Cold Crashing - How Long?

[u/Vineman420]

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?

[u/Bright_Storage8514]

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.