Spunding process for Ales

[Natebriscoe]

What everyone's process for spunding Ales? I would think much of a temp (even slowly) would stall an ale fermentation.

[Big Monk]

The goal is yeast scavenging via active yeast and natural carbonation.

Whether you do that for a lager or for an ale doesn't really matter. You'd just adjust for ale temps.

[Natebriscoe]

[Brody]

There are some differences to note. Lager fermentations move at a manageable pace so it's easy to determine when to transfer for spunding.

As far as temperature goes - I haven't done any lager cold fermentation style temperature drops before the transfer with an ale. Personally, I want my ale fermentations cooking well enough to eliminate traces of sulfur or diacytel without an extended lagering period (though I suppose Diacytel is pretty normal in the English Bitters I had over there)

This presents some timing challenges, especially if you dry hop. Trying to manage cropping the yeast, dry hopping, and spunding is tough to add up. One potential solution I had is to have some sugars waiting in the receiving keg.

So ferment, crop the yeast a few days later, dry hop (while fermentation is slowing for ~3 days), then transfer to a keg with enough sugars waiting to carbonate is my current thought... though I keep messing around with it.