the bane of my brewing existence

[Damase]

an Update

Well I have just finished filtering. Time 3.5 hours from beer hitting the filters to shutting down the pump. Total amount filtered 30 BBL. I used the "new" HS-2000, which are really HS-2000 and all went well. This was my best day filtering in over a year.

[GlacierBrewing]

Congratulations!

[jaywoo]

filtering

I currently use a pad and plate filter with a seven barrel system it takes me 45min. I'm not sure I'de purge the hot water out with Co2, try cold water to cool down plates and keep the filter itself full of water when beginning the actual filtering of the beer to avoid any air bubbles in the plates.Also, how fast are you relieving the pressure in the receiving tank. I try to keep around 10psi in my receiving tank during the filter. After the filter I make sure to clean it very well after the filtering process by back-flushing with acid brite and hot water(@175degrees) to clean out the plates. Back-flushing or running the direction in reverse with a good clenser will keep the plates clean. Those little holes in the plates can get chocked up. Hope that helps...

[Guest]

Now, we are a brewpub, but will have three different beers in bottles in the next couple of months. I'll let you know if I change my tune, but since I have freinds with a production brewery of about 5000+ bbls and no filter, I feel like I'll be good.

Apologies if I'm misunderstanding you, but does your friends' brewery do any bottling? If so, what are their procedures for bottling without filtration?

Do they bottle-condition?
Do they counter-pressure fill using visibly bright, but unfiltered carbonated beer?
What sort of quality issues / shelf-life do they have?

Likewise - are you planning on staying 'filter-free' for your upcoming bottling too?

We currently move unfiltered beer from CT to cask with finings, allow this beer to drop bright, then transfer to a new cask & add some fresh dry yeast & glucose before running it into a very simple cheap 4-head gravity hand-bottling plant (similar to that marked under "bottle filing machine" here - http://www.icenibrewery.co.uk/equip.asp ).

I'm not happy with the laborious & oxygen-adding(!) processes nor with the beer's subsequent quality, shelf-life, etc & need to spend more time thinking about how to sort this out. A few weeks ago I simply filled a few bottles straight from the CT (i.e. no additions, just unfiltered beer, with most of the yeast settled out to near visible brightness) & the result was really good! (little sediment, all packed down, good if light carbonation & good flavour)

Interesting stuff.
Cheers,
MikeMcG

https://www.betwixt.co.uk

[BMOOR]

Apologies if I'm misunderstanding you, but does your friends' brewery do any bottling? If so, what are their procedures for bottling without filtration?

Do they bottle-condition?
Do they counter-pressure fill using visibly bright, but unfiltered carbonated beer?
What sort of quality issues / shelf-life do they have?

Likewise - are you planning on staying 'filter-free' for your upcoming bottling too?

We currently move unfiltered beer from CT to cask with finings, allow this beer to drop bright, then transfer to a new cask & add some fresh dry yeast & glucose before running it into a very simple cheap 4-head gravity hand-bottling plant (similar to that marked under "bottle filing machine" here - http://www.icenibrewery.co.uk/equip.asp ).

I'm not happy with the laborious & oxygen-adding(!) processes nor with the beer's subsequent quality, shelf-life, etc & need to spend more time thinking about how to sort this out. A few weeks ago I simply filled a few bottles straight from the CT (i.e. no additions, just unfiltered beer, with most of the yeast settled out to near visible brightness) & the result was really good! (little sediment, all packed down, good if light carbonation & good flavour)

Interesting stuff.
Cheers,
MikeMcG
www.betwixt.co.uk

To answer your questions-which are the same for me and them:

Bottle Condition?-no
Force Carbonation?-yes
Counter pressure fill visibly bright unfiltered carbonated beer?-yes
shelf life-them: hard to tell as it sells very fast or is of a very high alcohol and gets better with age. Me: not sure yet, just getting started.
Ever filter?-hopefully not. In my case, I will stop bottling before I ever start filtering.
I use a yeast that flocs well.
I like the flavors that yeast provide and don't want to take it out.
Healthy yeast has some factors that improve shelf life (diacetyl and oxygen uptake for one)
Filtering is just another step where it becomes easy to introduce a beer spoiling organism or oxygen. Since you already run that risk just by bottling, why not cut that step out.
I jsut hope I don't change my tune in the near future.

good luck with your new method

[Guest]

To answer your questions-which are the same for me and them:

