What is Cold Crashing in Brewing?
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- Опубликовано: 10 июл 2024
- What is cold crashing in brewing? Today we're discussing the topic of cold crashing a mead and how to do it! It's useful for multiple reasons and I think it's important that we know how to do it. I also want to caution you all with a couple myths about it and what to avoid when doing it. Let me know what you guys think below and don't forget to hit like and subscribe!
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Mead Making is an art that people have enjoyed doing for years. It's something that intermediate to expert people can do and I'm somewhere in between. I've really enjoyed trying to use lots of different flavors in my meads like: Apple, Peach, Mango, Pear, Traditional, Elderberry, Blueberry, Blackberry, Maple Syrup, Apple Pie, Pie, Pumpkin Pie, Cherry, Chocolate, Bochets, Bochet, White Chocolate, Cilantro, Peaches, Melomels, Melomel, Acerglyn, Hydromel, Berries, Berry, Capsicumel, Peppers, Fenugreek. Some of my favorite meads have been the big blueberry mead, apple cinnamon mead, Bochet, OK Bochet, Raspberry Bochet, Mixed Berry Mead, Orange Cream mead, and Peppermint mead. I focus on how to make mead and how to make mead for beginners and hopefully anyone who wants to continue to grow in their mead making. 
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I use a 5 micron polyester filter sock from Amazon to remove the yeast after primary fermentation. It’s washable, reusable and cost around ten bucks. They come in a variety of sizes right down to one micron. Five micron is small enough to filter out the yeast.
I’ve got a batch in the primary right now.I’m gonna try cold crashing it in the fridge and immediately filter it out, degas it and bottle it after the sentiment settles. Thanks for the info!
Very informative, clarity is always difficult in small batches so this will help.
Very informative!
So THAT'S what happened to my first batch! I thought the yeast had died on me the other day when the room it was in got below 60 degrees, and why I thought my instinctive action of putting the carboy on the heating vent had "saved" my batch. NEWP! This was already a well known thing and I had just accidentally "cold crashed" my mead and then woke it back up again. 20 mins from almost zero activity to my airlock bubbling non-stop all over again! What a relief. I am SO glad you covered this, MMM!
I will have my Yule mead after all! It'll taste pretty raw I'm sure, even with clearing it with bentonite before racking into bottles, but family and I will live with it. I've wanted to drink mead over Yule in honor to my Swedish and Danish ancestors for years but local liquor stores never carried any, so I was inspired to say 'fuggit' and make my own. :-)
I'm glad I could help! Happy Brewing!
How did it turn out?
@@magacop5180 It turned out good at first, great flavour but probably sweeter then most experienced brewers would like as it didn't have time to mellow, however the rest of the batch that WAS left to mellow turned into vinegar on me. I must have let bacteria in somehow or just not sealed the bottles properly. Live and learn!
I've been putting mine in the shed which is 0.5 degrees Celsius this week, it's amazing how clear everything is getting, I'm having to re rack everything 🤣
Crack! Greetings from Paraguay
Oh wow! Hi!
I put my brew in the fridge and I have an s type airlock, after a few hours the outside air started pushing the water back into the brew. the liquid in my airlock hasn't gone back into my mead yet but im wondering if it will and then allow oxygen in as well.
Could you clarify for me the order of events for cold crashing. Do you transfer to secondary, then cold crash? Also, do you put in secondary flavorings before or after cold crashing? An order of events would be so helpful to me. thanks!
Just pulled 2 gallons of mead out from cold crashing for clarification. A peach mead and a spiced Cyser. They look so different its nuts. Thanks for the video
Can you explain how you flavored these? Both sound delicious!
@@michaelh9841 both were 1 gallon with wildflower honey. the peach was simple with 3 pounds of fresh peaches locally picked and enough honey to surpass the alcohol tolerance of the yeast. The Cyser had star Anise nutmeg cinnamon and clove. Honestly it came out tasting really good. The peach was disappointing. I can taste the peach but not as much as I wanted. Next time I'll use 6 pounds maybe more. Good luck!
Thanks
Well...if you cold crash for halting fermentation, it’s naturally going to clear too, so if you keep it in there to clarify too, you can re-rack in a week and immediately put the new racked jug/drum right back into the cold. If you continue, you’ll eventually pull out all the yeast as well as clarify it entirely. It may take a couple months, but totally worth it in comparison to putting unnatural crap in your brew to clear it quicker or halt fermentation faster.
Very informative video, thanks. You must have forgot to tag the freezer temperature control unit. Thanks.
Ah! Thanks for reminding me, I just updated the description!
I add the campden tablet to my brew Along with the Potassium sorbate at the same time? And when added do I keep it in the fridge or take it out to get it to room temp?
I would let it be room temp so the campden tablet can actually mix into the mead!
So if I’m ready to kill the yeast using your pasteurization method through the oven, should I cold crash before or after pasteurization? Or is it redundant if pasteurized it? Also should you cold crash with the fruit in it or out? Thanks I’m new to this
Cold crashing is best before pasteurizing. Cold crashing in that case would only be good for helping to clear the mead because pasteurizing kills the yeast. I would cold crash with fruit out
Cold crashing a few days before bubbles/fermentation ends helps with natural sweetness so you don't need to back sweeten. Good for scrumpy/Cider in my experience
when re-racking how soon is too soon to re-rack once fermentation has stopped? I am thinking about cold crashing and just re-racked 5 gallons 2 days ago and already there is huge build up of sediment at bottom.
You can re-rack as often as you want! It doesn’t hurt the mead to do that!
Awesome thanks for the info, it already tastes better than any wine I've ever had.
