Cold conditioning / crashing

[JR]

I'm making a couple of psudo lagers with US05 and Wy1056.  I fermented them at 15 deg and finished them off with a couple of days at 20 deg and they are now both fully fermented.  

I want them to be as clear as (easily) possible.  My plan was to wind down the temp then rack them onto some gelitin and leave them for a few days at 4 deg.  Then I listened to a Brew Strong on the topic of beer haze and the Dr Banforth was saying that colder was better for getting clear beer.  

"-1 or -2, just short of freezing it, for 3 days is better than +1 degree for a month" 

Should I be trying to get my beer that cold - what are my chances of accidentially freezing the beer?

How cold and for how long do you chill your beer post fermentation to clear it up?

I am bottle conditioning will such extreme temps kill of the yeast or is it only freezing it that will damage it?

[vdog]

If you've got a temp controller on your fridge, use it. Otherwise I'd do a test - crank it down as low as it can go, leave a bottle of water in there overnight, and if it hasn't frozen you're all good.

You shouldn't kill the yeast doing this - it's pretty hardy stuff. As it warms up it'll do its thing.

[Reviled]

Yep, get it down as low as you can, around -1*c, I think on Steubrew if you enter the OG and FG it will give you a freezing temp as well as the abv

[Nick T]

I've accidentally frozen a couple of brews and it does not seem to matter, however i was not bottle conditioning. John Palmer has a (lyrical)section on it in How to Brew, and the implication that it does not matter. Freezing is also used in some styles to allow removal of water to increase the beer strength. The freeze point of alcohol is minus a hundred and fourteen degrees or something quite stupidly cold like that, so no issues for that component of your beer! I have been using gelatin and cooling to a target of 1 deg for 2-3 days, and the results have been very clear beer. Might try 0 deg for the next brew. Mike Neilson uses 0 degrees I think and presumably has no problems.

from wiki answers: "The freezing point (°C) of beer = (-0.42 × A) + (0.04 × E) + 0.2, where A is the percent of alcohol content by weight, and E is the original gravity of the wort (°Plato). Therefore, each 1% increase in alcohol content lowers the freezing point by 0.42° C and each increase in gravity of 1° Plato raises it by 0.04°C. Thus, no beer will freeze at -1°C, and products at higher alcohol concentrations (including high-gravity brews prior to dilution) will withstand even lower temperatures."

[JR]

awesome - thanks for your replies....-1 it is. Should I rack it onto gelatin after or before I cool it?

[James P]

My lagerales get 0C for 3 - 7 days pending on how lazy I am, and I rack onto the gelatin before conditioning. Usually get crystal clear beer.

[Nick T]

Do you put to horses hoof into the tank before or after the beer? I tend to trickle it down on top after the beer goes in prior to cooling so it gets a chance to mingle, but it sounds like you rack the beer on top of the finings?