background; I've been brewing on and off for about 8 years. I never tried to do anything in the way of fining before because I personally don't care about the clarity of my beer.
However, I decided to try and experiment with my latest batch of brown ale and use gelatin for fining. I made this decision about 1.5 weeks after racking the beer to the secondary fermentor (a 5 gallon carboy).
I plan to bottle this over the weekend, so I added the gelatin last night (to give it a few days to settle before bottling.)
I prepared the gelatin following directions I came across in a variety of sources;
- put 1 pkg of knox gelatin into 1 cup boiling hot water and stir to dissolve.
- add this 1 cup of mixture to another 1 cup of iced water, stir some more
Since I did not have the luxury of racking the beer INTO the gelatin mixture, I opted for slow pouring of the gelatin mix into the beer through a funnel, hose, and racking cane.
I kept the tip of the racking cane below the surface of the beer as I poured in the gelatin and and rotated the cane to try and get an even mixing. Once the gelatin was all in, I used the cane to gently stir everything up. I then re-sealed the carboy and went to bed.
This morning (10 hours after adding the gelatin), I checked on the beer, expecting to see the beginnings of the fruits of my labor; clear beer at the top of the carboy.
However, what I saw was beer that looked exactly the same as it did BEFORE I added the gelatin. No visible difference at all, except for some gummy residue at the bottom of the carboy.
I'm not concerned about the beer. I know it will taste fine, I'm just disappointed with the (lack of) fining thus far.
QUESTIONS
(1) did I not mix the gelatin in well enough?
(2) how long should it take before I start to notice the clarifying? AM I just being too impatient?
-walker
However, I decided to try and experiment with my latest batch of brown ale and use gelatin for fining. I made this decision about 1.5 weeks after racking the beer to the secondary fermentor (a 5 gallon carboy).
I plan to bottle this over the weekend, so I added the gelatin last night (to give it a few days to settle before bottling.)
I prepared the gelatin following directions I came across in a variety of sources;
- put 1 pkg of knox gelatin into 1 cup boiling hot water and stir to dissolve.
- add this 1 cup of mixture to another 1 cup of iced water, stir some more
Since I did not have the luxury of racking the beer INTO the gelatin mixture, I opted for slow pouring of the gelatin mix into the beer through a funnel, hose, and racking cane.
I kept the tip of the racking cane below the surface of the beer as I poured in the gelatin and and rotated the cane to try and get an even mixing. Once the gelatin was all in, I used the cane to gently stir everything up. I then re-sealed the carboy and went to bed.
This morning (10 hours after adding the gelatin), I checked on the beer, expecting to see the beginnings of the fruits of my labor; clear beer at the top of the carboy.
However, what I saw was beer that looked exactly the same as it did BEFORE I added the gelatin. No visible difference at all, except for some gummy residue at the bottom of the carboy.
I'm not concerned about the beer. I know it will taste fine, I'm just disappointed with the (lack of) fining thus far.
QUESTIONS
(1) did I not mix the gelatin in well enough?
(2) how long should it take before I start to notice the clarifying? AM I just being too impatient?
-walker