mitchar19

Recipes 

Do you guys who filter your beers notice that it taste cleaner and closer to commercial filtered beer? I know that most people say just give it time but I have hoppy beers that remain hazy and get nowhere as brilliantly clear as some of my favorite filtered commercial breweries.

Suthrncomfrt1884

Recipes 

This is my process, and I get amazingly clear beers without filtering. After brewing, I cool my beer (10 gallons) in about 12 minutes. I then put a strainer on top of my fermentor and drain my wort into it. This filters out a lot of the trub, hops, etc. I let all of my beers sit in primary for 3-4 weeks, and depending on the gravity, I'll go from there. If it's over 1.070, I'll secondary, otherwise, I keg or bottle after 4 weeks. Before I bottle, I cold crash my beer at 34 degrees for a few days.

Cold crashing helps drop all of the yeast out of suspension and allows you to siphon very clear beer. After a few weeks in the fridge (whether bottles of keg) my beers come out crystal clear with no help from any other additives. You can use gelatin/irish moss/etc. to help if you're still having problems.

If after doing all of this, you're still seeing haze...then you have problems elsewhere in your brewing process.

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Another HERMS rig...

ehedge20

Recipes 

Filtering will definitely affect the taste in some beers but not all. For example if you brew a Bohemian Pilsner with tap water the flavors will not be as clean and crisp as if you had used RO water. If you are brewing hoppy, dark, malty beers then the taste will not be as noticeable that is if your water quality is relativity good out of the tap. I filter everything thru a charcoal filter as I find this does help the overall flavor.

If clarity is what you are looking for then do as the previous poster does and lager once bottled/kegged for 4 weeks and you will have clear beer.