Gelatins Effect on Bottle Conditioning (An Experiment)

I started using gelatin back in early summer to help my (kegged) beer come out clearer, with great results.

I immediately started extolling the virtues of gelatin to all who asked how to get clearer beer…this without consideration of the effect gelatin might have on bottle conditioning. (Does gelatin do such a good job of clearing beer, that there is inadequate yeast for bottle priming?)

Last week while I was racking my Newcastle to the keg, I decided to grab an empty bottle, throw in a ¼ Tsp of priming sugar, fill and cap. I have it sitting in my brewshop and plan to give it 4 weeks at 70 degrees. Once the time is up, I’ll pour a side-by-side sample against my kegged version and report the results. This, of course, assuming I don’t polish it off before then.

For what it’s worth, the kegged version is absolutely crystal clear with a deep ruby brown color. I might not have this benefit with the bottle unless I chill it long enough to get past the chill haze.

I'll get back to you in a few weeks.

A one-week updated.

I wanted to see if there were tell-tale signs of yeast building up in the bottom of the bottle. Gave it nice swirl yesterday and sure-nuff.

A nice cloud of crumbly junk, barely perceptable, rousted off the bottom.

It appears that even with gelatin conditioned beer, there is sufficient yeast.

The final test will be the pour in about two weeks.

Looking forward to your results. I asked about this a couple months ago and people basically said it was doomed for failure, but heck, you're only out a single bottle of beer, right?

Please keep me/us updated. It could be good.....

Damn Squirrels said:

Looking forward to your results. I asked about this a couple months ago and people basically said it was doomed for failure, but heck, you're only out a single bottle of beer, right?

Please keep me/us updated. It could be good.....

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Another week or so.

Based on the amount of yeast swirling around the bottom now, I'm hopeful to prove that gelatin has minimal-to-no effect on carbonation.

Now, if I can only not finish my keg so I can do a side-by-side pour comparison.

I'll also be interested in the effect of the gelatin on clarity. I'm not convinced old gelatin will have an effect on the recently-multiplied yeast. I'm not sure it'll be better than just letting it sit for a few weeks and not agitating too much. But, then, I'm not sure I'm right, either. That's the point of experiments.

When are you concluding this experiment? I am eeger to hear the results as I am going to use some gelatin in 10 days.

I always here people say "Oh you will have to add some yeast," but then they are keggers. I have heard a couple people who have done say that you don't need to add yeast.

Beerrific said:

When are you concluding this experiment? I am eeger to hear the results as I am going to use some gelatin in 10 days.

I always here people say "Oh you will have to add some yeast," but then they are keggers. I have heard a couple people who have done say that you don't need to add yeast.

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Should be before your 10-day deadline. I'll make a place holder on my calendar. By my calc's that should be around 23-24 days at 70 degrees and, even if by that time I haven't achieved full carbonation, poppoing and pouring will certainly give me a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on "will it work?".

Like I said, each day I give the bottle a tip to agitate, it seems there is more yeast cloud at the bottom of the bottle.

BierMuncher said:

Should be before your 10-day deadline. I'll make a place holder on my calendar. By my calc's that should be around 23-24 days at 70 degrees and, even if by that time I haven't achieved full carbonation, poppoing and pouring will certainly give me a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on "will it work?".

Like I said, each day I give the bottle a tip to agitate, it seems there is more yeast cloud at the bottom of the bottle.

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I have a feeling that if there is any visible yeast then it will be fine. Look at SNPA, you can barely tell there is yeast in there and they come out perfect.

Well,

I won’t say the experiment was a failure…after all...I did make a finding, just not the one I’d hoped for.

I popped the NewCastle bottle tonight after four weeks at 72 degrees. You’ll remember that I add gelatin to my beer in the secondaries to help it clear off better (very effective). I force carb my beer in the keg, so the idea that gelatin clearing out too much yeast wasn’t a question for me.

I wanted to find out if indeed, gelatin removed so much yeast that it would inhibit the natural (priming) carbonation process in a bottle.

There was not much carbonation even after four weeks. Barely a phhht when I popped the top and no noticeable head during the pour. There was a nice carbonic bite to the taste so I know it was trying to carb. There was also a fair amount of yeast sediment in the bottom of the bottle. Sure signs that carbonation was “in progress”.

Net Message – Gelatin definitely slowed the carbonation process down, but did not entirely rid the beer of yeast. Would this beer carbonate? Yes. But I would say it would require at least twice the amount of time to do so.

I’ve embedded a youtube video of the pour if you want proof positive…

Oh…and yes. I drank it anyway…very tasty.

[youtube]JXpHpaWkBRU[/youtube]

What if you bumped up the priming sugar and still only conditioned for 4 weeks?

the_Roqk said:

What if you bumped up the priming sugar and still only conditioned for 4 weeks?

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That would probably help. I added 1/4 tsp of corn sugar to the bottle. Every day I gave it a swirl, it seemed the yeast "cloud" was getting bigger.

