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  • Fining products

    Any fining products to clear the beer faster? I've used Biofine with mixed results.

  • #2
    How fast are you looking to clarify and what volumes are you working with?

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    • #3
      3 Bbl. 3 to 4 days

      Comment


      • #4
        biofine clear will work fine and its vegan friendly.

        Comment


        • #5
          A few points of control that we've learned matter greatly with Biofine:

          1.) It must be mixed thoroughly with cold beer to maximize its impact. If you are dumping it in the brite tank and transferring the beer on top of it that most likely isn't sufficient for good mixing. In fact, I've heard people claim that straight biofine onto a cold stainless surface causes it to stick a bit, further reducing mixing. Are you able to inject it inline during the transfer? For the 3bbl scale you're probably only working with a couple hundred ml at most, so a 1-1/2" TC sight-glass will hold all your biofine for the batch. Put a tee inline when transferring, add a valve - sight glass -valve assembly on the branch of the tee and use CO2 to push your fining into the beer flow. Spread it out over most of the volume of the transfer for best results.

          2.) The biofine rate for each beer is mostly likely different and higher isn't always better. Our German Blonde is a very easy beer for us to clear now once we backed the biofine rate down to 60ml/bbl. We were up at 100ml/bbl and would always get Fluffy Bottoms with a layer of haze a foot or so deep at the bottom of the brite tank. If your mash conversion, kettle fining and tank crashing are all dialed in you shouldn't require a ton of biofine.

          3.) Biofine settles - shake the jug before measuring. Also, the US supplier repackages anything below the 25KG jug and they are just filling out of a large tote of biofine which itself is settling and not getting mixed up before repackaging. We have found more consistent fining performance after switching fom the 4 liter jugs to the 25kg jug that is filled by Kerry. YMMV.

          4.) Conduct your carbonation right away in the brite tank and then let it sit undisturbed. Biofine, and many fining agents, don't like to re-settle once they've dropped. Carbing immediately further helps with mixing and then the tank can be left undisturbed to drop clear prior to packaging.

          Hope this helps!

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by BemidjiBrewing View Post
            A few points of control that we've learned matter greatly with Biofine:

            1.) It must be mixed thoroughly with cold beer to maximize its impact. If you are dumping it in the brite tank and transferring the beer on top of it that most likely isn't sufficient for good mixing. In fact, I've heard people claim that straight biofine onto a cold stainless surface causes it to stick a bit, further reducing mixing. Are you able to inject it inline during the transfer? For the 3bbl scale you're probably only working with a couple hundred ml at most, so a 1-1/2" TC sight-glass will hold all your biofine for the batch. Put a tee inline when transferring, add a valve - sight glass -valve assembly on the branch of the tee and use CO2 to push your fining into the beer flow. Spread it out over most of the volume of the transfer for best results.

            2.) The biofine rate for each beer is mostly likely different and higher isn't always better. Our German Blonde is a very easy beer for us to clear now once we backed the biofine rate down to 60ml/bbl. We were up at 100ml/bbl and would always get Fluffy Bottoms with a layer of haze a foot or so deep at the bottom of the brite tank. If your mash conversion, kettle fining and tank crashing are all dialed in you shouldn't require a ton of biofine.

            3.) Biofine settles - shake the jug before measuring. Also, the US supplier repackages anything below the 25KG jug and they are just filling out of a large tote of biofine which itself is settling and not getting mixed up before repackaging. We have found more consistent fining performance after switching fom the 4 liter jugs to the 25kg jug that is filled by Kerry. YMMV.

            4.) Conduct your carbonation right away in the brite tank and then let it sit undisturbed. Biofine, and many fining agents, don't like to re-settle once they've dropped. Carbing immediately further helps with mixing and then the tank can be left undisturbed to drop clear prior to packaging.

            Hope this helps!
            Great answer, thanks!

