Biofine (Silicic Acid) Storage

[Bainbridge]

Right. So yesterday we had an EPIC FAIL of a filter run, four hours to get 8 barrels after four backflushes, instead of one hour and no backflushing. Near as we can tell, the 75ml/bbl biofine addition two days before did nothing. Which is weird, because the same setup usually works just fine. My suspicion was that the biofine had denatured. The one outlier is that we'd used a quart of biofine we'd found hiding up on a shelf up in the cold room, which was probably old. Further research found Kerry saying store cool and dry, above 5C and don't freeze it. Cold room is usually about 38, so below 5C. But we've always stored it in there in the past and it's worked fine.

So greater brewery world, what say you: Cold Storage or Not Cold?

[soia1138]

We store ours in a regular refrigerator and have never had an issue. Sometimes a backup is kept in the coldroom and no issues there either.

[Sauce]

hmm....

We store ours at ambient temp, all year. Never have problems with it in the summer, but in fall and winter we need to up it from 50 ml per bbl to 75ml per bbl to get it clear. Maybe shipping below 5C but above freezing denatures it as you thought, without it crystalizing (how I've seen it after it freezes).



On another note, I thought it would be great to put our 1 gallon jugs of Nalco into 5 gal cornie keg to dispense and store, well....

If you want to end up with half a cornie of translucent jelly, then by all means give it a shot ;-) Not sure if it reacted with the CO2 or if someone backflowed beer into the keg. Any thoughts on that one?

[a10t2]

Maybe, being on the top shelf, it was close enough to the compressor to freeze? I haven't had any problems with long-term storage at 38°F.

[mmussen]

I've always stored at room temp. I can't recall ever having a problem with it.

[Matt@Bauhaus]

BSG once told us that they wouldn't ship Biofine to us because it was too cold outside (it was below freezing at the time). We store ours at ambient temps because of the risk of getting it too cold. Apparently, it does denature when it gets too cold.

[barleyfreak]

I use about 75ml/bbl and store it at ambient and have not had a prob. Also, because we're small (7bbl, brew once a week), the 4L container sees about 8 weeks before spent. Crystal clear to the last.

Dave

[jebzter]

I switched to nalco after having a jug of biofine clear not work on us. It wasnt crystallized and was stored properly. Best I can tell is there may have been a problem with that lot. It happened about two months ago.