Great video! I just wanted to add that I used an airlock when I cold crashed a traditional some months back and I didn’t know at the time, but when your mead chills it will suck the liquid from the airlock and it will drip into the mead. Going forward I’ve decided to use solid bungs. Lesson learned though haha
That happens sometimes with heat too!
I didn't know that's what it was called!
I usually ferment my wines for 2 weeks and then move them to a colder place outside my basement to "cold crash" for 2 weeks which definitely helps clear quicker. I add my metabisulphite at this time also. Then once I pull from the clearer environment I back sweeten.
Could you please do the video on back sweetening? And how to properly use Potassium Sorbate and the Metabisulfite? I’m getting close to that step and would like more guidance on it so I don’t mess it up. Love the channel btw you have helped me learn so much in this process.
Of course! I’ll add that to my list!
Cold crashing doesn't change the floral aromas or ester flavors, but they do pull off yeast which can cause make your mead taste cleaner sooner.
Can you cold crash to clear, rack to to another vessel and bulk age at room temp? Or will it skunk the brew?
You can definitely cold crash to clear and then rack into a new container for bulk age at room temp. It won’t hurt it!
hey there MMM; is there a "natural way" to spot fermentation? meaning without the use of any chemicals, and btw thanks a lot! you've got quite useful data here!
So a natural way to stop fermentation would be to pasteurize the mead. This means you would heat it up at 145F for 15 minutes. This would cause the yeast to be killed off and not be able to ferment!
@@ManMadeMead awesome! Thanks a lot
Heck yea advise from a fellow okie
Why is it that you don’t want to freeze it? I know if it’s above 14 percent it won’t completely freeze but the water inside would expand and let out all of the co2. Would it effect any other flavors? Would it still clear in the freezer?
Well - not all things are above 14%. And even those things that are above 14% will still freeze (leaving just the alcohol) this is called freeze distillation! It could effect flavors if you froze the water in the mead!
Do you keep air lock on when you do this in fridge?
I don’t normally!
Is this the same thing as "Cold Masoration" as Doing the Most puts it?
Good evening. This has been an extremely informative video for me. We are beginning our trip into mead brewing and I have a question which I believe you may have answered, but I would like to be sure. When we made our first batch of honey mead, we had an excess amount of mead to fit into the gallon carboy, actually it was a full liter bottle of liquid. I placed this into our refrigerator to perhaps use in the future. So, if I am not mistaken, all I basically did was crash it for the moment. When I am ready to make my next batch, will I be able to pull this out and use it with the new batch, and not have ruined anything? At this time, it has been sitting in the cold since November 20, 2022 (almost 4 months). It seems a shame to toss it and am wondering your opinion on the matter. Thanks for taking the time to respond. We are enjoying your videos. Best regards, Don.
You have basically just cold crashes your brew. You can definitely try to re use the yeast - it should work!
I’m trying to cold crash my ciders prior to priming and bottling for carbonation so it’s perfect that the yeast will still be there.
maybe two videos you could do or least link to the one, one is how to kill off a colony via sorbate or metabisulphite cause i know alot of people have issues with sulphites and the "hangover" people sometimes claims due to it when too much, and two being the back sweeten video, if you have a video on the killing of a colony you could do a link to it in the sweetening vid
Hangovers are due to dehydration from alcohol consumption. Some people are sensitive to sulfites, but that is entirely separate from a hangover (my wife is sensitive to sulfites, which can be frustrating since so many foods are stabilized with them).
You can always try pasteurizing though. Kill two birds with one stone.
Is there a way to stabilize without adding extra chemicals?
You can pasteurize a brew by heating it to 140F for 15 minutes! That will kill any and all yeast!
You could clarify for a really long time in a cold environment and re rack until it super clear, or just choose the correct yeast strain from the outset. If you make low ABV mead, a big trick is to use something like normal bread yeast which cant really work above 6-8% ABV. So even if there is plenty sugar left, and yeast isnt killed, it just cant process anymore due to not tolerating more alcohol!
Which mead is the one in your intro at 0:14?
That’s my candy cane mead!
My bottled mead is pushing the cork out, can I save it by keeping it in the fridge?
Yup! That will stop the yeast from fermenting (which it sounds like they have started to). I would open that bottle outside just in case it sprays!
Wait
Why was it still fermenting when you bottled it?
Wasn’t it supposed to be completely done bubbling first?
Can you talk about pasteurization??. Thank you!
working on a video for that!
working on a video for that!
@@ManMadeMead Greeeat!
So can yo cold crash for clarity, rack it afterwards,
then backsweeten for carbonation,
then parteurize?
You can! But back sweetening often leads to messing with clarity again...
@@ManMadeMead right...
As always your very good at conveying the processes.
However, I did come across a story of (bare with me) moose in Canada running a muck. Kicking cars and knocking over trash cans ect. acting much in the way of (I guess you could say) the town drunkard. They (the locals) found out the moose had been eating the frozen apples 🍎 and getting drunk! How is this possible? Alcohol from frozen apples. They say as it would go from frozen to mid-day then back to a cold 🥶 temp it allowed a sorta slush-like freeze to occur. But how does this produce alcohol without our little yeast friends?
wild yeasts perhaps
How about fermentation after cold crashing
That can happen if the yeast aren't done fermenting and warm back up to their fermentable temperature!
What do you mean cold crashing doesn't affect the flavor of mead? Have you ever had a horn of ice cold sweet honey mead it goes down like water and before you know it you've had half a bottle.
Good job, you spent 10 minutes saying the same thing so you can rake in that sweet monetization.