            When we transfer to BBT we have a block and bleed to push sanitizer out and keep only beer going to the bright tank
            Would you have another “T” connector with valves to hold the biofine?
            We run a 10 bbl brew house with 20 bbl fermenters and 20 bbl bbt.
            Would you have any other in-line way to transfer or any other way to transfert beside pouring it in as the beer get transferred?
            Thanks again
            Matt



            Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

            Comment


            • #7
              Matt - you got it, throw another tee inline between the tanks to allow you to add biofine. We use a bit of an odd setup, actually, at the 15bbl scale (15, 30 and 60bbl FV's and BBT's). We are transferring a 15bbl batch tomorrow morning, I'll try to remember to snap some photos and put them up here. Short answer, we use this inline filter, but just the housing without the mesh or perforated insert, as a vessel to dose our biofine. We add a sight glass below it and another butterfly valve on top allowing us to see when the biofine is pushed out + we can purge it with CO2. Photos will make this a little more defined, I'd imagine.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by BemidjiBrewing View Post
                Matt - you got it, throw another tee inline between the tanks to allow you to add biofine. We use a bit of an odd setup, actually, at the 15bbl scale (15, 30 and 60bbl FV's and BBT's). We are transferring a 15bbl batch tomorrow morning, I'll try to remember to snap some photos and put them up here. Short answer, we use this inline filter, but just the housing without the mesh or perforated insert, as a vessel to dose our biofine. We add a sight glass below it and another butterfly valve on top allowing us to see when the biofine is pushed out + we can purge it with CO2. Photos will make this a little more defined, I'd imagine.
                Thanks again
                I think I get it but visual would help!
                Thanks
                Matt



                Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

                Comment


                • #9
                  Haven't posted photos on here before...we'll see how it goes.

                  The first image is our sanitation loop on the brite tank for our CO2-pushed transfer. 5 foot line to our pump, block & bleed with a sight glass off the pump, 10 foot line, tee with a valve for biofine addition in the middle, another 10 foot line, and finally a second sight glass and block & bleed running to the spray ball arm on the brite tank. It's a little close quarters for the photo and there is a vertical post kind of blocking everything...

                  Click image for larger version

Name:	Sani Loop with tee.jpg
Views:	1
Size:	67.3 KB
ID:	191946

                  The second image is after the tank is sanitized, purged and pressurized to just below our fermenter pressure. The transfer line assembly has been removed from the pump and hooked up to draw out of the racking arm on the fermenter and enter the bottom of the brite tank. We pack this line with PAA after the sani loop then blow it all out wiht CO2 down the drain prior to sending beer through it. The tee inbetween the lines will recieve the biofine addition assembly

                  Click image for larger version

Name:	Transfer line without biofine.jpg
Views:	1
Size:	67.8 KB
ID:	191947

                  The third image is with the transfer underway. You can see the sight glass and filter housing assembly on top of the middle tee. We purge this with CO2 from the transfer line, add our biofine, and attach a cellar line to the top valve allowing us to dose the biofine under pressure. This 15bbl batch received 750ml of biofine. It takes a bit of practice to get a feel for how fast it flows into the beer stream. We push the beer at 10psi and set the regulator for the biofine at 8psi. Both tanks kind of hover around 2 - 4psi during the transfer. Also, this particular beer isn't spunded, which would change those pressures.

                  Click image for larger version

Name:	Biofine Transfer.jpg
Views:	1
Size:	67.0 KB
ID:	191948

                  If we do a pumped tranfser vs a CO2 pushed transfer we just put the tee for the biofine addition off the elbow on the pump, which negates the need to lean it against a bucket as you see here. You could just as easily setup a corny keg or brink to push your biofine into the middle tee as well, but at our scale it seems like overkill to prep another vessel just for a few liters of fining agent at most. All these parts fit in a bucket of sani and come together quick.

                  Also - one thing I forgot to mention in my above posts...we use 4" stand pipes in our 15 and 30bbl brites and a racking arm on our 60bbl brite. I know its possible to go straight out of a dish bottom with a biofined beer but we were never able to get consistent results and kept having sediment slide into the beer stream.

                  Let me know if I can clarify (ha!) any of the above.

                  Cheers,
                  Tom
                  Last edited by BemidjiBrewing; 10-31-2019, 11:16 AM.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by BemidjiBrewing View Post
                    Haven't posted photos on here before...we'll see how it goes.