Bottle Condition?-no
Force Carbonation?-yes
Counter pressure fill visibly bright unfiltered carbonated beer?-yes

Funnlily enough, I didn't know of any brewery in the UK bottling with this method until I went to see someone I'd spoken to on here (I won't name names, as they might not want me to publicise how they bottle) it's an interesting thought. In the UK many smaller micros are very simply handbottling & bottle-conditioning without any filtration, or they're sending beer away to be contract-bottled, which increases costs massively, but should(!) give you a stable product (long shelf-life, no haze, no flavour problems & opens up possibility of sales to accounts like supermarkets that might not otherwise be open to you)

shelf life-them: hard to tell as it sells very fast or is of a very high alcohol and gets better with age. Me: not sure yet, just getting started.
Ever filter?-hopefully not. In my case, I will stop bottling before I ever start filtering.

mmmm, I always said I wanted nothing to do with bottling or filtration (part of what I liked about my prev brewpub job) & now I find myself hand-bottling & toying with the idea of brewing filtered lager & sending beer away to be filtered for bottling - ho hum.

I use a yeast that flocs well.
I like the flavors that yeast provide and don't want to take it out.

the first seems very sensible, moreso when tied to your second point & that you're happy with the flavours the yeast gives.

Healthy yeast has some factors that improve shelf life (diacetyl and oxygen uptake for one)

but surely not filtering out spoilage organisms & the presence of autolysing yeast might really have some impact on quality too (I realise that ABV helps, but in the UK, people don't seem to want to drink super-strong beer most of the time)

Filtering is just another step where it becomes easy to introduce a beer spoiling organism or oxygen. Since you already run that risk just by bottling, why not cut that step out.

I would think & hope that correct choice of plant & procedures should ensure that filtration/bottling rarely cause too many problems of either spoilage organisms or oxidation.

I just hope I don't change my tune in the near future.

good luck with your new method

cheers, & good luck with your methods to - let me know how you get on?

I think I'm going to try my new simpler method out in a bigger way in the next few days. If it works, I'll keep it up (for the ales at least) when we are brewing under our own steam (hopefully in the next few months) but prob add a few refinements like doing some basic micro work & also working out the wort attentuation limit, so I should know if we should wait for a bit before bottling, or need to add primings to get enough carbonation.
cheers
Mike.

[whitemarshbrew]

sanitizing filter

I use food grade phos acid to sanitize my filter. Simply use filtered water to saturate the sheets and dose the water with the acid to achieve a ph between 2.5-2.7. Recirc for 20 min. and follow with 5 min filtered water rinse. Easy and effective.

[grs]

That brings up a thought on my part - anyone use PAA to sanitize their filter? The sheet supplier recommended not to use any chemicals to sanitize the filter so I've been running hot (>90 deg C) through the filter to sanitize it. Any thoughts on the PAA usage?

[monkeybrewer]

sanitizing the filter

I second the worry of putting even food grade chems through filter pads. Although if you're going to use chems I would guess that FG phos is the way to go because it doesn't seem to impart any aroma or flavor at working concentrations. I'm just concerned with impregnating the pads with a flavor, so I do what GRS does and run a circulation loop with my kettle and filter and run 193F for 45 min. We used this method at Redhook on their DE filter which reused the filter pads for a month. We never had bacterial counts or excessive wear and tear on parts. just my 2 cents

[brewbonghm]

Whats your time worth?
$10 worth of isinglass finings a day or two before filtration will get you out of the brewery two hours quicker. You may decide the finings are enough and opt not to filter and save the cha-ching on the filter pads. 45 minutes at 193 degrees is a lot and may cause undo ware on filter plates. 186 degrees gives a pretty instant kill.

[monkeybrewer]

issinglass

don't you need conditioning tanks to use issinglass?...don't know if its cost effective when using uni-tanks, especially considering the extra man hours and tanks needed...unless you know of a better way to dose the fish guts?

[Guest]

don't you need conditioning tanks to use issinglass?...don't know if its cost effective when using uni-tanks, especially considering the extra man hours and tanks needed...unless you know of a better way to dose the fish guts?

I don't know about that, at the last brewpub I worked at we had horizontal serving tanks that just seemed to drop bright.

But in general, I would worry also about getting chill-haze in cooler beers, if served unfiltered?
MikeMcG

https://www.betwixtbeer.co.uk