Long-Term Effects of Gelatin in Lagering...?

I'm just curious, as I've only used gelatin once before...I brewed a Munich Helles 2 weeks ago (I want it to be as clear as possible!), and racked it to a secondary carboy on Saturday for extended lagering. I know that it's essentially a positively-charged collagen "net" that settles down through the beer picking up particulate, and that it eventually settles to the bottom. My question is two-fold: first, if I add gelatin now, at the beginning of lagering, will there be any benefits/will I see improved returns on the gelatin performance over adding it later? and second, are there any risks of off-flavors, etc., from the collagen sitting at the bottom of the carboy for 2 months before I keg?

I'd love to learn more about what actually happens during lagering. Is the yeast playing an important role or is it really just to let everything settle out and have flavors meld? Clearly if it's the latter, coaxing the sediment and yeast to fall out with finings will just help things along. I've got my Helles in the fridge at 55F after a solid ferment at 50F. I didn't detect any diacytel but I've missed it before so I'm not racking it and chilling until the weekend.

I'm pretty sure gelatin is completely flavorless but what about doing the second half of the lagering in the keg?

Bobby_M said:

I'd love to learn more about what actually happens during lagering. Is the yeast playing an important role or is it really just to let everything settle out and have flavors meld? Clearly if it's the latter, coaxing the sediment and yeast to fall out with finings will just help things along. I've got my Helles in the fridge at 55F after a solid ferment at 50F. I didn't detect any diacytel but I've missed it before so I'm not racking it and chilling until the weekend.

I'm pretty sure gelatin is completely flavorless but what about doing the second half of the lagering in the keg?

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Yeah, I figured it's flavorless, but I wanted to make sure it's not gonna screw with it. I don't believe much yeast activity is happening at 36-40º, though, so I doubt you're gonna mess it up by not having as much in suspension. I'm planning on doing SOME of the lagering in a keg, but since it ties up a keg and I have space in my fridge for a carboy, I'm gonna go as long as I can this way. I think it'll help clarity to get as much particulate out of suspension prior to going to the keg, too....

im curious if long term lagering plus gelatin causes bottle conditioning to be a lot harder...

SRFeldman79 said:

im curious if long term lagering plus gelatin causes bottle conditioning to be a lot harder...

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Probably---I always add back new rehydrated dry yeast at bottling for lagers---but I'm kegging this so that's not an issue.

I wonder about possibly adding the gelatin a day before racking out of primary so that the entire secondary/lagering occurs off the yeast/gel/trub..

Bobby_M said:

I wonder about possibly adding the gelatin a day before racking out of primary so that the entire secondary/lagering occurs off the yeast/gel/trub..

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I thought about that too, but I'm going to be washing and harvesting my WLP868 cake for future use, so I didn't think the collagen would do it any favors.

We ought to swap a couple bottles of Helles to compare. I used WLP830.

Bobby_M said:

We ought to swap a couple bottles of Helles to compare. I used WLP830.

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Mark it 8, dude. I'm in. I'll try to remember to bottle some of it before I put it in the keg, cuz I don't have a counter-P-filla.

Bobby_M said:

I wonder about possibly adding the gelatin a day before racking out of primary so that the entire secondary/lagering occurs off the yeast/gel/trub..

Click to expand...

It can take up to 2 weeks to precipitate completely after fining with gelatin. Well, that's what Noonan recommends in his book, to leave your beer for 7-14 days as cold as possible.

From my one time experience using gelatin on Munich Helles after experiment with W-34/70 dry east - I did by the book and it cleared up nicely in 2 weeks. Unfortunate part to this experiment was that after I transfered it to the keg and force carbonated the beer acquired just a bit of green apple smell. I attribute this staling to the oxygen in the keg at the time of transfer. If the beer had a bit of yeast in it - the yeast would consume all the oxygen. Otherwise oxygen was used to produce aldehyde.

So, to answer to the second question of this thread - yeast must be a part of lagering. Without it the beer just gets older.