The other thing that would probably help a lot, would be to give the secondary a bit of a swirl before racking to the bottling bucket, and force a healthy amount of yeast into the bottles. This kind of defeats the gelatin a little bit, but at least a lot of the chill haze producing proteins have fallen out.

I simply siphoned off a bottle while filling the keg, which I was careful to fill with clear beer.

BierMuncher said:

That would probably help. I added 1/4 tsp of corn sugar to the bottle. Every day I gave it a swirl, it seemed the yeast "cloud" was getting bigger.

The other thing that would probably help a lot, would be to give the secondary a bit of a swirl before racking to the bottling bucket, and force a healthy amount of yeast into the bottles. This kind of defeats the gelatin a little bit, but at least a lot of the chill haze producing proteins have fallen out.

I simply siphoned off a bottle while filling the keg, which I was careful to fill with clear beer.

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If you swirl the secondary would that not suspend some of the gelatin too? I don't know? Just wondering. I would say try another experiment and see. Add more priming sugar and swirl the secondary too.

Wow, thanks for the update...I was going to do this for my IPA that needs to bottled. Probably won't now. Thanks, and great video BTW.

the_Roqk said:

What if you bumped up the priming sugar and still only conditioned for 4 weeks?

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I think that would be a bad idea. Carbonation is determined by the amount of sugar not the amount of yeast. I don't think it would speed the carbonation and you would probably end up with over-carbonated beer.

FWIW, I used gelatin for the first time on an ale I recently brewed and have noticed that it is carbonating, but rather slowly. It also didn't seem to make my beer any clearer. I didn't get it cold enough to get the chill haze proteins out of solution before I added the gelatin. I'm not really sold on gelatin yet. Whirlfloc (Irish Moss) and cold conditioning seem to be better for clearing beer than gelatin.

Nothing bad about your finding at all.

Lesson is, go ahead and add a highly sedimenting dry yeast at the time of bottle conditioning. First, you will be extra cool for using multiple strains of yeast. Second, you can select a yeast that will readily fall out and firm a good sediment at the bottom. Just watch the attenuation. It'd suck if you finished a beer, then added a yeast with higher attenuation and also added the priming sugar. hehe.

sorry to dig up an old thread but this is of interest to me and i figured i'd bump this one rather than starting a new one.

the issue i have with the above experiment is the amount of sugar added. the recommended 2/3 of a cup of corn sugar is 32 teaspons. 32 teaspoons spread out over 53 bottles is roughly .6 tsp per bottle. using .25 tsp is not going to provide as much carbonation no matter how healthy your yeast are.

has anyone else used gelatin in a beer that they've bottle carbed?

I have not tried this yet - but would traditional krausening do the trick? Would adding a young fermenting beer (maybe even just DME and dry yeast, about a pint) and the priming sugar to the bottling bucket add enough suspended viable yeast to the beer to carbonate?

I am a bit of a noob when it comes to that though - I only use Irish Moss and no fermenter finings. I found that the trade off of worrying about viability of carbonation is worse than having a slight haze to the beer, IMHO.

I have never gone this route. For me and my beers, cold crashing gets my beers stunningly clear. However, I might have some information that might be helpful here.

I dont know where I heard/read this, but I heard somewhere that you can add the gelatin at bottling time; at the same time you add the priming sugar. This way, the yeast are still in the beer, and thus can eat the sugar and carbonate, but also the gelatin is there and it should help everything coagulate and fall to the bottom of the bottle. Basically you are doing the same thing, you are just changing where they fall.

cubbies said:

I have never gone this route. For me and my beers, cold crashing gets my beers stunningly clear. However, I might have some information that might be helpful here.

I dont know where I heard/read this, but I heard somewhere that you can add the gelatin at bottling time; at the same time you add the priming sugar. This way, the yeast are still in the beer, and thus can eat the sugar and carbonate, but also the gelatin is there and it should help everything coagulate and fall to the bottom of the bottle. Basically you are doing the same thing, you are just changing where they fall.

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That makes sense. I've changed my method since I am primarying (a new verb) longer and skipping the seondary.

Now I just add gelatin to the keg. I imagine if I added priming sugar to the keg to condition naturally, the beer would carb just fine.

Afterall, bottles are just miniature kegs...

BierMuncher said:

That makes sense. I've changed my method since I am primarying (a new verb) longer and skipping the seondary.

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I have always contended that most beers, by the time they are 'ready' to drink will have had sufficient time for sedimentation to take place. I rarely secondary, save on high gravity brews, or long term lagering brews out of necessity. 10 days primary and then I bottle. I have found, given enough time most beer will clear (I have yet to have the exception).

I haven't noticed a problem with long term stability and my support of this theory is that there are many bottle-refermented (as they say) beers out there. Sure the methodology differs, sometimes they'll filter and then prime and add fresh yeast, but I am not 100% sold on that either...I think 'bottle refermented' is what every homebrewer that bottles does.