Cold crashing can do some great things for your beer. It clears it up and helps prevents excess trub from getting in your bottles. But can you bottle right after or do you need to let it warm up? 

This was a very good question that was asked by someone in our Facebook group.

After cold crashing can you just bottle your beer or do you need to let it warm back up?

So I thought it would be a good topic to cover today.

So a quick recap on cold crashing.

Cold crashing is when you put your fermenter in the fridge or cool the temp down for 24-48 hours before bottling. What this does is helps all the floaties settle to the bottom and will solidify that trub layer so you get less in your beer when you bottle.

It’s a great way to clear up your brew.

Now the question comes into play because using an ale yeast the beer needs to carbonate between 70-78 degrees. At those cold temperatures, the ale yeast is dormant.

So to answer that question, you do not need to warm up your fermenter before bottling.

For one, that will defeat the purpose of the cold crash.

Once you bottle your beer it will start to warm up. Once it gets in the right temperature range those yeast cells will wake up and start to eat the sugar from bottling and crate C02.

So to recap you do not need to warm your beer before bottling after you cold crash. Just go ahead and bottle.

Cheers,

Robert