your thoughts on filtering

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feelinhoppy

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I've been contemplating buying a filter kit to clear up my beer. It may sound corupt of me attempting to be a homebrewer but I want my beer to look and taste like it has a bells label on it. The owner of my local homebrew store frowned upon it saying it was just another step of possibly introducing foreign bodies into my beer along with compromising flavor. I feel like if you take the same precautions as you do in every step of brewing you should be fine. But what do I know
 
Do you keg? Wait, Bells is bottle conditioned isn't it?

Anyway, My beer comes out of the bottle pretty darn clear so I vote no filtering.
 
I leave mine in a primary for a month and after a week or two in my keg they come out crystal clear. My only problem with clarity on a few batches is chill haze, but that has nothing to do with filtering.
 
Filtering has its place at the home brewing table. I've often contemplated getting it for my 'traveling' kegs. You know, ones I take to parties, etc. But for around the house, I wouldn't even bother. There is a lot of ways to make clear brew that are a lot cheaper and easier. Have you tried cold crashing? Are you kegging?....because that is kind of a pre-requisite.
 
It's unnecessary, if I have to transport a keg I jump it to another clean and sanitized one to avoid stirring up any possible sediment.
 
I put mine in plastic cups if I am going to be moving it to parties n such....can't see it anyway:p
 
No I keg my beer I just don't know the ins and out of clarifying your beer. Is that part of beer getting better with time? Is there a method where you drop or increase temp after kegging?
 
No I keg my beer I just don't know the ins and out of clarifying your beer. Is that part of beer getting better with time? Is there a method where you drop or increase temp after kegging?

For clearer beer, there are lots of things you can do that work well. First, if you're an all-grain brewer, make sure you have full conversion and don't have a starch haze! For all brewers, getting a good cold break tends to reduce chill haze, as does a good hot break. For that, whirlfloc (tablet form of Irish moss) has been great for me. I get a good hot break (wort stops foaming and looks like egg drop soup) by a nice hard rolling boil, and then add the whirlfloc with 15 minutes left in the boil. Chilling the wort quickly encourages a good cold break, and all that is left is clear wort.

Using a flocculant yeast like pacman or S04 will mean that a tightly compacted yeast cake is formed (along with the trub) after fermentation so clear beer should be racked from there. Cold crashing before racking may help with less flocculant yeast strains. When I use S05 or 1056, I never get clear beer until the keg has been in the kegerator for a week or more. It's just not that flocculant.

I never use finings like gelatin, but that can help with cloudy beer also.
 
Why not just use gelatin? I was listening to an older The Session podcast today and they were discussing this with the brewer at Russian River, he seemed to prefer gelatin to filtering, but his large fermentors at the production brweery are not properly shaped for it so they filter. He said they use gelatin at the brewpub. I use irish miss and my beers come out pretty darn clear.
 
All Bell's beer is bottle conditioned, so filtering would kind of defeat the purpose there. But if you're using their yeast (similar to 1056) you'll need to do what Yooper says and wait about a week in the fridge for it to clear out. My last batch that used Bell's strain was pretty cloudy for the first few days in the fridge, but it was crystal clear given some time.
 
Hoosier-Brewer said:
Why not just use gelatin? I was listening to an older The Session podcast today and they were discussing this with the brewer at Russian River, he seemed to prefer gelatin to filtering, but his large fermentors at the production brweery are not properly shaped for it so they filter. He said they use gelatin at the brewpub. I use irish miss and my beers come out pretty darn clear.

Man, the thought of putting gelatin in my beer gives me the heebie jeebies! All that ground up animal by-product. ::barf::
+1 on cold crashing. It's my best solution for clearing my beer up!
 
For clearer beer, there are lots of things you can do that work well. First, if you're an all-grain brewer, make sure you have full conversion and don't have a starch haze! For all brewers, getting a good cold break tends to reduce chill haze, as does a good hot break. For that, whirlfloc (tablet form of Irish moss) has been great for me. I get a good hot break (wort stops foaming and looks like egg drop soup) by a nice hard rolling boil, and then add the whirlfloc with 15 minutes left in the boil. Chilling the wort quickly encourages a good cold break, and all that is left is clear wort.

Using a flocculant yeast like pacman or S04 will mean that a tightly compacted yeast cake is formed (along with the trub) after fermentation so clear beer should be racked from there. Cold crashing before racking may help with less flocculant yeast strains. When I use S05 or 1056, I never get clear beer until the keg has been in the kegerator for a week or more. It's just not that flocculant.

I never use finings like gelatin, but that can help with cloudy beer also.

What is cold crashing. I keep hearing it but not to clear on what it is.pun intended
 
What is cold crashing. I keep hearing it but not to clear on what it is.pun intended

Dropping the temp to as close to 32*F as possible after fermentation as finished. I put mine in the coldest part of my basement, which is about 49 right now, seems to do the job.
 
What is cold crashing. I keep hearing it but not to clear on what it is.pun intended

You let the carboy sit in cold temperatures. Refrigerator temperatures work just fine. It doesn't guarantee clear beer, but it does clean out a lot of floaties. Exact temperatures and time may vary, but I usually have mine in the mid 30's for about a week. If you don't have enough space for a carboy, using a keg also works. By the way, there is nothing wrong with cartridge or plate filtering. Get the results the way you want them, enjoy the beer, and forget the rest.
 
If it didn't cost so much, I'd filter. If I was still using secondaries, I'd use gelatin.

As it is, I use irish moss during my boil, and I cold crash before I keg. Every now and then I get a beer that isn't entirely clear (typically something made with 1056), but even then, it's clear enough that I can't justify the added cost of filtering.
 
Man, the thought of putting gelatin in my beer gives me the heebie jeebies! All that ground up animal by-product. ::barf::
+1 on cold crashing. It's my best solution for clearing my beer up!

I don't use gelatin because I have some friends who are vegetarians. I don't want to have to explain why my beer isn't vegetarian friendly!

But I've never had a beer that didn't clear anyway by using whirlfloc in the kettle and time.
 
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