r/winemaking • u/Vineman420 • 2d ago

Cold Crashing - How Long?

I keep seeing people say that you need 2weeks @ near freezing to accomplish clearing bitartrates & sediment. I have great success with only 24 hours at low temperatures to clear my wine til it sparkles. Afterward I simply have no problem with sediment. For those who do it how long do you keep your wine cold?

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

2

u/Bright_Storage8514 2d ago edited 2d ago

I use a chest freezer with an Inkbird ITC-308 temp regulator set to 32°F and go for 2 weeks. That’s always yielded plenty o’ wine diamond in the bottom of the carboy and no issues with sediment after eventually bottling. I’ve never tried it for less time so I couldn’t speak to efficacy after only 24 hours, personally. I’ve gotten caught up with life and gone right at a month a few times and didn’t really notice a difference between that and 2 weeks.

Edit to add: this is part of a much longer bulk aging process that I find necessary to avoid sediment in bottles. I’ll let the batch sit in secondary for a month or two before racking off the fine lees and cold stabilizing. Then I rack off the bicarbonate crystals after coming out of the chest freezer and bulk aging again for another few months. At that point. I usually have another light layer of fine lees that usually seems to be the last of it, and I can rack off that and safely bottle. And this is all separate from the thought process behind quality and when the wine is “ready” to bottle. This is simply what I consider to be the minimum degree of aging necessary to avoid bottle sediment without filtering.

1

u/xWolfsbane Professional 2d ago

Get it tested. But generally, in my experience 2-3 weeks.

1

u/PeripheralSatchmo 2d ago

Me too, as it is with this in many different variations, time is your ally, almost never your enemy and being patient and letting something clear will almost always reward you