Should I wait before I cold crash or not?

[babychef]

I have been fermenting a golden ale. Fermentation went as expected and the beer has now reached the expected FG which is stable for the last 2 days. However, the recipe called for 2 weeks of fermentation, and it has only been 9 days. Is there some advantage to waiting longer before cold crashing, or would it be just as good if I cold crashed now?

Thank you.

[Oginme]

If you have reached a stable FG (same reading over several days), then there is no reason to wait before cold crashing. 

[babychef]

It's not too surprising I get different opinions. I got this from the same question on another forum:

There is an advantage to leaving the beer alone for the full two weeks: The beer is now cleaning itself up, the yeast are metabolizing some of the off-flavor compounds it threw off in the early stages of fermentation, notably diacetyl. As to cold crashing - if your beer drops bright, no need for it. Unless you're going to lager, that is, keep the beer cold long enough that the polyphenol-protein complexes (chill haze) drop out, all you're doing is making cold beer. You'll drop the yeast out but then they may not be finished and if left long enough, they'll generally drop out on their own.

That is exactly why I posed this question. What do you think of that advice?

Thanks.

[Oginme]

Generally, the advice is sound.  When the yeast is finishing up the fermentation of available sugars, the cells start to consume the intermediates produced during the Krebs cycle and some of the consumable byproducts which were ejected from the cells.  If you have hit your FG and it still reads the same 3+ days later, the cells have done this job already.  The yeast cells do not wait for the sugars to be completely consumed before beginning this task and will finish moping up the intermediate products of sugar metabolism easily in those 3+ days sitting at the same gravity reading.  If the gravity reading does go down, then they are not finished and you should wait another few days to cold crash.

[babychef]

Thank you so much. That makes a lot of sense and is really clear.