clearing floaties

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bobbrewster

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Senerio: Pale Ale has been done fermenting for 4 days now. Hydro at 1.014 for 4 days in a row. Dry hops in hop bag on top for 4 days. There is still lots of white little floating things (yeist, hops, whatever) all over the place. Other than the floaties it's clear and the aroma is GREAT! Not that I really mind this stuff being in my beer I'm just curious if this stuff will dissolve or settle to the bottom of my bottles if I go ahead and bottle it now? Thanks guys.
 
OOOPS ignore my previous post....my blood sugar was low, and I misread what you wrote...

Now that I've eaten I realize youhave had steady gravity reading for 4 days...

You have several options.

1) Leave it on the yeastcake for a couple more weeks, and let the yeasts do what they're good at, post house cleanup...I leave my beers in primary for a month now, and they are amazing...Crisp, clear, clean tasting...better than when I secondaried them.

So obviously this is my preferred method.

2) Rack to seconday, and leave it for a couple weeks...

3) Add a fining like gelatine (use the search for info on that)

4) Crash cool to get more stuff dropping out of suspension. (Again search for info, i've never done it, I think you have to add yeast at bottling then, but I'm not sure.)

The fifth option is to bottle it, but that won't necessarily result in the beer being any clearer unless you had a long bottle conditioniong period, and still then there's be a lot of sediment in the bottle, so that's not an option I would entertain personally.
 
If you have a carboy or another secondary fermenter, most of that stuff will settle out...as long as you let it sit long enough (a week at least like Revvy said). As far as taking hydro readings, if you are following a recipe (which I assume you are) it probably lists the final gravity reading. I'd recommend just taking a final reading to lessen the chance of contamination; you can compare this against the recipe. Of course, everyone has their own way of doing things.
 
As far as taking hydro readings, if you are following a recipe (which I assume you are) it probably lists the final gravity reading. I'd recommend just taking a final reading to lessen the chance of contamination; you can compare this against the recipe.

Yes, the recipe says final gravity should be 1.014-1.016. Been at 1.014 for 4 days. I think all the floaty stuff is just a result of my very cheap not so strainful strainer I used to filter the wort. I had tons of hops that fell through the strainer. I also added the yeast about 6 hours after boil because I was too lazy to go to the store and get some ice and just waited for the wort to cool to 75 by means of central a/c. Oh well, the aroma is great and I don't mind a little soot in my beer. I'm in a hurry to start my edelweiss dunkel which I'll do right and let sit for a few months. Thanks guys
 
Quikly cooling you beer helps A LOT in getting a clear beer into the bottle. Ideally, you want to be at pitching temps within 30 minutes. This causes the cold break, the coagulation of protiens and other break material and dropping out of solution. You really need to wait a little while longer, too much yeast in the bottle can cause stability issues, and make you beer go bad pretty quickly.
 
Quikly cooling you beer helps A LOT in getting a clear beer into the bottle. Ideally, you want to be at pitching temps within 30 minutes. This causes the cold break, the coagulation of protiens and other break material and dropping out of solution. You really need to wait a little while longer, too much yeast in the bottle can cause stability issues, and make you beer go bad pretty quickly.

It's been over two weeks now. My beer smells and tastes great (just floaties). So, do you think that if it was going to "go bad", it would have done so by now or is this something that can happen during bottle conditioning? Thanks again.
 
It's been over two weeks now. My beer smells and tastes great (just floaties). So, do you think that if it was going to "go bad", it would have done so by now or is this something that can happen during bottle conditioning? Thanks again.
I would go ahead and bottle it if it isn't clearing, after a few weeks in the bottle it should settle out more, a trick I used is then chill the bottles quickly (like in the freezer) before drinking then refridgerate and keep them cold, warm them to serving temp in the glass. It is a PITA to go this way but I have found it works well to further clear beers.
 
I have noticed that my bottling wand does a great job of filtering beigger particles that may make it to the bottling bucket.
 
I also added the yeast about 6 hours after boil because I was too lazy to go to the store and get some ice and just waited for the wort to cool to 75 by means of central a/c.

I'm certainly not the brewmaster here but letting the wort cool naturally seems to be the problem. The purpose of quick chilling the wort is to cold break the shorter protein chains so they fall out of suspension. These are what cause chill haze. I suppose an extended clearing period would help. Chilling my second batch became problematic, took about 30 minutes and the resulting beer was still cloudy after 2 weeks in primary and 3 in secondary. So I let it sit and now, 6 weeks later (in secondary), it looks pretty good. I'm surprised at the amount of yeast and "stuff" that is on the bottom of the secondary.
 
I got tons of those floaties when I did my hefeweizen. If you have an autosiphon you won't need to worry; the black thing at the bottom prevents them from being racked.
 
Honestly, I don't know how to get rid of floaties once they are in the bottle. I just drink it - which grosses out some people.

For me, its easier to throw a grip of Irish moss into the boil - not a fan of lecitihin, isinglass or other artificial finings.

My beers are obviously homebrewed, and not commercially crystal clear - but here in the NW with all the breweries, we use a lot of Irish moss.
 
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