To Filter or Not

I am thinking about whether or not to get a filter for my beers. Honestly I don't really need to filter as the beer tastes great. I get a hazy beer every time, but in the grand scheme of things I am not worried one bit. Do we really care about the clarity if it means a slight loss of flavor? Anyways, let me know what you guys think too.

There a better, cheaper and easier ways to achieve clarity than filtering. Cold conditioning, whirfloc, gelatin to name a few.

Cold crashing removes my sediment, I am using Irish moss and have not floating mass in my beer, gelatin is useful, but that is an answer to a different question

I am mainly talking about haze, whether from chilling or the brewing process. And of course you get rid of any particulate and other nasties with filtering so it is dual action.

I've found that a quick cold break has been a huge help in getting rid of my chill haze. Once I starting getting 5 gallons down from boil to below 90* in 15 min bu just gently stirring the wort around the chiller.

I have a filter but don't use it.

Didn't make any real difference in clarity.

Hard boils, quick chilling after the boil, sufficient time in the secondary with gelatin and cold crashing for 10+days.

That gave me commercial looking brews.

Of course...I haven't given up on the thought of using the filter as a hop back.

I have totally thought about using it as a hop back. I don't have a pump though and so am not sure how I would accomplish that as of yet. Wait a tick...!!!...corny to corny I have my moments.

I need to chill faster but still have yet to invest in a chiller and am using a water bath cooling method as of yet.

Whirlfloc, IC and a week in the keg chilling give me a really clear beer. Would not want to mess with the formula. Now if I could just get past the too much cold break clog problem I would be happy.

Of course if I lived so close to the Pliny I might just hang out @ Russian River Brewing.

You would waste your life, your money, and your braincells. Instead I choose to waste my life in pursuit of the Pliny, waste my money brewing it and waste my braincells in the research of how to achieve it.

Here is the closest I have come yet, Pliny the Middle Child

Matt Up North said:

I need to chill faster but still have yet to invest in a chiller and am using a water bath cooling method as of yet.

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I would use the money you are planning to spend on filtering on an immersion chiller! My 2 cents....

Matt Up North said:

I need to chill faster but still have yet to invest in a chiller and am using a water bath cooling method as of yet.

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Well, if you get a chiller, you'll probably have clear beer. I have never used finings, or filtered, and my beer is crystal clear. Whirlfloc and a great cold break do it every time.

I haven't filtered my beer in a long while. I find time and sometimes polyclar and gelatin will do as much without the increase of oxygenation that filtering COULD do.

There are enough clarifying agents on the market and techniques like cold crashing that filtering really isn't necessary. Take a look at any beer that Biermuncher makes and you'll see what I mean. Just as clear as anything you'll pour from a bottle.

McKBrew said:

There are enough clarifying agents on the market and techniques like cold crashing that filtering really isn't necessary. Take a look at any beer that Biermuncher makes and you'll see what I mean. Just as clear as anything you'll pour from a bottle.

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You're too kind.

Here...just for the helluvit.

I filter about 10% of my beers. Fortunately, a canister filter can also be used as a Randall.

I just don't see the need for filtering. I do have one beer right now that is rather cloudy, but I'm changing my process to get a better cold break (recirculate the CFC) to fix that. I'd rather fix the issue in the process than try to filter. Also all of my beers so far have eventually cleared as they sat in the kegorator (may have taken a month for some).

You may want to look into the protein levels of the base grains you are using, that can add haze.

I filtered a beer last night and let me tell you that it was NOT worth the effort! I'm pretty sure that from now on I'll be using my filter as a hop back and worring more about my brewing process instead of fixing errors down the road.

I don't care if I'm the fiftieth person to say it.

Hard boil
+
Whirlfloc
+
Good chiller
+
Week or two cold conditioning after carbed(if bottling) or in the keg

=

clear beer.

My bottles are always hazy for the first couple days after I chill them, but after a week, they clear up. This took much longer before I started using Whirlfloc.