Clear the Beer

I have a 5 gal batch of Centennial Blond sitting in its primary. I was hoping to find it clearer than the last time I brewed her. Both times, I used Irish moss but this time I was thinking of adding some gelatin finings. I have a couple of questions:

I have read and understand the process of preparation and I also understand that it is more effective to add to an already chilled beer. My dilemma is that I have not yet built my fermentation chamber so the lowest I can get it in the basement is about 62*. The other option is to put it in my garage which may have temp swings from 35-50. What should I do?

Also, is there any reason that I could not just add it to the primary? Or is it best to rack on top of the gelatin in a secondary?

You can add to primary...but you need to make sure your beer is cold. Gelatin will not work well if it's not cold.

Stick it in your primary and put your primary in the garage...hope fur some time at that 35 degree range. A couple of days at that temp and you may not need the gelatin. It should clear the beer pretty well.

Will the temp swings (should they happen) affect flavor?

Update: I did just that, introduced the gelatin to the primary but instead of chance, I cleared out the garage fridge and cold crashed it to 35* for 4 days.
Good thing, too, because that is just about the same time that we began with incredible unseasonably warm days for Michigan.... record highs, in fact.

Bottled two days ago and it looked PERFECT! Thank you for your help!

What was your procedure on using gelatin? Looking into that route for some of my beers

I followed that which has been described ad nauseum on this forum.... and it worked perfectly!

To quote BierMuncher:

"Here’s a typical routine I have to clear the beer quicker and get a cleaner tasting product:

* Use a hop bag to contain your hops during the boil.
* Make sure you get a really good, hard, rolling boil. Breaking up those proteins is key to clear beer.
* Use Whirlfloc (1 tablet per 5-gallons) during the last 15 minutes of your boil.
* Cool your wort as quickly as possible. Cold break is every bit as important as hot break.
* Pitch adequate amounts of a high flocculating yeast. I usually use Safale-05 or Notty.
* Give your beer at least two weeks in a primary. If it’s bigger than 1.050, go for three.
* Rack to a secondary using gelatin and give the secondary 7-10 days. (you’ll see a lot of sediment fall out quickly using gelatin).
* Rack to a keg and crash chill it down to around 37 degrees.
* Get it on the gas and you should have crystal clear beer in about 10-15 days.

I also shorten my dip tubes in the keg by bending them a bit sharper. Getting that tube off of the very bottom of the keg will go a long way to leaving residual sediment in the keg and not in your glass."

My version varied in that I used Irish moss instead of whirflock AND I bottled instead of using a keg.

Thanks for the response, I'm excited to try this.