Can You Filter A Finished Beer?

GHBWNY said:

The other night, I cracked one of my beers I recently bottle-hopped with a pellet of Liberty. This was a beer that, after a few weeks in the bottle, acted like it needed a little extra aroma and head. And in both cases, it was vastly improved. The 'bad' is that the hop floaties had not settled out (a problem I hadn't had the last time I did this). I tried pouring it slowly through a coffee filter. The thick, creamy head stayed in the filter and the beer ended up nearly flat.

I'll crash a couple more bottles in the fridge for a week, but should the hop residue decide to stay in suspension, I'm wondering if there's a way of filtering it without losing head and carb? Since most filtering methods are for a dry-hopped, pre-carbed beer, they don't really apply here. I can't bring myself to drink an otherwise gin-clear beer with hop boogers floating around in it.

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Brauer said:

I filter my finished beer with my liver.

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Jim311 said:

Do a better job filtering your beer when racking it from the fermenter to minimize hops and trub. But it's tough to remove all trub if you're bottling, because you need the yeast to properly carbonate your beer.

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Jim311 said:

Do a better job filtering your beer when racking it from the fermenter to minimize hops and trub. But it's tough to remove all trub if you're bottling, because you need the yeast to properly carbonate your beer.

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mrgrimm101 said:

You could try using a muslin bag. The coffee filter is too fine, it doesn't let enough through. A muslin bag is coarser and would let all the liquid through, and might stop the hop particles from passing through..at least some/most of them.

I'd never heard of bottle hopping..very interesting. You would imagine that a cold crash would drop all the particles out of suspension..

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