adding gelatin to clarify beer quickly, the beer needs to be chilled first. I've put it into the fridge in a carboy, but then I read something that said if you make the beer cold it will kill the yeast and then won't carbonate in the bottles. I don't think it's all the way cold yet. Should I take it out? If I chill it overnight, will it still carbonate if the bottles stay warm for 2 weeks after?
Gelatin and bottling
- Thread starter EricaM
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
LostHopper
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2014
- Messages
- 312
- Reaction score
- 136
How does cold crashing cause oxidation? Just curious.
mirthfuldragon
Well-Known Member
(1) Cold-crashing won't kill the yeast. It will help drop a lot of particulate out of suspension and clear the beer.
(2) Cold-crashing will cause some amount of suck-back through the airlock, which can dump some sanitizer/airlock fluid into the beer (not a huge issue) and also suck oxygen back into the carboy (which can be problematic, and more so for hop-forward styles).
There are a lot of different ways to deal with suck-back, but most of those I would classify as advanced techniques that require a better understanding and a development of the process. I, for example, use a mylar balloon (a "balloon-lock") that fills with CO2. Easy, cheap, but still requires an active understanding of fermentaiton.
What is the style of the beer? Some styles are a lot less susceptible to oxidation problems. If you brewed a big hoppy IPA for your first beer, unfortunately, you may have bittten off more than you can chew to start. Ask me how I know
. My third beer was a Pliny the Elder clone that came off hotly alcoholic and oxidized like wet cardboard. Homebrewing is an ongoing process of learning. RDWHAHB (relax, don't worry, have a homebrew).
I would also skip the gelatin for now - its purely aesthetic. Provided your SG (specific gravity) is stable and at least 14 days have passed since you started fermentation, you should be okay to bottle.
(2) Cold-crashing will cause some amount of suck-back through the airlock, which can dump some sanitizer/airlock fluid into the beer (not a huge issue) and also suck oxygen back into the carboy (which can be problematic, and more so for hop-forward styles).
There are a lot of different ways to deal with suck-back, but most of those I would classify as advanced techniques that require a better understanding and a development of the process. I, for example, use a mylar balloon (a "balloon-lock") that fills with CO2. Easy, cheap, but still requires an active understanding of fermentaiton.
What is the style of the beer? Some styles are a lot less susceptible to oxidation problems. If you brewed a big hoppy IPA for your first beer, unfortunately, you may have bittten off more than you can chew to start. Ask me how I know
. My third beer was a Pliny the Elder clone that came off hotly alcoholic and oxidized like wet cardboard. Homebrewing is an ongoing process of learning. RDWHAHB (relax, don't worry, have a homebrew). I would also skip the gelatin for now - its purely aesthetic. Provided your SG (specific gravity) is stable and at least 14 days have passed since you started fermentation, you should be okay to bottle.
Dont worry about gelatin. I bottled for the first year of my brewing hobby. One thing that helped was using whrilfoc then letting my beer stay in the fermenter for 3 weeks. It allows time for the yeast and stuff to drop. I've never cold crashed or used gelatin and I've had pretty clear beer . I would only cold crash if kegging. If you dont set up right for cold crash you will get suck back and introduce oxygen into your fermenter as my buddy just found out . His fermenter glitched and dropped the temp sucking the the contents of his air Lock into the fermenter as well as O2.
RPh_Guy
Bringing Sour Back
Thermal contraction (shrinking of the beer and the gas in the headspace) causes a vacuum in the fermentation vessel. It will suck in air through the airlock (AKA suckback), unless you have a system in place to prevent it as mentioned above.
Adding gelatin also means that you open your fermenter, which directly introduces oxygen.
Plenty of people don't mind oxidized beer, but I'm not one of them. All styles suffer from oxidation, however hop compounds are the first to be affected. Cheers!
LostHopper
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2014
- Messages
- 312
- Reaction score
- 136
Thanks
I understand the suckback risk and have it covered although I was just trying to keep starsan out of my fermenter.
I don't use gelatin.
Would the amount of headspace in the fermenter influence the amount of vacuum produced?
RPh_Guy
Bringing Sour Back
Yes, definitely.
Gas shrinks a lot more than liquid when cooled.
(1) Cold-crashing won't kill the yeast. It will help drop a lot of particulate out of suspension and clear the beer.
(2) Cold-crashing will cause some amount of suck-back through the airlock, which can dump some sanitizer/airlock fluid into the beer (not a huge issue) and also suck oxygen back into the carboy (which can be problematic, and more so for hop-forward styles).
There are a lot of different ways to deal with suck-back, but most of those I would classify as advanced techniques that require a better understanding and a development of the process. I, for example, use a mylar balloon (a "balloon-lock") that fills with CO2. Easy, cheap, but still requires an active understanding of fermentaiton.
What is the style of the beer? Some styles are a lot less susceptible to oxidation problems. If you brewed a big hoppy IPA for your first beer, unfortunately, you may have bittten off more than you can chew to start. Ask me how I know
I would also skip the gelatin for now - its purely aesthetic. Provided your SG (specific gravity) is stable and at least 14 days have passed since you started fermentation, you should be okay to bottle.
Thank you for your reply. I did do hoppy ipa, but it was a festabrew kit, so it was super easy. I don't have the equipment to make 5 gallons of wort and have 2 small children right now. Main reason I'm making beer is cost. Beer costs me $15 at the store. Same amount is $4 if I make it myself. It's also fun to play with dry hops. Next time I'll try a different hop and see how it changes the taste. It just occurred to me that if I get a 1 gallon fermenter, maybe I could make small amounts of wort in a pot and then play around. That might be fun.
I added maybe a little too much dry hops in this one, so I was hoping the gelatin would tone down the taste just a little bit.
I'm also in a hurry to bottle, because I'm going to visit a friend in a couple of weeks and I wanted to bring her beer to try.
I didn't know about suck back, but the carboy wouldn't fit in the fridge with an airlock, so I took out the airlock and put plastic wrap over the bung, then used a hair elastic to hold it down. I'm hoping this kept the air out. Anyway, when I got up in the morning, the beer was cold, so I added gelatin, left it in the fridge until evening, which wasn't long enough for it to clear entirely, though it did look a bit better, and then bottled it. If I didn't do it yesterday, I would not have had time to bottle for another week and the beer would not be ready for my visit with my friend. I'm guessing there will be quite a bit of yeast on the bottom of those bottles, which will suck to clean, but otherwise is ok.
I'm ok with taking risks and learning from mistakes. I'd rather take chances to try and get what I want than play it safe and wonder if I could have done better. I had some of the beer yesterday, cold and un-carbonated and I was very happy with it, so I'm optimistic about the final product and maybe I'll do even better next batch.
Last edited:
I will try this next time and see which way I like better. Thanks for the suggestion.
Ok, good luck! If you think about it though, putting bottles in the fridge basically is cold crashing
Yeast will settle to the bottom, you'll really see a noticeable difference in clarity at about a week.
Use cheap vodka
