Going unfiltered

[LEBC]

Sorry for the noob question folks, but any advice from contributors would be much appreciated...

The plan is for a 7bbl production start-up making a few ales for kegging with cold room storage. Would it be advisable to use gelatin/isinglass in jacketed conicals after cold crashing and dumping the yeast? It seems that the major concern for going unfiltered is shelf-life, which is less of a problem for the beers, packaging, and storage mentioned. Found good stuff here on the use of finings in BBT's, but nothing about using them in FV's.

[Jephro]

Just say no to fish bladders

I have had inconsistent results using gelatin finings after crashing the beer, i.e. mixing in-line during transfer or blowing it into the chilled FV or BBT.

Personally i have found it to work better if the gelatin is added just prior to crashing. My theory, and i was wrong once, is the gelatin disperses better in the warm beer and then slowly and more thoroughly drops the beer bright out as the beer chills - whereas going into a cold beer it gelatinizes right away before it can disperse and really surround or "grab onto" all those haze forming whozits and whatnots.

-Heres my SOP:
2-3oz/BBL (Crosby Baker Gelatin Finings) in +185°F water thoroughly mixed and poured into the top via manway or PRV on the day i crash the tank. Dump yeast off the cone daily and generally within 2-3 days slap it over to the BBT. Even if it's not totally bright when it first goes over; it always seems to be within the first 24 hours in BBT.


IMO: nothing that came out of a fish (Isinglass) should go into ANY beer.... in all fairness, some brewers use it and make great tasting, bright, unfiltered beer (it'd be way better the w/o fish)
- have you ever smelled that stuff? yuk

(psst, don't say "yeast cake" you'll inadvertently out yourself as a homebrewer)

[LEBC]

no BBT?

Thanks Jephro, much appreciated. Next question then: what are your thoughts on allowing the beer to crash in & keg directly from the FV and not use a BBT?

[Jephro]

Thanks Jephro, much appreciated. Next question then: what are your thoughts on allowing the beer to crash in & keg directly from the FV and not use a BBT?

Ohh Noo - You do NOT want your finings or yeast dropping out in your keg as the spear will suck it up. Your beer should be bright when you fill the keg.

oops, Misread that, so you do not have a BBT... that begs a couple questions:

I assume you plan to carb in the FV right?
My advice would be, assuming you can arange to have an open FV for a day or two:
Dose FV with finings, crash for a few days, rack into a second FV, carb and then keg. It could benefit from an extra day in the second FV too (either before or after carbing depending on your results)

w/o a BBT you could have better results Crashing->Dumping->and Fining Cold (from a keg blowing it up via the racking arm to mix <or> in-line on the way to the second FV)

Hmm, i'm starting to stretch it a bit now, hope i helped get the gears cranking for you at least. In the end, just like everything else in the brewery, i think you will have experiment a bit and fine tune your process depending on your results and what you can make work for you.

[Lavery Brewing]

FV to keg

We are in a weird situation (alternating proprietorship) and don't always have access to the BBT. Heres what we do to get clear beer into the keg/bottle without finings,filtration or a bbt.
First we make sure theres enough Ca in the mash and boil, usually around 1g/gallon in mash and .75 g/gallon in boil of Ca So4 or CaCl (or both).

We don't cap the tanks at all cause we don't want to build up pressure because we bottle condition and cannot bottle halfway carbonated beer.

We crash temp down and bleed yeast for 3 days.

We then 'can' up our priming sugar (11oz of cane sugar in a clean quart mason jar, add boiled water, put on the lid and seal it up..put jar in a water bath and boil for 20 minutes, then cool overnight).
We use a keg filling/cleaning head to bleed off the pressure from the clean, sanitized and co2 filled keg.
we insert a 2" piece of 1/2" ID hose onto the beer out valve and a small funnel, dump in your sugar and rehyrdated yeast (lager yeast for us since our brewery's ambient is around 56F) -as keg is filling, co2 will continue to escape via gas valve
Then disconnect funnel and tube and rack beer from FV from racking arm into the keg you just primed.
These will sit and 'keg condition' - first pour will be a little cloudy but no one has complained yet...

When we bottle, we'll do everything the same, but then tap the keg with a regular tap and push the primed beer out via co2 to our 2 headed homebrew style bottle filler. We can fill, cap and stack 7 cases in 20 minutes this way.

This process has given us extremely clear beer with really low levels of sediment in the bottle and keg..Also, we get to skip a transfer

not sure if this is still on topic but has a little something to do with finings, i guess.

[Ted R.]

Biofine Clear

Isinglass and gelatin are a thing of the past. Biofone Clear is what you want.

[Alan Stiles]

Isinglass and gelatin are a thing of the past. Biofone Clear is what you want.

+1 - Biofine Clear is great!

[Jephro]

Isinglass and gelatin are a thing of the past. Biofone Clear is what you want.

HERE is a previous discussion on Biofine Clear (A3)?

Curious if anyone else wants to weigh-in who uses or has used Biofine Clear. Any new testimonials on using it on unfiltered beer vs. using as a pre-filter aid only?

The other thread went towards Cask Ales (and an vicious attack from Mic Mac on North American Cask Ales... and, well-I-never; something old ladys in the Southern US say" hehehe jk mic mac) See I's born in the Volunteer State yall (Nashville- represent)

[ChrisKennedy]

I love biofine clear for its effectiveness and ease of use.