                    The first image is our sanitation loop on the brite tank for our CO2-pushed transfer. 5 foot line to our pump, block & bleed with a sight glass off the pump, 10 foot line, tee with a valve for biofine addition in the middle, another 10 foot line, and finally a second sight glass and block & bleed running to the spray ball arm on the brite tank. It's a little close quarters for the photo and there is a vertical post kind of blocking everything...

                    [ATTACH]64590[/ATTACH]

                    The second image is after the tank is sanitized, purged and pressurized to just below our fermenter pressure. The transfer line assembly has been removed from the pump and hooked up to draw out of the racking arm on the fermenter and enter the bottom of the brite tank. We pack this line with PAA after the sani loop then blow it all out wiht CO2 down the drain prior to sending beer through it. The tee inbetween the lines will recieve the biofine addition assembly

                    [ATTACH]64591[/ATTACH]

                    The third image is with the transfer underway. You can see the sight glass and filter housing assembly on top of the middle tee. We purge this with CO2 from the transfer line, add our biofine, and attach a cellar line to the top valve allowing us to dose the biofine under pressure. This 15bbl batch received 750ml of biofine. It takes a bit of practice to get a feel for how fast it flows into the beer stream. We push the beer at 10psi and set the regulator for the biofine at 8psi. Both tanks kind of hover around 2 - 4psi during the transfer. Also, this particular beer isn't spunded, which would change those pressures.

                    [ATTACH]64592[/ATTACH]

                    If we do a pumped tranfser vs a CO2 pushed transfer we just put the tee for the biofine addition off the elbow on the pump, which negates the need to lean it against a bucket as you see here. You could just as easily setup a corny keg or brink to push your biofine into the middle tee as well, but at our scale it seems like overkill to prep another vessel just for a few liters of fining agent at most. All these parts fit in a bucket of sani and come together quick.

                    Also - one thing I forgot to mention in my above posts...we use 4" stand pipes in our 15 and 30bbl brites and a racking arm on our 60bbl brite. I know its possible to go straight out of a dish bottom with a biofined beer but we were never able to get consistent results and kept having sediment slide into the beer stream.

                    Let me know if I can clarify (ha!) any of the above.

                    Cheers,
                    Tom
                    Thanks for sharing. Brewpub is super dead tonight [emoji24] so I can catch up PB!
                    Thanks again!
                    Matt


                    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      This has been very informative. Thanks!

                      [QUOTE=BemidjiBrewing;252119]A few points of control that we've learned matter greatly with Biofine:

                      1.) It must be mixed thoroughly with cold beer to maximize its impact. If you are dumping it in the brite tank and transferring the beer on top of it that most likely isn't sufficient for good mixing. In fact, I've heard people claim that straight biofine onto a cold stainless surface causes it to stick a bit, further reducing mixing. Are you able to inject it inline during the transfer? For the 3bbl scale you're probably only working with a couple hundred ml at most, so a 1-1/2" TC sight-glass will hold all your biofine for the batch. Put a tee inline when transferring, add a valve - sight glass -valve assembly on the branch of the tee and use CO2 to push your fining into the beer flow. Spread it out over most of the volume of the transfer for best results.

                      2.) The biofine rate for each beer is mostly likely different and higher isn't always better. Our German Blonde is a very easy beer for us to clear now once we backed the biofine rate down to 60ml/bbl. We were up at 100ml/bbl and would always get Fluffy Bottoms with a layer of haze a foot or so deep at the bottom of the brite tank. If your mash conversion, kettle fining and tank crashing are all dialed in you shouldn't require a ton of biofine.

                      3.) Biofine settles - shake the jug before measuring. Also, the US supplier repackages anything below the 25KG jug and they are just filling out of a large tote of biofine which itself is settling and not getting mixed up before repackaging. We have found more consistent fining performance after switching fom the 4 liter jugs to the 25kg jug that is filled by Kerry. YMMV.

                      4.) Conduct your carbonation right away in the brite tank and then let it sit undisturbed. Biofine, and many fining agents, don't like to re-settle once they've dropped. Carbing immediately further helps with mixing and then the tank can be left undisturbed to drop clear prior to packaging.

                      Hope this helps![/QUOTE

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Very vary helpful! Thanks

                        Comment

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