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Hazy IPA trouble filtering

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  • Hazy IPA trouble filtering

    Hi,

    At the brewery I work at we have brewed a hazy IPA which has struggled to settle out appropriately when we have gone to transfer to Brite tank via bag filtration.

    Our process is as follows

    10% flaked oats
    10% malted wheat

    Whirfloc
    Fermentis S04

    Dry hop at 6.2P it has finished at 3.3P. at this dry hop we set the spundling valve to 0.5 bar.

    It took 13 days to pass vdk. We did a vdk rise from 18C to 22C at 6.2 P but didn't reach any higher than 18.8 C. We dumped bottoms pre vdk pass but the beer was at 3.3 P.

    Once we passed vdk, we dry hopped at 15C for 3 days. After this we chilled to -1.5C for 5 days dumping bottoms each day. The beer look relatively free of yeast/hop matter at this point. We did not use any finings at this point.

    For filtration we went through a 100 micron bag filter. This blocked after 300L. We tried another bag for the same result. We could see slugs of yeast and hop going through the sight glass. We were going through the racking arm for filtration.

    We have then added biofine at 0.2g/l for the beer remaining in fermenter. We plan to try again after two days.

    Can anybody offer any suggestions why the beer may not be settling out appropriately?

    Thanks

  • #2
    In what position was your racking arm? Up, horizontal, down etc.? Could you have some yeast and hop material frozen on your cone at -1.5C getting dislodged when you start the transfer?

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    • #3
      Originally posted by Gbbc View Post
      In what position was your racking arm? Up, horizontal, down etc.? Could you have some yeast and hop material frozen on your cone at -1.5C getting dislodged when you start the transfer?
      Thanks Gbbc. The racking arm is horizonal. I wonder about the freezing of the yeast and hop material. Another brewery said they chill back to -2C, but I wonder now if that is in the brite tank they do that (they left it in the brite for 5-7 days).

      During the transfer the yeast and hop material transferred didn't let up like you might find at the start out end of transfer. There would be moments of reasonable 'clarity', but there didn't seem to be a pattern to it.

      I wonder if there is frozen hop and yeast matter that it is being constantly dislodged. When I dump bottoms I don't find any frozen particles. But I guess it could be frozen to the walls of the cone.

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      • #4
        You sure you aren’t punching a hole through the trub in the cone? Clear to sludge back to clear to more sludge sounds like you got a bunch of trub left in the tank.

        Alot of folks squeeze down to like a 1/2” inch hose with 1-2-3 psi head pressure to push it out. Slow and steady.

        Otherwise how to explain the clear-trub-clear-trub you’re seeing?

        Thats my guess, for what its worth.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by brain medicine View Post
          You sure you aren’t punching a hole through the trub in the cone? Clear to sludge back to clear to more sludge sounds like you got a bunch of trub left in the tank.

          Alot of folks squeeze down to like a 1/2” inch hose with 1-2-3 psi head pressure to push it out. Slow and steady.

          Otherwise how to explain the clear-trub-clear-trub you’re seeing?

          Thats my guess, for what its worth.
          Thanks brain medicine.

          I transferred again today. This time I went much slower at 20l/min. It was much more successful.

          Afterwards I inspected the inside of the tank, and there was evidence of hop sediment 6-10 inches above the racking arm. What you are saying makes sense.

          Cheers for the advice, I'll keep it in mind for next time. Would you go above 3 psi? The pressure in fermenter ranged from 4 to 14psi.

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